Everyone and welcome to the Montgomery County Council meeting. The council is meeting today to continue its work on the county's budget and before we do so, Madam Clerk, will you please share today's announcements? Good afternoon. Today's agenda has been updated to include agenda item number eight, a budget work session on the WorkSource Montgomery non-departmental account. Thank you, Madam President. Terrific. So the first item we have on today's agenda is the consideration of the memorandum agreement between the county and the Montgomery County Volunteer Fire and Rescue Association for a fiscal year 2026. I will turn this over to Ms. Wellens unless the chair of the Public Safety Committee has any remarks. I did but I was talking to you. Okay well, I was giving you a little time. It had nothing to do with this but thank you very much. No, thank you. I don't think. All right. Miss Wellens, you're up. Great. Thank you Madam President. Thank you Council Members. Good afternoon. We're being joined for this item by Executive Director Mr. Bernard of the Montgomery County Volunteers Fire Rescue Association. And also we have Mr. Scott with the Office of Labor Relations. They're available here to answer any Council member questions. So this item, as the Council president said, this is a resolution to indicate the council's intent to approve appropriations, to fund the terms of bargain by the county executive and the MCVFRA as applicable to fiscal year 2026. We are, this is a similar process to what the council does with the other collectively bargain agreements, but this is limited to the Violentary Fire Rescue. And so the current Memorandum of Agreement with MCV, FRA, covers the terms FY 2023 through FY 2026. So this is the third year of the agreement coming up. And before you are just the terms of the agreement that involve fiscal impacts or increases in the fiscal impact for FY 26, which totals approximately $90,000. And this amount was assumed in the county executive's post budget. It was also reviewed. The appropriations were also reviewed, of course, by the Public Safety Committee, which recommended approval. The particular items include for 2026, under resolution include 4% increase in length of service awards. And this is consistent with the existing county law with a bill 4123 that the council already enacted. Association operating funds increase in the amount of 11,497 dollars. And then there is an increase in the nominal fee, which based on the criteria map by the particular volunteer varies between $650 and $1400. And then the total fiscal impact for that is approximately 73,000. I think that's it, Madam President, happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thanks. Great. Thank you. Mr. Bernard or Mr. Scott, do you have anything to add? Thank you for allowing us to be here and thank you for supporting the volunteers in Montgomery County. We have almost 1,400 of providing operational resources alongside our sisters and brothers in the IAF. We have one of the best fire and rescue systems in this country. So we thank you for your support for your volunteers. Thank you. Council Member Freeton. Thank you. I'll be brief, really appreciate it. I think this is the best deal we've got in Montgomery County as Chair Katz likes to say that we all agree with. Really appreciate all of our volunteers and really pleased to move this forward and I would motion that we approve. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Council Vice President Joondo, second. All those in favor, please raise your hand. And that is you. I see it. Thank you again. Thank you very much. Mr. Radar, thank you as well. And all right, we are going to continue with the remainder of our gender today going through work sessions on the FY26 operating budget and amendments the FY 25 to 30 capital improvement programs our first budget is the incubator programs on NDA and I will turn it over to the chair of the Economic Development Committee Council member Fannie Gonzalez. Thank you so much, my chair president. Happy Friday everybody. We're all tired, but we are energized to continue or budget process. And I'm gonna say, the first thing I'm gonna say is that the Economic Development Committee for the past year, we have a significant amount of time working closely with the Khan executive steam. What is Judy Costello? Judy Costello is on her way back from the select USA bus tour that was held in. Very important. Okay, fine. I wanted to give her love. That's why I I raised her name. We spent a significant amount of time analyzing how Montgomery County is work towards incubators. Well, how are we doing on this? In order to really have a sound understanding of our processes, we went as a committee and we were joined by several council members and I was very happy to see that. We visited the incubators in Frederick, we visited incubators in Baltimore City, just to learn about their processes and what kind of things we in Montgomery County were not doing. And in this whole work was with idea of understanding what we're lacking and what kind of things we should be doing to step it up. In that journey, we also interviewed companies that are part of the incubator system and we heard from them their experiences and what things they loved about being here in Montgomery County and the challenges that they face. With that end, we have in front of you a very comprehensive packet where we are, we reached agreement that the county needs to have a third party contractor to transition the management of the county's innovation network, okay? And that's why you see a big request that the whole committee embraced as part of this of this packet. And I think being seen was happening at the federal level with all the laidoffs and all the people who are being laid off from key agencies in Montgomery County and surrounding the Washington DC region, we cannot afford to lose talent in our county. So, this effort goes side by side with the steps that we're doing as a county to ensure that folks who are being laid off, for example, can stay in the county and continue using their talent. So you see two things in this packet. one is, and I'm going to ask, uh, pretty soon, Mr. Ali, to please walk us through the packet. Um, but one of the biggest challenges that we saw in this, in, in this effort, looking into incubators is the lack of, legal assistance, marketing assistance. For all these companies that are here in Montgomery county but want to step it up. We don't have that type of effort. So with that I'm going to transition to Mr. Ali to walk us through the packet and then if Mr. Ken Harmon Espada, do you want to jump in? Step on Julie Costello's shoes. Good luck on that one. You can do so, Mr. Ali. Sounds good. Thank you. Good afternoon. Happy Friday. So on the summarize, some of the key issues for this item. On the cover page, you'll see that the committee did a vote to approve the $2 million for the third party manager. I'll just note that county executive staff have sort of suggested to consider this as $1, $2 million proposal as opposed to $1.2 plus 800 because the third party manager would also be administering some of the mentoring and coaching services that is planned for the 800,000. So sort of discussions of tronching that can be directed to county executive staff. Because there is the plan to hire a third party manager of the e-con committee to determine that there might be potentially excess staff within currently staff within the NDA. So there's three full time FTEs to which our program managers at a similar grade to the staff within the business center team. And so the idea was to the extent that there's a vacant and unfilled position within the business center team, technically within the small business support services NDA for the record, that that position would remain vacant for six months. The incubator staffer would stay in the position for six months as the third party manager is hired on within six months that position that individual would be would fill the vacant position within the business center team and the incubator position would be eliminated. That adds up roughly to one that does add up to one FTE but it's half one FTE from the incubators in terms of laps for the second half of the six months then from for the first half there's laps of a vacant position in the business center team. I think we worked with OMB to get exactly the right number, which you see in the second bullet on the cover page. I think the lapse for the incubator position is roughly $80,000. If that changes on the margins, we'll make sure to keep everybody up to date on that. The other issue that was discussed related to this is actually not part of the incubators NDA, but to the extent that the AI Innovation Center would be managed by the incubators team, there is a proposal, would an leases NDA to hire, to enter a lease to have that space. So you can talk about that here part of the incubators or during the lease's NDA discussion in a few items. Okay. I'll just direct you to the discussion of the third party manager, which starts on page 3 of the Econ committee staff packet, Council, County Executive Staff, Councilor, who walk through the details, but they've provided a pretty detailed description of all the activities that the third manager would provide the expectations and outcomes that they're going to be tracking. And then they do the same for the coaching and mentoring support services, but as I mentioned, they sort of see that as an immutable package. And yeah, that's pretty much all I have for County staff or council staff. Thank you so much Chair Fronik and Zalus, President Stewart and members of the county council. Appreciate the opportunity to be here. I will not try to draw all this out until Judy can arrive next to me. I'll do my best since working with Judy has been a great pleasure. And those of you who have with her and know what a passion this is for her. One of the, as we spoke last year, she's running in, I know as we speak, as we spoke previously and veterans on the County Council know how far back this issue goes. One of the reasons this provosts us before you is because of our assessment of what occurs in our competitor markets. The type of assets that our competitors have available to encourage and grow entrepreneurism. The history of this, there wasn't too long ago, where there was no staff in the incubators. The incubators were just literally turnkey housing for businesses. Things have come a long way with Miss Castello's leadership with Mr. Smith's leadership in order to bring services in, to be much more supportive of the entrepreneurs who are in the incubators. But as the council members know who went on the tour, there's a lot of ground to cover to get to a system where the incubators are not only space for entrepreneurs but are actually actively working with entrepreneurs to refine their pitches, to challenge their models, to bring in, connect them with resources, connect them with industry, and that's ground we have yet to cover, which we hope to cover with this proposal to bring in an outside operator who can leverage off the CIP. There's a CIP for refreshing and enhancing the incubator spaces, but also to bring in that touch that we're missing now, as well as the menu of services, the training, the coaching, the connection with outside entities who, we know there are some in this county, there's some in this state, who can help businesses refine their pitch, strengthen their model, and launch their products. I'm done, I'm going to turn it to the expert, but thank you so much for your consideration of this item. Thank you. Hello, Council President and all the members of the Council. I literally raised here from select USA bus tour that started at eight o'clock this morning at the Gaylord. We have the opportunity to showcase Montgomery County to a number of prospective prospects who might use these incubators. And we started at United therapeutics where many of you have visited toward different locations but ended with ended in the building where our cell X is and I'm mentioning that because I wish you all could have been there with me including those at the Econ committee when you ask about success stories and why we want to do this. We have had success stories despite the fact that we have not had anywhere near the amount of support that our competitors and other reasons and other had. Our Celux was in the German town innovation center 10 years ago. It started as an idea for CARTI therapy by a scientist who came, I was in a different position, but I met them back then and they were helping. They subsequently, the expanded space in that innovation center, they had the opportunity to do so because the county gave them the flexible lease terms and affordable space to do it until they could get the investor funding and also regulatory concerning another help, until they could get the investor funding to move to West Watkins in Gathersburg. They expanded within that ARE site at West Watkins and they now are in the city of Watville at King Farm. They now employ a hundred people in Montgomery County, 170 total. They have two floors at our cellics. They are a publicly traded company working to cure multiple myeloma. I learned today that they expect if all goes well for their first clearance to be in 2026. They already are in patients. They are only 10 years old. I don't know if that's quite the unicorn that we were being asked about recently, but it's certainly a great example. Why was on the tour this morning, we had queries on how flexible are your incubators? What about that Maryland Global Gateway program that some of you have heard about where we encourage companies to come and grow in our innovation centers with reimbursement for their expenses by the Maryland Department of Commerce. Do you have incubators that focus on AI, separate issue? That was all just from this morning, and I know a lot of information has been laid out before you. The request for funding is twofold. I don't know if you had the opportunity to see the PowerPoint that we shared shared with the Econ committee, but it better describes. It's also in the packet, but it's buried, I think, on page three. The 1.2 million is really for an operator to take over the innovation centers, one with experience and sole focus on innovation to raise the bar, kick things up a notch, not only with shared equipment, not only for pharma, but for other for advanced tech and other tech space. That's what the 1.2 million is. The point eight is for the coaching that's more like the mentoring, bless you. mentoring entrepreneur residents, the accelerator cohorts and some of the specialized tech innovation assistance. You may wonder where these numbers came from last year. When we first were trying to figure out how to raise the bar and we compared our incubators again, a lot of great work happened there but we have two county staff not counting C-E-X staff two county staff working full time there's a J-L-L contract that has a receptionist could they support the licenses but they're not focused on selling they're not focused on supporting the lab equipment but a building engineer. And most of these other facilities, including those we toured right up the road in Frederick, you can go on their website, there are eight full-time employees for one facility. If you go to Johns Hopkins, Fast Ford, Martin Luther King, the two, we went to one of their buildings, more than a dozen people supporting. Plus they have the university experts there. And we saw something similar at Launchport. So it's hard to propel our labs forward and keep them at pace with county FTEs as we've had. And the idea behind this proposal is to bring in an experienced global operator who can more readily contract and more fairly with expert coaches than we can through our FTE hiring and our RFP processes. I think that summarizes the proposal. Thank you. The last thing I would say is that I honestly, this is the year of creating more jobs in Montgomery County and I lose the talent that we had. This is not a $1.2 million. This is a $2 million request blast, the compensation adjustments that you see on your page and the complete, yeah, the one that you see there is the whole packet. We need the whole thing. Honestly honestly, it's very small for the old award that this investment that is going to be producing. That's all, my name is President. Thank you. Council member, welcome. Thank you. So very often, jurisdictions around the state and around the country look to Montgomery County to look at our ideas, look at our lessons learned, and look for best practices. So we need to do the same. And this is a great example of Montgomery County looking at other jurisdictions to see what they are doing well, what they're doing right. And we had an eye opening field trip that several others outside the economic development community went on as well. And while we have great resource, we have a great physical innovation center program, we are way behind in terms of our programming. And it was a stark difference between what what our neighbors competitors are doing and what we're doing. So I fully support this. It is a big investment and we need to make sure that we have a return on investment so I just wanted to highlight I know everyone has read every sentence of every packet. However, I did want to highlight in the packet, in the work session packet, the metrics are very detailed pages three and four, the metrics for what we're looking at for this investment. So I just wanted to say that and I fully support this. Thank you. I just able to join you all and it was a great trip and I really appreciate all the work that was done here. I do have to ask. So I really appreciate all the work and I understand what we need to do and I know Mr. Hartman and Spada, you and I have been having these conversations as we're seeing people laid off from NIH and other places. How are we creating spaces and doing things in the in the county but just going about our tight budget right now. Is there a way of potentially even like phasing this in to put money in now in the budget and then start some work and then come back in the fall and say okay here's where we are we know where our fiscal situation is in the county better and this is the money we need. Just given the budget we're going through and you know we put HHS through the ringer yesterday I feel like we need to ask that question of you all today. I appreciate that question, Councillor Preston Stewart. It was a summer question to Council Member Sales in the committee level. We understand we're going to a difficult time right now. We also understand that the counties in need, a great need to diversify its economy and to get started on it yesterday. So anything can be phased in. I'm sure it would delay the recruitment and agreement with the operator. it would require us to retain the staff that the committee identified to reduce. It's something that we greatly need. It's an asset that our community has lacked for a long time, the folks from council members from the previous term, remember we did assessments of incubators and what our opportunities were. And that was years ago, that was pre-COVID. And now, and I'm sure COVID kept us from doing something until recently and we proposed last year. And now we have energy and support of the econ committee and we greatly appreciate that. It's, we will get this done. We will get it done on the schedule that you allow us to get it done under that you provide funding. But I hope you sense our eagerness to get started now with a win for the county. And I guess I should add to that so we solicited proposals not knowing what budget we would have and ideas for doing what we have described and they've come in representing something I shared on a PowerPoint last week, but with, I should have in front of me actually, it's here with personnel, with multiple personnel to accomplish what we would say. So the global operator has someone focused on sales, someone focused on bringing in the extra share lab, some of it sponsored and managing that. Someone overseeing the coordination among all three incubators in a way that has not been done. Again, we have two staff working arts, but it's very ad hoc. So we will work with anything we have to propel it forward. The proposal is not overly generous for what was submitted to us. It represents something more than putting a bandaid on ad hoc, which feels as if that's what's been done in the past with certain other folks brought in to try to help. But we understand the very difficult budget decisions being made. Great. Councilmember Fannie Gisals, yeah. I just thank you so much. Last thing I promise. I just want to remind everyone here that we already delayed these for a whole year. We did. We had this conversation last year. We didn't get the money. This is our second round. At least since the new council. So please keep down in mind. That's all. Thank you. All right. Not seeing anyone else wanting to speak. I think we can take a hand vote on this budget. So thank you again for the presentation. All those in favor of the committee recommendations for the incubator programs, NDA raise your hand and that's unanimous. All right. Thank you very much. You're welcome. We're sticking out. It's in. There's nothing on reconciliation. All right. We're going back to Councilmember Fannie Gonzalez on the Small Business Support Services NDA. Thank you so much. For this one, Mr. Ali, I trust you. Thank you. Okay, so for this overview, I think it would just benefit the council to have a little bit of history about how the recommendation was proposed and how it's evolved. When the budget was submitted on on March 15th, the change to the Small Business Services NDA reflected just a 3% inflationary adjustment above the total appropriation from FY25. So as Council staff dug into it, we wanted to confirm that that meant that all the same contractors that receive funding under the NDA, which is what the NDA does. It provides funding for contractors. We'll receive the same amount of money plus inflation because that's what the total implies and we didn't have the distribution at the time. Turns out that at least one of those contracts would not receive the inflationary adjustment because it was a four contract provider for implementing and administering the CRM system within the business center team. So at least that total needed to be adjusted. But then through discussions between staff and then eventually council members, you know, it was realized that actually not all those same contractors would necessarily receive the same allocation plus inflation, which meant that the characterization of the change had to be updated to reflect what it actually is, which is sort of a shift in the way the program will be administered. So after the end of the fiscal year, county executive staff will evaluate the drawdown from current contractors. Some of those contractors may receive their FY25-amount plus inflation, some may receive less, some may receive more, and there's also a proposal to use some $1 amount towards competitive grant process for new contractors to potentially provide small business support services. I have a table in the packet that you can see on page three of the committee packet that shows what was approved in FY25 for current providers, what was drawn down, what was left over. In general, the proposal is roughly $1.2 million will be allocated to current providers in some combination of amounts, whether that's the FY25 plus inflation or a different amount based on their activity in the past fiscal year, and then approximately $500,000 for a new competitive grant process for new providers and county executives staff can explain that proposal. The overall recommendation now for this NDA is for it to be budgeted with $1.7 million exactly, which is slightly different from the $1,713,000, which was just the previous number plus inflation. And that's all been updated within our reconciliation sort of documentation and all that so that's it. That was perfect perhaps if the conics I could have seen anything there. Thank you so much Councillor Presidents to remember as of the council. So appreciate your consideration of this. We are in a transition for this NDA. In the past, this NDA has been partner focused. We have a certain number of partners. We want to provide dollars with them to provide services. Our philosophy, as we move forward, is outcomes based. We'd like to make sure that the full funding that you allocate every year goes to the workshops, the training, the mentoring that our small businesses need and our entrepreneurs need. So we've gone, met with all the partners, we've identified underspends, you know, if we gave a contract for X amount and they're not going to spend it all, we need to make sure that funding is redeployed to others who can. So while we greatly appreciate the work of our partners, as we move forward, we'll be working with them together as a group and with others who can provide that sort of intensive support, sometimes emergency support. that small businesses need to thrive. So I'll leave it there. I'm happy to take any questions you have. Okay, I'm not seeing any questions. All those in favor of the Small Business Support Services NDA for FY26, please raise your hand and that is unanimous. All right, thank you. I think Mr. Hartman you stay. The next one. And the next item we have is the Office of the County Executive. This budget was reviewed both by the government operations fiscal policy committee and parts of it also by the economic development committee. We went through it and we have Ms. Kusari is here. This is basically a same service budget. One of the things I did wanna revisit from when we did the committee session at Go just to lift up for the full council. I did ask questions regarding why the County exec's office did not do the racial equity and social justice. Ovet tool and I don't know, Ms. Kassari, if you wanted to, but the whole council know, because I think I still have outstanding questions on this that we can take up outside of budget, but wanted to give you the opportunity for the full council. Good afternoon. Thank you for having us. Yes, I did talk to Ms. Ward and we heard you a lot unclear and stored. I think you mentioned that if as I mentioned the tool itself did not fit because the we believe the Office of Account Executive as far as oversight of this whole And we heard you again a lot unclear. We're going to work with this work. So if needed, possibly tweaked maybe the tool. But just as a reminder, our submission did include all the efforts that we have had in this area. And going forward if needed, yes, we are going to possibly be twe the tool for us, impossible other officer departments that do not have a do not provide flying line services. Great, I think that would be appropriate to do. As I said, when we met in a committee, the county council did do every other department that is required to do so in our county government did one. And so I would very much and I don't see any objections from any of my colleagues like to see the county executives office also do one. And the fact that the actual racial equity and social justice office did one for themselves. I still am not sure why anyone thought the county exec's office should not do one. So that would be great in the future. Again, this was a same service budget overall. Any questions from colleagues on the county executive's budget? All right. Not seeing any council member of Freightson. Just very quickly talked offline and just if we could get a breakdown of the personnel cost there's a half FTE that's being increased. There's more in terms of costs escalations that are going up. I know there are a lot of different moving parts of shifts on that and if you could just provide to us for our situational awareness and understanding of the breakdown of that, I think it would be helpful to us but I've been able to have a conversation of better understand there's some PTO that needs to be paid out in some annualization of prior decisions and other dynamics but if we could just get a breakdown of that you know for Monday as we make final decisions on the budget just for situational awareness I think it would be helpful. Thank you. All right. Great. I'm sorry, Mr. Hartman, if it's fine, anything else to add? Nope. At this time. All right. All those in favor of the office of the county executives, FY26 operating budget, please raise your hand. And as unanimous. Thank you very much. Next we'll move over to the Leases NDA for FY26 operating budget. This also went to government operations of fiscal policy and economic development. And I think we had a couple of outstanding questions on this from the last time we met. Mr. Ali, I don't know if you want to walk us through where we are to date on this budget. Sure. So I think the two outstanding items that you referenced, the House President, were the increased cost for the new lease for the AI Innovation Center. And then a new increased cost that came over as an amendment to the budget and the amount of $3 million for Esgro for the MCPS bus depot lease County executive staff has provided a pretty detailed sort of history of that Request and the need for it including a timeline of discussions with council staff about how additional funding was identified to support the increase cost. I'll let them explain it since they're the experts. And then on the Innovation Center question, it was just, I think both committees had heard the proposal. And I think the issue was just deferred to full council for discussion about whether it was worthwhile to enter into that lease at this moment. Sure. Um, Mr. Sont or anybody? What? Okay. whether it was worthwhile to enter into that lease at this moment. Sure, um, Mr. Sont or anybody? Sure. Rachel, suffering with the Office of Management and Budget. So as you may be aware in the state's budget bill, capital budget bill this year, there was language added to the enrollment growth and relocatable classrooms, grant program under public schools that allowed for Montgomery County only and fiscal 26 only to not provide a local match for the state funding. So it did not provide additional funding but it did excuse the county government from the match requirement. Because of the complications associated with understanding how we might leverage that language to gain additional capacity in our CIP, we had to have follow up conversations with council staff and the IAC as well as MCPS in order to assess how to implement that. And because of the length of time that took, we did not have that information at the time that the state amendments were transmitted to the County Council in the middle of April in order to meet the public hearing requirements. So we did eventually understand that if we allocate that funding to particular projects, we can free additional capacity. And so by leveraging funding switches in the capital budget, we are able to release $3 million in current revenue without jeopardizing any of the existing projects in the MCPS capital plan in order to allow that funding to support the MCPS bus depot relocation through the operating budget in 26. The balance of that the two million dollars would be programmed if you were to accept the county executive's recommendation in the fiscal 26 set aside in order to support the possible state funding deficit for the Woodward High School project. So this allows us to maintain that funding to support MCPS projects and just distribute it in the places that it's needed. Okay. Anyone have any questions or? I'm not. All right. Not seeing any on on that distribution. Regarding the $200,000 for the lease, I think that was a question from both committees on whether or not we need to allocate that money now or wait until a lease was actually signed or finished. Good afternoon. Greg, awesome department general services. We certainly need the appropriation prior to executing a lease. We can't sign a contract without the money to support it. We are in negotiations right now. I would say the negotiations have been finalized. We just haven't gotten through the final draft and in the lease agreement. I'm going to turn it over to Judy in a second. She seems to be on a roll, so I'm going to defer her quickly. But in any event, we did, for the purposes of getting this particular use up and running, we did a sub lease in an existing space. And this would be in a completely different building from where the sub lease is. And that sub lease of leave is expiring at the end of June. And so we're anxious to move it forward. Would that all turn it over to Ms. Costello? Sure, hello, Council President, Council members. So the AI Innovation Center was contemplated after we started receiving a lot of interest in supporting AI across industry sectors, following our promotion of the New University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing. And I think in the budget things might have been confused. This is separate from the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing, but we view it, and the reason it was that institute was mentioned, we view it as an additional leverage to the investment that the county has put into the Institute for Health Computing, because you start talking to innovators, entrepreneurs, resource providers, and big companies about the work going on with AI and health. You have people working in AI and other sectors who want to share best practices and even at the Institute of Health Computing, some of you met the co-directors there. Dr. Maron's very early on said, well, I might want to know about the Bethesda company that uses AI for school safety, that some of you may have know about. I could actually use that in the human body and they say the same thing. So it was that discussion with that focus that had us first seek space in the Institute for Health Computing Building. In fact, we first talked to the University of Maryland about using some of their space and learned from them that while they're willing to partner, they have conflict of interest committee, space committees, a lot of requirements from their side about shared IP. Then we started talking to the innovators and a couple of them said, I just transferred the technology out of the university. Please I'd rather be an independent space. So that's why it is not within the University of Maryland, IHC, that in the fact that it crosses industry sectors. We did find a very affordable sub lease at the IHC building, which thanks to DGS, we were able to occupy to try to see if the word we were hearing on the street that there was interest in this type of innovation center was true. And it took a while to get the lease process primarily because it was a sub lease and the person we the folks we were leasing from was in California but to make a long story short. Once we signed it in January we started having interest. I think Mr. Freetzin had the opportunity to tour and meet with a couple of the entrepreneurs there the other day when he was at the IHC which was the original idea. However as we started recruiting more entrepreneurs we found that while that space has a lot of co-working it was limited in lockable offices and the AI folks really preferred to have because it's proprietary technology they don't like the open office setting. So we spoke with the experts at facilities at DGS who worked with the landlord who basically said it would be very expensive for us to stay in the same space. He can probably fill it with someone without remodeling it. And they found, we looked at several sites and we found a spot nearby that seems to address the tenant future tenant needs So we have the five companies at the original space ready to move over We frankly have been stalling people as I mentioned earlier. There's a company Who I saw an hour ago who I think would move into the new space? I think our questions from the committees was more like, are you ready to, like, is the $200,000 for the lease ready to go versus the new? I'm sorry. No, no, no, that was very helpful. And we appreciate the background. But I just, I didn't want you to think we were questioning the moot. Like, that's not the question from the committees. But we appreciate that very much so. The question I think was for DGS that came from both of the committees, it was the same question. It was more, is that $200,000 just a placeholder? Or were you getting close enough to know, yes, that's the amount you needed. It wasn't clear when both committees had this conversation if that amount could be reduced in the budget, or is that the amount you needed? Thank you for clearing that up. It was initially a placeholder. We are going to come in just under that number. We can provide exactly how under that number for the committees and for full council. my recollection is we are very, very close to that number. If so, it'll be maybe diminimists in the big scheme of things, but we'll get you exact numbers once, as I said, we are through negotiations. We're just trading risk management and legal issues at this point. So we'll get be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to current space which I will say is beautiful but it's bigger than is what is needed you know currently and it's probably nicer but not necessarily meeting of the needs of what is actually required of entrepreneurs at least as far as I could tell. So I appreciate that you're looking at other opportunities that may fill the need better and be more cost effective. You said there's five companies currently there. Correct. And those companies would continue after July 1st, all five all five yes and then what is the total number of? companies After July first with the new space that we would expect what would be the capacity and how much of that capacity? Do you think you would fill in when? Good questions. Of course so the capacity is, my memory is it's about 11 closed offices but then also co-working space. And we're, so which would give us more opportunity for some people who are willing to do co-working space. As soon as we know that we have that lease, we will start, we've stopped marketing it. We will start remarketing it and start filling it over time. And I think that by this time next year, it would be significantly more full. I can't make any guarantees. But based on the interest, we've had ready interest from companies who want to be there, including a couple who have said that they would grow over a certain period of time. But we will be requiring all of our innovation centers as we said earlier to report metrics and metrics about new companies' jobs and that type of support I can provide you in the future. Great. And then is it free space? No. To the entrepreneur. Subsidize space. It's subsidized. What's the model? It'll be subsidized. It'll be subsidized. It'll be subsidized. It'll be subsidized. It'll be subsidized. It'll be subsidized. It'll be subsidized. It'll be subsidized. It'll be subsidized. It'll be subsidized. market price for the office, but we subsidize the communal space and the kitchen and things that you can't and that you can't, that does not happen in a regular office building. So we are thinking of possibly lowering the buck fill as full. The bottom line is it will be close to market, possibly slightly, we might charge slightly less than market if we think that will help fill the space sooner. So it will be no more than the price of the lease if that's what you're talking about. And then the amount that the entrepreneurs are paying is the lease going to cover the $200,000. Is that covered the lease? Or is that net of? Yeah, it's not net. What they're paying. Yeah, the leases NDA does not raise an enterprise funds. So those revenues go directly to the general fund. They don't come back to the leases NDA. So the 200 is inclusive of everything that the county's going to have to front, whatever comes on the backside as a result of the sublets or licensees does not come back to the leases NDA. that's what I thought. So if you could also get us that information of what your projections are on how much is going to be paid in. And so what the delta would be, because that's really what the cost of the county is. That's the net effect, yes. Yeah. OK. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate those questions, not seeing any other questions. We will get the final number on the new lease office for the Executive Boulevard, but as we heard from Deputy Director, it sounds like it's very close to that. So we'll take a hand vote on this budget. All those in favor of the Leases NDA FY26 operating budget, please raise your hand. And that's unanimous. Good. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next, we have the Office of Procurement. And I think Mr. Me is going to take over this one. And the Office of Procurement came to the government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee. They had one ask this year, which was regarding hiring a project manager and developing the first two modules for an e-procurement application. And we had a good discussion. This is something that we have been discussing discussing with procurement. Given the financial situation we are in in the county, we discuss with the director delaying this fund. It's $770,000 to put this as a reduction and ask that director Shetty come back to us. Maybe the government operations committee in the fall looking at the different modules that this has and to see when we have better fiscal information on the outlook what we might be able to do mid-year. Mr. Mayor, Director Sheddy, anything to add? I know, I mean this is a system that we needed probably 10 years ago. It's a a system we will definitely need 10 years from now. It's just a question of helping us be more efficient with how we do procurements. Great. Thank you. I'm not seeing any questions. I just want to say thank you to the entire department. It's you all are amazing doing terrific work and we know you need this system and we really appreciate you working with us during these very difficult budget times. So this is a reduction of $770,000. All those in favor of the committee recommendation for the Office of Procurement, please raise your hand. And that is unanimous. Thank you very much. We will now move on to the Alcohol Beverage Services, the FY26 Operating Budget, and I think we have a couple of CIP amendments, and I will turn this over to Council Member Fannie Gonzalez. Thank you so much, Madam President. I will just quickly remind Council members that changes to the recommended, recommended for your budget for ABS is very limited. So keep that in mind. And the committee, United Assembly, I can never say that word. We all agree with that recommendation, Skivin. If staff can please walk us to the packet, that would be great, thank you. Thank you. So yes, as a reminder, the accountability of men this budget is limited based on state laws and attorney general opinion. And so in a sense, the council can request executive to submit an amended budget, but that's essentially it. In terms of the ABS operating budget, it is essentially the same services budget for this year. There are no staffing enhancements or other enhancements to that budget. The main story in the budget is really the significant decline in the general fund transfer. And we did have a discussion in the committee of various factors describing that. And essentially a combination of revenues, essentially remaining flat or last several years since the COVID era boom. Personal costs have increased as a result of compensation adjustments for the last several years as well. And finally, the fund balance that we, that the liquor fund carried the last several years as a result of the COVID era, boom times, as well as the subsequent reopening of the economy essentially, that fund balance has, has been drawn down. So what we have today for the F-26 budget is a general fund transfer about 19.5 million, which is a 37.4 percent decline from this year's transfer about 31.2 million. Beyond that on the two CIP items, the ABS retail store refresh is six year funding, beginning FY26 is being reduced to reflect a more limited scope of improvements for retail stores. It's think about as more painting, carpeting, flooring, refreshes as opposed to having a wine cooler or more luxury type features. And that reflects again just some of the cost increases from construction and other factors driving that decision by the executive to reduce the scope of the CIP. And then finally, there's a technical adjustment for the ABS conveyor system upgrade CIP project. That's simply switching the funding source from short-term financing to long-term financing to reflect the lifecycle of that project. Other than that, that's it for staff. Yes, and I know we have Director Durbin virtually, anything else, Council Member Fisala. Nothing. Would any of the folks from ABS like to say a few words or? Director Durbin. I thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me via Zoom. I'm actually in San Diego at a conference right now. So I appreciate it talking about the social economy. So hopefully we can find some more money with our national product partners here. But we I can speak a little bit to the stores and some of the decisions we made. The original new updated store program that started pre-COVID was a very high-end model. You'll see a Cabin John was the first store to be developed through that system. And as we started working on these stores post-COVID, we realized we know how we want the stores to feel. We want the customer experience. We want the safety and to connect to those communities as much as possible. So we found we can do the same thing for less money and we've been working really hard to get these news stories refreshed in the communities. We just opened White Oak and West Bard in the last couple months and Wheaton is two weeks away. So very excited about being able to work closer with the communities and have these stores refreshed. I think with that, if it's okay, I'm going to turn it over to staff to talk about the fund transfer. Yeah, Council, the fun transfer is down and it's down a lot. A couple of just things that were really coming down from an artificial high with COVID. National numbers will say the same thing. As he had mentioned, yeah, we've less to fiscal years are a personal cost of going up 11 million dollars. That comes out of our income. We do get the budget, but it does come out of our income. It's going to take us a couple years to adjust to those big numbers. But that's a reason for it. And last few years, the 31 million, the 30 million, well that's a seven and eight million dollars more than pre-COVID. So those were large numbers we put down the last couple years and it kind of drew us down to where we're going to have to take a lower one this year. Okay. And just to add, the executive's fiscal plan does project roughly a $20 million earnings transfer for the next several fiscal years from FY27, 28, 29, and 30 and 31 were projecting closer to 25 million. So this is essentially the new normal for the next couple of years, apps in any significant changes in the business model or such as just in prices or diversifying revenue stream. So I think there's a separate discussion we have there off budget, but that's essentially where we are as of today. Thanks, Mary Fanning, is that all? Yes, we have also just to share with everybody. We're going to be having another work session, basically on the business model as it was, it was addressed. Most likely that work session will happen in the fall. So stay tuned if anybody's interested besides the e-con committee members. Before drinking less, that's a good thing. That's why the country shouldn't be in the business of the liquor. But that's another question. Great, awesome. Not seeing any other questions. Thank you for the presentation and for the work you're doing. Mr. Mia, were there any other items on this? Do we cover every, I just want to make sure? Yeah, no, that's just the operating budget on the two CIP items. Great. All those in favor of the alcohol and beverage services FY26 operating budget and the CIPMs, please raise your hands. And that is unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Director Durban. Enjoy the conference. Thank you. All right. Our last item on a Friday afternoon after a very long week. We have the WorkSource Montgomery NDA. I will turn it back to Councilmember Fannie Gonzalez. Thank you so much. Samey sir Andy Anthony, I'm focused on here in his entire team. Before I pass on my staff, let me just share how amazing WorkSourceri has been, especially in challenging times. You guys are stepping up efforts not just within Works for Smongamri, but also in partnership with the local chambers. Montgomery County Government, Montgomery College, it has been great to see you guys in action and really showing leadership. And another reason why it's amazing to have you and it just works as an agency, but you as people working there. Because I know that you guys really care. And that's what we need nowadays. So with that, I'm gonna pass the mic to our staff so they can walk us through the program, through the board and hopefully the Mr. Antony, Father Stone, Ken John Pinn. Okay, thank you. Thank you. So for the first, there were a few decision points that were discussed to committee and then one that came down as an amendment or rather as supplemental appropriation. And at the request of the council president, as we've included in the cover page, that item will be treated as a FY26 enhancement as opposed to a supplemental appropriation using undisturbed FY25 general fund reserves. In terms of what was in the packet, there were two replacements to replace federal funding that WorkSource Montgomery received. The first was in the amount of $100,000 for summer rise. The committee did recommend approval of that $100,000 council staff did note that there's a, each student is associated with $500 of the trade-offs for sort of tranching this are very obvious and clear to calculate. The second replacement was federal funding in the amount of $50,000 to support an additional half FTE to bring the total of three FTEs at the correctional facility. The reasoning just being that this half FTE position or part-time position is hard to fill. And so the decision before the council is ultimately should there be two or three FTEs in the committee, e-con committee voted to recommend the $50,000 which would allow them to hire that third FTE. Finally, the decision point that was not discussed was a $700,000 enhancement now for the FY26 budget that if approved would go on the reconciliation list for a, the, sorry, the Federal Workforce Career Center. There's a very detailed proposal that Workforce Montgomery has provided. There's a budget in fact that shows the breakdown of the $700,000 on the last page of the packet, circle page 11. The proposal is indicated to provide 15 months of operating funding money so they may want to understand the implications of what happens in FY28 in terms of reducing the budget by that amount or what the ongoing implications would be as there are expectation that it could go on further and what are the consequences for potentially appropriating smaller amounts and what could they achieve? These are all questions that the council may want to ask. All right, terrific. Well, thank you for this. And I will just say just as an FYI on the $700,000 supplemental that came over, I spoke to Mr. Featherstone about this. Given the timing of it, of when we received that, our budget process, and then when we would get back here in June in order to do it, we wouldn't have had taken action on this until after the next fiscal year began. So it seemed to make most sense since this had not been accounted for by the county executive for FY25 to then put it as a part of this budget for FY26 and have the conversation during the budget time. So I know Mr. Featherstone, if you want to speak to your overall budget and work or specifically to the request for the Federal Employee Center. Yeah, sure. Good afternoon to the council's good to be before you all. Anthony Featherstone, Executive Director for WorkSource Montgomery and Montgomery County's local workforce development board. I want to allow my colleague to introduce herself before I get started. Good afternoon. My name is Jessica Suful, Deputy Director of our Workforce Services Division. So just wanted to give a few remarks before we jump into it. I want to thank the county executive, the county executive staff for working with us and Mr. Ali as well for working with us through this process. Before we look ahead to FY26, I always like to reflect just a moment on FY25 and some of the highlights from this current program year. I think first the Montgomery County Career Advising Program, the program in partnership with MCPS and Montgomery College and University of Shady Grove, has proven to be a leader within the state when it comes to career coaching for our six through 12th graders. Through a little less than two years of operation, we work with over 60,000 young folks within MCPS who are having touch points where they are learning, who are identifying their strengths, interests, and values, and claiming their career things. Realistic investigative, artistic, social, enterprise, and getting conventional. And so, touch points include working with teachers in the classrooms, working with Montgomery, work with Montgomery career coaches, with the real magic happens when students are talking to students about the career language that they're learning and what their things are and what careers they're looking into. And so we're really proud of the work It's done in partnership with MCPS and Montgomery County public and Montgomery College Secondly The the work that we do and helping residents prepare and enter employment Through our sector connector programs Which help residents attain vocational certifications and become employed in our target industries, healthcare, hospitality, construction, transportation, information, and biotechnology. Those programs have been widely successful. We have our young adult programs, launch a future employment, our reentry program, through our dual track reentry program. We've done the work to serve over 3,000 residents. We did an impact study and economic impact study on FY24, and we've released this study for FY25 towards the end of this calendar year. And so with that economic impact study revealed, it's that with the 63% placement rate, an average wage of $54,000 per placement that resulted in $100 million in annual wages through workforce programs. And on I say workforce programs that don't mean just workforce and Montgomery, but all of our partners through our community workforce and that work in our American jobs and our network. And so for FY26 we don't have a lot of new innovations from a workforce standpoint to put before you. The additional 150,000 in program funds essentially keeps work so as Montgomery whole we have three FTEs at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility now. And so that additional 50,000 supports keep in three FTEs at the center and it's really essential to have adequate coverage within the Correctional Facilities Job Center. The additional 100100,000 for summarize, we have over 2,000 applicants for the program to share through MCPS. And so we want to make sure that we can serve and partnership with MCPS as many students to provide those summer career experiences as we can. And so that additional 150,000 essentially keeps us whole with those two programs for our students and for our residents currently incarcerated at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility. And so, you know, looking ahead, we want to continue to be who we are and get better at what we do in helping residents connect the training and connect to employment. And that's the, I'll call it normal part part of our work, but the abnormal part of our work, which I'm sure you all know better than I do, is what's going on at the federal level. And so, at this point, we're seeing federal workers who are highly educated, have been highly compensated, have a high skill set coming through our doors seeking workforce services to become re-employed. And so that speaks to the proposal that we submitted for the $700,000 supplemental appropriation. So we can adequately respond from a workforce standpoint. We have lots of great services when it comes to tech and E platforms and so forth. But what we've noticed is that our federal workers and contractors who've been affected or are uncertain about the future and are back in the market, they need a intensive level of support to help translate their skills from a public to a private standpoint to become re-employed as quickly as possible. So, you know, with that I'll say thank you to you all for all of support, I'm looking forward to working with you for the remainder of this year and it's FY 26 and we're happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you so much and thank you for all your work and what works our Smedicomery is doing all the time, but particularly in the last few months and really stepping up. I know you have, you all have filled a lot of gaps, supported a lot of people, and we really appreciate it. I'll turn it over to Council Vice President Joando. Thank you. Just also appreciate all the work you're doing. We've come a long way with work service from Gumray, and it's in no small part due to you and your team and Jeroo and everyone else all the partners for Montgomery College and CPS so so thank you for that Just emphasize that you know this money for summarizing really got the committee moved forward 200 students your contribution to the effort Is what that will cover as far as their stipends and you mentioned 2,000 Apply unfortunately not all those students will be placed. That happens every year. And my yearly reminder to my colleagues, if you haven't taken a student, please do so. Because the problem is the money is one thing, but it's always having enough spots to put them in is the other thing. And then thank you also for the federal workers' work. I know you've been a critical partner there. In addition to just all the regular placements you're doing and all the things with the youth that you're doing and your outreach team, special shout out, I know there's some of her here. I see them at every event that I'm at, which means they're at way more events and you're doing a great job in that respect too. So thank you very much. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Council Member Luki. Thank you. I just want to, you know, echo what my colleague just said, but I really want to thank you and your team for all the work you do at the correctional facility. I've had the opportunity to meet with your folks there inside the correctional facility and get to talk to them directly about the work that they do and it is critically important. And I so appreciate the very person-centered way they approach that work in making sure that our folks who are re-entering the community are set up for success. And so thank you for that and thank you for all that you do. Councillor Merva Fanny Gonzalez. Just wanted to clarify a couple things. One is obviously the committee is how hard it supports the Can Executive recommendations But the supplemental that we received the $700,000 that was mentioned, I just wanna emphasize the need to make this happen. We all love going to those rallies and saying that we support federal workers. This is how you show the support. And I know for a fact that people are going towards First Montgomery and we need to keep them that they help, they help they need. So my understanding and please, can so please correct me if I'm wrong if I'm getting this wrong. This, your recommendation is for this to go to the reckless. If we agreed on, is that on the top? Yes. Because of when this came in, this would go on our reconciliation list as an addition. But you need to start, and I look at Mr. Ken Harman as well, you need to start this work in June. Is that right? As soon as possible. So there was no way for us as a council to actually do a supplemental since we just received this last week. So I will emphasize to folks, please consider this based on the need that we have right now. That's all. Did you ever respond? Thank you, Ms. Vada. I appreciate it, Councilor President Stewart, and I appreciate the support of Council and the refunding Gonzales. I talked with Dr. Stardard a lot, and we compare this with the COVID epidemic. We have gone through the communication period. All of you here, Council, all of our partners, we've done lots of information. we've done lots of work sessions, we've created the website, Mobilize Montgomery, bring brought together partners to work together collectively on the solution of connecting displacement our workers to jobs. So for all of us, I hear it too, there's urgency on the Council to make this happen. That's our only concern is that now that we're moving on to communications and we're moving into action, we have a plan for action. There are some other things that we can do to make sure we're targeting displaced federal workers and contractors who need to rethink their business models. And we do appreciate your support and do want to point out Mobileized Montgomery has been updated. Now we've been able to identify the top employers in Montgomery County who actually have jobs. So folks, having visited the Mobileized Montgomery website, good time to go to it and boost. We'll send you social media boost. But we do need to move into the action and we do appreciate your consideration and support of this proposal. Great, thank you. And I, apologies, I just wanna underscore one thing because we've been talking about, you know, what's sort of one-time money, what's ongoing and I think Council Member Malcolm raised this the other day as well. I think it's important on page circle eight of the proposal from Work Resource Montgomery to note that this is a 15-month expenditure that they're looking at. And then obviously a re-evaluation of that time to see where we are, but I just wanted to highlight that for folks and that will be noted on the reconciliation list if we move this as well. So thank you for that. All right, so we have before us the WorkSource Montgomery NDA for FY26. There is the addition of the item to put on reconciliation for $700,000. Since this did not go through committee, I need a motion and a second. Council member Freedon. Council member Fandingan Zallah's second. All those in favor of the WorkSource Montgomery NDA for FY26 and to place on the reconciliation list as an addition the $700,000. Please raise your hand. And that is unanimous. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here and for all you do. All right, that was the last budget. We had to review. I just want to take a moment to particularly thank our Council staff. Mr. Alley, you're here. So you'll get it all now. You can pass it along. It has been a great deal of work going through committees going through with full council. This week we will move ahead next week into our final decisions on our revenue and on the reconciliation items and and then on May 22nd our final vote on the budget. So I just want to say thank you very much to staff and let's you know power through this next week. So we are adjourned for this afternoon. Thank you all. The first spring native built B-Mighty Fitness with one goal in mind. 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