This meeting is being recorded. Good morning. This is the Council's regular March work session. The proceeding this morning is a hybrid meeting which is being conducted in person and via WebEx Teleconference. The public may view through live stream available through the county council website and anyone in Miss Robin Pages, Environmental Seminar class can watch it forever and ever on the Hollywood County Council website. We'll show you how to do that later. At this time I am going to do a roll call of the council members, Dr. Jones. Miss Young. I am here and I welcome our students. It is so wonderful to see you all there. I read your PowerPoint over the weekend and agree with everything that you said. So I'm looking forward to your presentation. Ms. Rigby is on her way and we'll be here shortly. I'm Mr. Youngman. Here. We will now proceed with our agenda. We do have three items today, CR61, CB18 and CB20. We are gonna start with CR61, which is the financial assurance plan for NPDS permit. And I have prepared some brief remarks that are going to be given to us by Ms. Pages, GT Environmental Seminar, whenever you are ready to go. And council members, you do have this on hard copies. This presentation will mainly focus on stream restorations that are performed for MS4 credits. We will demonstrate our utmost passion for the safety of our future and offer solutions to preserve it. Streamer distributions are projects categorized as best management practices and are performed for MS4 and mitigation credits. Developers purchase mitigation credits from mitigation banks to offset the harm caused by developing wildlands in sensitive habitats. Mitigation banks produce credits by performing projects that restore streams to offset the harm streams for ones that are filled in for development by creating wetlands to offset additional harm. These credits are done sold for huge profits. The main problem being that stream restorationations and devastating consequences, which makes it very difficult. It's not nearly impossible to create the types of inland wetlands that are being developed and are so critical to our environment here in Maryland. The entire thought process is backwards. They should be preserving our true natural wetlands and protecting the natural streams and mature trees. This is saying the way to offset hard is to create more harm and start preserving what we have all. Here is an uninstored stream on the left and a newly restored stream on the right. We are able to noticeably see how much more damage the banks of the stream are after a storm and how much more possible it is for erosion to occur. These are a list of stream frustrations that took place in Howard County. Many have taken place already and have future damage or streams and to prevent further damage for raising awareness. It has been noted that a live surgery can absorb up to 48 pounds of carbon from the atmosphere. It hears throughout its lifetime. The stream will source significant increasing amounts of carbon. It's what Andrew C. shared in the. And or voluntary store carbon, but overtime visibility to absorb any more carbon, and carbon will eventually be released back into the atmosphere as a tree-grain process. These aren't increasingly recognized for their importance in Manchu, Muraf. Their leaf canopy is held to reduce the erosion by by the cause of bi-phonic rain. It also provides a sort of scenario for rainwater lands and evaporates. It's a take-up water and help create conditions for the soil that float in filtration. Animal habitats are being destroyed due to trees being cut down for seed mesurations. At the machinery is being used to cut down the trees, compacting the soil, and reducing its ability to absorb, which needs to additional runoff. This runoff proves the stream, causing animals that make the stream their habitat to lose their home. The compaction can suffocate living animals to the point of death, as well as crushing them. So, so, compared to the also cause invasive plant species to pop up into the forest, which the animals cannot live on. Furthermore, the spending of the contractors left biodiversity on the original floor and had difficulty because established in a new environment. So, let's live in the part known as located in Ellicott City. Here's an aerial view of Fartingham in 2017 before the Stream Administration. It shows that there are healthy mature trees and a natural flow to the stream. Now, here's the same view of Fartingham in 2022 after a Stream registration. It shows the loss of many mature trees. Notice how the project falls to the stream channel. The contractor is used to help the machinery to alter the stream so that it has more binding hurts. Here are some additional photos of FOTR in the stream. Evidently, showing the damage streamer stations have caught. Not only are streamers strange and harmful, they are not aesthetic for people living in these places. Over the last few years, we have observed that trees are back around well and the forest is the forested area that is littered with resting weeds, and possibly a lace of species. These are some photos of the clod mystery restorations emphasizing the engine's clod hunting. Know how many trees have been caught off at all those littered dead plants. He has done a lot of interest on this issue, and had not any solid scientific evidence that any reservations are proven to be effective. There are too many variables involved in the extreme restoration and to know if they work, the evidence that is currently available shows that they cause more harm than good. Instead, we propose utilizing often B and B that are scientific, free to clean and affect. Up on this slide shows the risk of cold from the clean water act. It's important that open management of one of the necessary. But in reality, the reason why we do these screen restrations is to comply with the law, not to help the environment. So instead of these harmful methods, we would like Howard County to employ and more of a bunch of mental strategies. 70 degree, or silly to Montgomery's Green Street Program. A good example of a BNP-1 mental strategies of biotentious guardian, you look at a local woman, which makes a huge impact on the most parking lot. Therefore, we'd like to see how county will provide more of Green Street and green strategies. For implementing upland water maintenance strategies, the fulfill one's duty to comply with the Clean Water Act with preventing the spread of erosion and our bodies of water. We can implement the following upland water maintenance strategies. Rainguards are very useful for an environment because they diverse in sizes. This is a name suggests that it grants a beautiful added benefits. Additionally, rain goods are also inexpensive, which means to get a bunch of them with ease. Fire, tensions and bioswales are not only collected enough, but they also have a nice aesthetic feeling. They don't take away from loosening the scenery around you and serve the meaningful purpose of collecting pollutants from stormwater through soil. The runoff moons down the crabby and drains into the soil and essential food. Purpose functions and file sales, as you can see, serve multiple purposes. This would be an excellent choice for VMPA because I also put the environment at everyday life. For parianes, I've been created a big plus and impact on both our environment and animals. This is beautiful for my husband, so be a nice bit. This is our solution. We propose with the remainder of this permit period ending on July 1, 2027 for Howard County to ban any more stream restorations. Residents of Howard County should be notified in advance of the county seeking our renewal of the five-year MS for slash NPDES permit to NDE of all stream restoration projects, including stream stabilization projects, null and stream channel work. There should be sufficient time for Howard County to hold a public hearing in a public comment period before the application is submitted to MDE. Additionally, the public should be notified of each individual project and have an opportunity to attend a hearing with a public comment hearing before a project is approved for a permit. After the permit period has ended, how can we put a cap on the amount of purpose so if we're still be converted to stream restrictions and in-stream channel work performed for MS4 credits? To be able to meet the MS4 goals of each five year MS4 permit, a no-woven 20% should be allocated in stream restorations. The other 80% should come from upland. Out of streamed BNTs are scientifically proven effective. Stream restoration credits should be have as the current current year, July 1, 2027. The capital should provide additional credits to women made into existing BMPs like the ones we mentioned earlier. We are the future of Pad County. The favorite screens. Paray. Thank you so much Miss Page and your environmental scientists. We have specifically Hibba, Tania, Juliana, Grayson, Vihon and Alex. And thank you so much for sharing that camera space with each other. We got to see each of you as you spoke your parts. And that was very effective and persuasive hopefully for our colleagues here. You guys, you're welcome to stay on and listen on. I have the question that you asked me to ask, so I will be asking that later this morning. But if you want to stay tuned, we'd love that. And if you want to go ahead back to class, we understand that too. Thank you so much, Ms. Page. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we also have not from Berley Manor Middle School. Mr. Mark Richmond joining us in this discussion. I mean, not Mark Richmond. Mark Deluca is Mark Richmond coming or just you today? No, just you. Okay, all right, then we won't try and find him online. I think we have to follow Mr. Diluga. I mean, I don't think it was coincidentally because I think those middle school students and their teacher are way more on it than perhaps I am, but just coincidentally, I was asked to go and meet with them last week, not knowing really specifically what they were going to talk about. And their topic was so in line with what we were hearing in this legislative document this month that there was no way I could let that opportunity go by. I will say before I turn away from their presentation, there was a slide, so it should be in what the council has that I don't think they talked about this morning. But yes, they had a slightly longer version and I asked them just to streamline it because I wanted to get to council questions but there was a slide that I gassed aloud when I saw it in the Emberley Manor middle school it showed the percentage of credits obtained from stream restoration projects in 2023 and Howard County was above and beyond all of the other one two three four counties there What do we like large or medium-sized counties? Baltimore County was at 57% Prince George's County was at 53% and a rental county was at 35 Montgomery County was at 30% Howard County was 72% and that in and of itself, I think kind of of set the bar for what, why are we doing this and why are we so offmarked with our comparable jurisdictions. But if you'd, I think Deb, you and I were the ones who wanted to get this on the... I have maybe two or three quick questions. We actually reserved a short amount of time for this one and the other two topics behind it. But my first question and hopefully goes to this issue of tideliness is I don't see why this is before the council now. Versus in three or four months after after budget. I think the premise of this financial assurance plan is to ensure that the county has the money to continue its promises or obligations that it set forth in this plan. And I don't really see there's a way to do that going forward unless the council ultimately approves what's put forward in the Department of Public Works budget in April and May. I looked back in the last one, these are done every two years. The council didn't approve this version of this kind of resolution until July of last year. I would would really like us to simmer down on this right now unless there's a compelling reason that it's before the council right now versus in the summer after we can say in good faith this is this is going to be funded by Howard County government this year is illustrated by a majority vote of this council about the entire capital budget. What is how does timeliness fit into this, Mr. Deluca? The primary driver is the permit period and when we need to get it into the state. So we're really driven by that. That's the reason why we share the draft with them. We know that it's way too early for us to put together this financial assurance plan in the last part of calendar year 24 when the permit is due because we're still formulating budget. So that's the reason why in the past and even in this year, we don't introduce the legislation in the last calendar year. But we do know that so because of that timing, the state's timing on the MS-4 permit. We're trying to meet that obligation to the state. That's the primary reason for the timing. Plus, we also know that we do have, we do have to go through budget and a lot of our numbers for FY26 are proposed. So regardless of that, if there are adjustments that need to be made, for instance, then we would resubmit that back to MDE and go through the process again. But we really don't want a delay, we want our permit to be renewed so we can stay on time and just continue on with the program. We could speak more about the program and how a lot is made of the deleterious effects of certain parts, certain tools in the toolbox and how, and actually it would be worthwhile to bring up that, you know, our program has evolved over the years and a lot of what can be cited is in previous plans, which go back now to years to 2023 and a lot is transpired since then and our approaches transpired has transformed as well and so we could discuss that. And there are elements that we have seen with some of our sister jurisdictions that we have taken as lessons learned and have modified our practices. And so that's all incorporated in the way that we prosecute the work. So, but to answer the question directly again, I'd say that we're just trying to stay on task with the state. Okay, I might have my time to mix up. I thought this permit was good through 2027. It is, but it was due at the end of the whole report and the financial assurance plan for FY25 and FY26 is due in FY 24. So that's the reason why this is just a planning document and just assures the state that our ability to perform in the next years 25 is already done and FY 26 that the funds are available to continue the program are in place. Okay, and I understand and obviously this can be verified the other resolutions are cited in the actual bill this time. But the last one that we approved in this same vein in 23 was in July before August recess I'm'm guessing. The second comment, really, I wanted to make was I know and I even commended Mark Richmond during public testimony for referring to stream stabilization versus stream restoration, but I don't see any language like that in the actual, like, I don't know, 50 page fiscal year, 2024 annual update, number 29. That really doesn't work for me if we show up and say things in public that don't actually match up to what we're submitting and asking this council to prove. And then thirdly, and this is my question from my environmental scientist in Ms. Robin Page's class is it looks like, and we did the same thing I think in the last permit, is that according to page 45 of that annual update, number 29 fiscal year, even though we have two more years left in this certain permit, we have already reached 97.2 percent complete of our impervious acre restoration requirements. And so their question is, wow, that's amazing how are we doing that, but also why on earth will we continue to undertake, especially stream restoration projects given the controversy that follows them to exceed 97.2 and 100% over the next two or three years that this permanent is in place. So we were fortunate in the prior years that we were actually able to execute the construction. So when you know it was mentioned that a lot of the other counties had the work but only reported 30 to 50% being able to accomplish 30 to 50%. And it's not that the work wasn't planned. It's just that they couldn't get it constructed because it depends on how much you get constructed by this end date, NMDE, determines. So we were able to manage the construction, bring in the contractors and do the work, and we got that done. As a result, we were, if not the only county in Maryland, we were one of the few counties who did not use any kind of trading of credits to earn the impervious acreage, but we were able to meet our goal and then a little bit more, which we weren't sure at that time during that permit period whether MDE was going to allow us carry over. So, you know, and as it happened was, you know, we weren't even sure we were going to make the goal. So there was an effort to do a little bit more to see if we we could accomplish a little bit more, just to make sure we hit the goal. And maybe we would get credit in the following permit, which we did. We did end up getting credit. Other jurisdictions had to trade in order to get it to make the goal, which you know I would rather not have been forced to do that. We weren't going to do that. And so we got the carryover and that's one of the reasons why we were looking good now in terms of what percentage we are complete towards the goal. Now to speak to the, well, why have any, why show any stream restoration projects at all? So they are in there. There's, you know, no getting around that. We did put them in there. There's nine. Yes. And which, and some of them are in the planning period and one's under construction, which is very concerning to me. Right. And I would say that it's a planning document. So these projects are, you know, there are many, many projects that could be done. And they are not all necessarily stream restoration projects. In fact, if you turn to the back of one of these, I think it's in the legislation packet. It shows all the different kinds of projects that we get credit for. And then you can see exactly how many projects are actually going to be ongoing for us to accomplish the goal. Some of our ongoing maintenance, like inlet cleaning, excuse me, street sweeping. So some of them are relatively what one could consider benign. And others are more deleterious to the, at least the immediate term environment. So these are projects that can be swapped in and out and as we work through the permit, we will be swapping projects because some projects are going to come up where we feel we need to do them and other projects are going to come up where we feel we need to do them and other projects are going to come up where we don't need to do them and we may not need to spend that money in order to do it so we won't we won't do that project. So but this again I'll emphasize is a planning document to show the state that there is that we have the funds and that there are. And those documents, those projects that are put in there are to show that are to match up with what money we feel we need to move the MS4 permit forward. There was another point I wanted to make about that, but the projects can be and typically are swapped out. And even though a project may be shown here, like I said, this is a planning document, each one of our projects goes to public meeting and it's done at the concept stage. So unlike possibly some other jurisdictions or some other entities that are doing stream restoration work, we do it at the concept stage, 30% stage, take a lot of public comment and then take a lot of public comment, a lot of times projects are modified based on that. And decisions whether to go or no go on a project is made at that time. So this is not the final bite at the apple. The final bite of the apple is actually when we move forward with these projects and have public meetings. And there are at least two public meetings per project, most of the time three. And it's done at the concept stage. And if there are issues that are brought up, they're incorporated. We go back, have another public meeting, and then we go all the way up to the 90% complete before it would go to construction. So, and that's just for the design. So, I think that's an important thing. I think that's something that we do, and that we take in those comments, and we've modified some projects. And we have examples of projects that we have modified. And I know that we've gone all the way down to the limits of disturbance, where that's been an issue, to save trees, or just to the general impact, environmental impact it might have. And we've walked those LODs with the community and there have been times when it's always been a positive experience even though I think my staff finds it painful sometimes. that we have, you know, people will ask, well, why is that tree on the outside of the LOD instead of inside, or vice versa? And, you know, we kind of look at one another and make that decision while that tree can be outside. So it doesn't need to be touched. Other times we've, you know, had construction plans where the contractor is, or even a designer at the design stage, they said, well, we would like to access a job this way. And then through a public meeting, we'll hear that that may not be acceptable and can we take another look at that. We have had times, several times, where we've changed how we access the projects and it's become less of an environmental impact. So I just cite those examples but that's what we're catching when we have these meetings and like I said before, I'm only talking about the stream projects. There are many other types of projects. And right now our emphasis has been on the repair of ponds because it's a critical need, infrastructure need for us. And so we're trying to fix our ponds so that they don't fail. Sometimes that'll mean that the downstream portion of the alpha will need to have some work done to it. And it'll be categorized not as a palm project, but as a stream project, like when you're looking through here. I did did notice that but the majority of the work that we're doing right now is to reconstruct risers and the pipes that go through the pond abankments themselves. That sounds good. Thank you, Mr. Delica. I think where you're pulling your eight or nine stream restoration projects is the page 19 of 24 of the All Actions Plan, which is the alarming page. And not particularly understandable to just a layperson reading it where projects are listed with a 0% achievement of goal. So that even to me at least calls into question, why are we really doing it at all? Or why would we be listing it on something we're submitted for that reason but I'm going to turn it over to Miss Young to make sure that we get some of her questions answered before we turn to our next two items. Okay I just want to confirm a few things and then go back to why we're doing this now. The restoration baseline for all of Howard County was set in 2013-14, is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Okay, and am I correct in that it was 11,019 acres? That was our restoration baseline that we needed to meet through the end of all of this permitting period. That was the baseline of all of our impervious acreage. That was our impervious acreage, right? That we had to. That we don't have to, we were only given a 20%, the first permit required us to. Remediate that. Remediate 20%. Okay, so in the previous five year permitting period, we treated 2,204 acres. That's my understanding. Okay, and so we met and exceeded that requirement in the previous permitting period. Okay, and then we are now in what's called the fifth generation permit, but the permitting period overall is December 30th, 2022 through December 29th, 2027. Does that sound right? That was my understanding. 22. December 30th, 2022 through December 29th, 2027. That may be correct. I would have to look that up to be exact. Okay. It took me a while to go through all these documents to find that, but I think that's what it is. So the new permit, this one from 22 to 27, requires 1,345 acres of impervious surface to be restored. Is that, well, do you know if it's 1,345 acres? I understand you may not have that at the top of your head. I don't have it at the top of my head. But I did. I have it in these papers. That was right. That was my understanding from these papers was that there was 1,345 acres. And that it appeared as if there were no obligations between 2020 until the new permit was issued in 2022. Was there a two-year period? And that was that because we had gone beyond what we needed to do initially? Is that why we got a reprieve? Now, I don't believe so. I think that that was because we, and I believe I'm correct on this, that our permit was held over because of administrative delays at MDE and them being able to get the permit out when they said they were going to get it out. Because of COVID. It might have been. It was 28 to 22. That's what I figured that. Because of COVID. It might have been. It was 20 to 22. That's what I figured that it was a COVID. It could have been a COVID pause. Right. OK. And so we were still, it was a permanent extension. We were still working under the old permit. OK. One thing I would like before we vote on this is I would like to see the percentages of money that we spent on the 10 major areas with the stream restoration broken out separately because stream restoration is under a category with that includes about six other items and I would like to see stream restoration and then all the other categories, the 10 major areas that we have been pursuing in order to reach this permit goal. Then I noticed something that, that something that, yeah, here it is. Something that Chair Wash, here it is. Something that Chair Walsh mentioned was the word stream stabilization that she hadn't seen anywhere. And actually, I saw it on a February 13th memo from Director Kabetty to Brandi Gans on the bottom of the page under the fiscal analysis, the last paragraph, where it talks about the county continuing to implement numerous programs. And admittedly, that term stuck out to me and I put it in a highlighted yellow. Because I thought, is this just another way to describe stream restoration? Or is this actually stream stabilization? And how does that differ from stream restoration? Because ironically, in that last paragraph, the word stream restoration was not even mentioned. And yet we have eight activities listed as being under the planning stage with one under construction. So I'm wondering why was stream restoration not mentioned and the stabilization actually means stream restoration. Do you see that? So could I ask specifically? Right, that's why, yeah. So can I specifically which paragraph? It's the last paragraph. There's fiscal analysis. It's two brand-against from Mr. Cabetti. And then the very last paragraph right in the middle of the paragraph. The county continues to implement the numerous programs required by MS4 permit. BMPs, which is best, something- Management practices. Best management practices will continue to be utilized to complete the restoration work and improve water quality, including outfall stabilization, tree planning, construction of new BMPs, retrofitting existing BMPs, stream stabilization, streets we've been inlet cleaning and septic system upgrades, pump outs and connections to the sanitary sewer system. Do you see that? Do you see it now? Stream state? Does it mean the same thing? Is it just the same thing? The stabilization mean the same thing as restoration? Is restoration. Is it just using a different word So that when we see it from now on, we know that it means stream restoration. Was there an understanding? I mean, Ms. Walsh, you had indicated that you had a conversation with Mr. Richman about the definition of the words? No, not the definition. It was in the evolution of the project, I think, surrounding Dunlough at Middle School. The advocates and the neighbors involved there made it part of their kind of efforts to call it what it is, which is it's not restoring anything. It's stabilizing a roading banks. And so there's less the greenwashing effect with that. It's a more honest statement about what we're doing. And so that was a deliberate word choice that our own community members started using. And then I was happy to see Mr. Dela, I'm not going to get it right this morning. Mr. Richmond used it right when he testified before us last Monday's public hearing. Because it is, it's a more honest statement about what we're doing. But I think the preference is to get away from a discussion about rhetoric and actually get to the point where we're doing sound policy things with finite pools of money in a rapidly dwindling green environment. So I would say, I have no issues with that. With that characterization of the two words, to me they would be interchangeable, but I understand the nuance, and I have no issues with it either being called stabilization of relationships. OK, I just wanted to understand that when I see this word now, that's what it means. Okay. Then I had another question, two more questions actually one that came from the students. But the first question is, so we have this 11,019 acres that's our baseline. So So what happens when we grant waivers to cut down specimen trees, cut out clear cut forest conservation, pave over wetlands like those waivers, such as the waivers that were granted for the apartment building that's being constructed at the corner of free town road in Cedar Lane. All of that beautiful forested land with those wetlands is now impervious surface. So does that get added back to our impervious surface baseline? Do we need to do something that now says, oh, we have to do some more stream stabilization or we have to do more inlet cleaning or how does that impact your baseline? So first, well, first I'll just say that... And that doesn't include all the stuff that has gone on and the tree cutting up at the top of, in Ellicott City, at the top of the hills there. So the first thing I would say is that the Department of Planning and Zoning does analyze that. They have their division of an engineering division that looks at stormwater and looks at some of the other code items in section 16 to see, and also in DLD as well to see if we're following what our regulations are, what's stated. And what should be taking place, and I believe it does, is that all new development does have to have its own, has to treat its own impervious acreage that it may be creating. And they're... The developer, wait a minute, hold on. So the developer is supposed to treat that impervious surface, and they can do it by putting trees out in District 5, correct? They can do it by a number of means. But that's generally how they do it. They put trees in District 5. I just want to make sure I understand. Well, I don't know if that's, again. I know you do. I know you're lucky. And it's called smart growth. Yeah, right. The gentleman from district I will not be recognized. 20 years ago. Well, I don't know if that's I know you do I know you're lucky and it's called smart growth Yeah, right the gentleman for this very I will not be recognized Yeah, yeah, the theory is it nets out. I'm not saying that's right And I certainly don't agree with it But the theory on the DPC side is as development comes in it nets out in terms of this count of impervious surface, right? That's correct. Okay. Well, we'll find out what the DPC plan was for those various. So the question that I can actually answer there is does it create a need for more green? Did they restore wetlands too? Or is it just trees that they require to be planted? So I'm not that familiar with the way they need to remediate. Okay. But there's a whole host of... Did they bring back the animals? There's a whole host of things that they're able to do. Birds. And I don't know if... The amphibians. I don't know if sending trees off to District 5 is what they routinely do or not. Oh, that's what they did, I think, at the corner of Free Town Road in Sweden. I wouldn't want to misconstrue that. So, but I know that how it affects us is that there should be, if they do control their stormwater, it wouldn't increase the amount that is needed for us to remediate or for us to treat. So, adding all that in purveys surfaces okay. So long as there's good storm water management. Yes. Whoa. That the controls that the controls are there. Okay. All right. And my last question is, you saw that wonderful presentation. Is there any reason why we can't do exactly what those students ask for, which is 0% of this remaining permit period. 0% of stream stabilization should occur for this remaining period. I mean, one's under construction, seven are being in planned right now. Is there any reason why we can't say zero and then cut it back, way back. I think the students said 35%. I would say 20. Did they say 20? Oh, okay. So I was thinking how far back can we go. What could you plan for the next permitting period that would allow us to ramp up all these other wonderful things that we could do and I know you're doing a lot of right now and I appreciate that Mr. Deluca and I know that you're trying hard to get away from the stream stabilization so I appreciate that too I do I appreciate that you're that you recognize there are some issues and that the community is not happy about that so and I I think that you see these bigger pictures as well. So I'm wondering if there's a way to plan to just say goodbye to stream stabilization in the future so that we can do all these other wonderful projects. We're putting millions of dollars into these projects and we just doubled this fee on our communities, on Howard County residents. And in the past what I kept hearing was, well it's too expensive, it's too expensive. Well we doubled the fees and I looked at how much money we're going to be getting in the future. It's a lot. So it seems to me like we should double the amount actually. It seems like this would be an ideal time to say, wow, we can pursue all these other projects that are much less than that are really good for the environment. Anyway, is there any reason that you see right now that we can't do that? Well, the first thing I'd like to say is that I was impressed with the presentation. Oh, thank you. And I think the activism that we're seeing at the middle school and high school level is great to see. I think that they will be our future decision makers. And they may be in this seat someday if they go into engineering or even if they go into environmental policy. So I think that it's a great thing to see. And so that being said, I think that we can take a look at these projects, But what I continue to say is that this is just a planning document. Can we do away with stream restoration or stream stabilization projects altogether? I don't know if we would be able to do that. I don't think that it's, I think that we have choices that we can make on a local level. But I think that the real decision is what they're going to do at the state level. And what they hold us to at the state level, what they hold the locals to, because we do have, and although I know, because of the people that we deal with in MDE and the kind of relationship we have with them that they would work with us, but there is, you know, their backstop for enforcement as a consent order. And that's not what we want to see happen here because that would be more expensive. So they're under consent order from the federal EPA, is that what? I don't know if they're under a consent order, but that is their- You're under a consent order. I'm trying to figure out who's, where's the consent order coming from? That is their enforcement. That's their enforcement, okay. And we don't want to be in that position, very similar to Water and Sewer, for example, with consent orders, how we have to comply. But the other point I wanted to make as far as what the rate is, could probably best be answered by financial people, budget and financial people, because, as you know, you were probably given for review the financial cash flow models that need to extend out the 20-year period and for the payment of those bonds. And so a lot of what we're doing in terms of current rate structure is due to having to pay the debt service back on those bonds in the general. So where are we at with the 1,345 acres that we needed to remediate right now? How far are we 80% complete? I think that without knowing an exact number, which I think we have stated, we have given that answer in written form, but I think that and I heard 97% we might be up to 97% complete. So we could we could easily say for the remainder of this two-year period zero, zero stream stabilization projects. I mean we could we could meet, easily meet the rest of this permitting period with all the other wonderful things that you do, the bioswales, the inlet cleaning, the street sweeping, the sewage, whatever, septic. Septic, the septic cleanup. I mean, there are like, I don't know, 60 different things listed on us to what we can do. So we could say no more stream rest stabilization projects for these remaining two years. And it wouldn't harm your ability to reach your goal. Right. So I would, I would, I think that we could have, I can't commit to that right now. Oh wait, you said right. I heard you say right, it was very quiet. I couldn't commit to that right here right now. Okay, fair enough. A sensation that we could have. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Dullig. I really appreciate that. I appreciate your open mind and us on this topic and you're desire to try and deal with this issue. Yes, thank you. And thank you, Miss Pages, Environmental Science Seminar for informing our conversation this morning. I think I'm gonna wrap it up and we're gonna turn to item number two on our agenda then. Thank you, Mr. Delica, for joining us this morning. Next up is CB18, introduced by D3's Cristiana Rigby, regarding transit-orient development, residential units, exemptions. And yep, we have a number of people joining us. Jeff Brownow, Chief Division of Research. I thought I saw Linda Eisenberg, also of Director, or Director, both of the Department of Planning Community, Director of Planning and Zoning. I'm already tired out. Kelly Simano, Director of Housing Community Development, Mandy Heinel, Council for Wells Obrecht. Do we have Wells Obrecht or not? Okay. He has- We do not. He sent us an email last time. He was going to be unable to attend today. Okay. Thank you. How about schools? Do we have Mr. Lublier or Mr. Brown? Okay. Perfect. And we told them we thought we had plenty of people to talk about this matter this morning. Miss Rebietten, know if you wanted to open the discussion? Sure, so I think the first place to begin would be where. I think we heard some testimony talking about six places, but just to clarify really for the public, that this bill focuses on a smaller area than 538 the state bill. This focuses on Howard County's transit oriented developments where we have said this is what constitutes a transit oriented development, which also to clarify, that should be based on the station, where the stations are now not where we believe the station could be in the future, which I think is certainly a point of contention that I have with some of the past approaches to TODs, and I know others have as well. So there are maps included for the council that show the three TOD areas and what those are. So just to clarify it is three. Then we also, three TOD. Can you be, please, more, like how is this bill limited to those three ODs versus the, I'm trying to pull out this that we got in the fiscal analysis that has. analysis that has those are some parcels within and one's paddock point is multiple within the Laurel to do but it is analysis that has those are some parcels within and one paddock point is multiple within the laurel to do but it is laurel and that has the check mark line around it then there's anapolis junction which is at the savage stop and And then there's Dorsey, which. They're not with me. Right? And then there's Dorsey, which. It looks like they're in New York, so I just say it in New York. Yes, so it goes Dorsey. And the right hand side, which one is that? That is Dorsey, but that is the already developed Hanover Hills Thomas Viaduct Oxford Square area. So this isn't really focused on that. This is really focused on. Did this, but thank you. It is so easy to see Okay, I just want to thank our staff for whoever did this, but this was great. Okay. So really appreciate your efforts on this. Okay. We requested it, because we hope it would be helpful. It is helpful. So what is the next one? What would the green at the top? But this has all kinds of other stuff that's, you know, is this not part of the TOD? I think that the carry on question from Debs was, what on these remains undefined? Yes, which I took to be white, but apparently that means not owned by one of 15 larger. Actually, that would be a good thing. Could you start by describing these maps, Ms. Rieby? I might be helpful. I actually think director Eisenberg would probably be better at describing the maps for us. They're prepared by DPC staff, Sarah Latimer and James Warcus in it. And I am opening them up, but my computer is not quite working. Mr. Anderson has them displayed. Oh, okay. So, yes. So we prepared, if you open up to the big map map that shows the various TOD areas. So this first map shows the kind of pockets that go along toward the Ruan Quarter and the county line near Interundal County that shows kind of the three main pockets of where we have our TOD zoning. And that comprises about 370 acres in the county that is zoned TOD in Howard County. I'm going to what Mr. Gbeass for was the top 15 owners by parcel. So everything that's in gray is not zone TOD. Everything that is in white or a color is zoned TOD. The colorful colored ones are the ones that are listed by the top 15 property owners. And so it's hard to see here, but they're listed out by the name of the property and acreage. And do they have that in their binder? Yeah, we do. Great, great. Okay, I have it. So now if you want to start, I say at the top, most one, and I'm really trying to open this up. And my computer just does not want to cooperate in their bidding. Yeah, it is acrobat. It keeps just spinning. I think it might be everyone's acrobat, because I can't open a miter. I acrobat won my updated last night. Yeah, mine says acrobat not responding, and it just keeps spinning. I think it's a county wide issue. Okay, IT, do you hear what is going on if any of you are? Yeah, mine says acrobat not responding and it just keeps spinning. I think it's a county white issue Okay, I T. Do you hear what is going on if any of you are out there? Acrobat is spinning on everybody's computers. Yeah Yeah, I'm having technical yeah, that's exactly what's happening. Right. This is Dorsey. OK, so now these are all the properties that are zones T of G in the most northern section. And then the acreage breakdown. So what was a specific question about this particular map? I think we were just trying to, because Ms. Rigby was starting to talk about the different parcels. And I think we were just trying to, since we had these maps understand where they were, we'll get back to them. OK. OK. So that we can let Miss Rigby finish her presentation, but I think just Identifying these maps would be helpful at the outset of this conversation. Yeah sure And then just really quickly if you're I do have some comparisons to if you have any questions about how this compares to the Housing expansion and affordability. We will ask all those questions. Absolutely. They are on my list. Okay. So the next two other maps. Yeah, there's two more maps. There's two more maps. So then the next map, if you want to open up map two. And all of a sudden mine's catching up now. Did they hear me? Oh, this is me. And everything just like blew up on my computer. All right. And then this is the next. This is the next. This is actually, so then map 2, which is the, I believe this, the savage, Markstation area. Oh, that's the Laura. Laura, I'm sorry. And then, and then the, to that's the one that's that we're talking about. Yep. OK. And then can you open the other map? Yeah. In the map three. And this is an established junction in Merit. And then your property. Yes, yes. This is where an Applish Diction is, which is seven acres. And I just really wanted to start with the maps because I think there was some question from the public about where we're looking and what this really entails. And I really want to be clear that this is a really focused approach on where we said in Hoco by Design where we want to focus on development and how we can increase our housing units without significantly affecting school capacity, but also making sure we have the resources to address the challenges affecting our budgets and our school budgets. Some of the other questions that came up that I'd love for us to touch on were about, this one was from Laura Meadow from the League of Women Borders and it was about why do we focus on the types of units that are under our moderate income housing unit program that there should be a mix of these units at the developments and not just one or two. So that is something I absolutely want to hear people's thoughts and perspectives on. The other was brought up by Lisa Markovitz, which is this challenge of you have folks who have submitted but not really progressed a lot, like Pat a coin. And so how can we create a system that incentivizes them to go faster than they that really incentivizes them to complete the projects. There are all these other challenges out there, but whether that's a look back from four years from the permit or setting an entry and an exit and how you incentivize that, but I thought that was a really great point for Miss Markovitz. And then the third one was brought up by Ms. Walsh. And that's really this concept of putting a sunset on the bill. So that way we can have a review, take a look, see how did this work, what worked, what didn't work, and kind of force the body that's sitting here at whatever time period that is to take it up, review it, and decide if this is what changes they want to make at that point. So I think that would be a really great place for this conversation to focus today to keep it constructive. I have questions other than that. Okay. Well, I think most of the questions are going to come from you, Missyelm. Do you want to go ahead? Oh, OK. All right. So you have any Mr. Newman? I'm happy to start. All right. Disability and come housing. And I'd like to start with you in Seminole because I'm trying to understand disability income housing and what this actually means. And what is the maximum rent for disability income housing this year? What does a person who qualifies for disability income housing unit, which, okay, for purposes of this I will call it a D.I.H.U. but at least now everybody knows what a D.I.H.U. stands for. So what is the maximum rent this year for a D.I.H.U.? So there are five rents for a studio apartment. It is $493. For a one bedroom, it is $529. For a two bedroom, it is $634. For a three bedroom, it is $733. And for a four bedroom, it is $818. And these are published annually January 1st and July 1st on the housing website under the modern income housing unit program pricing and standards. Great, thank you. So these are these based on Howard County's adjusted median income or it is the counties. Yes. Okay, so in other places it could actually be much, much lower. It potentially could be. Okay. How many, do you have any idea how many DHAU units we have here in Howard County? One. One apartment unit. Correct. In the entire county. Correct. Well, I have to turn to you, Mandy. Is Mr. Obrek actually planning on putting in disability housing, disability income housing units? Yes. It's his. So the answer is yes. Yes, and I'm sorry that he's not here. He has diverticulated us. He is very ill right now. You didn't need to share that. So I just want, but I want you to know he's not hiding. He shared it already. It's not a secret. He's fine with it, but I want you to know he's happy to meet us as soon as he is feeling a little bit better. But But just as he's done in Brewer's Hill, which he has provided disability units, they intend to do here. How many? I am not sure. One? No, I don't think it's one, no. I think he's expecting to provide many accessible units. I mean, you smile, you laugh, we have one. Yes, they are. I mean, you get a pilot for one unit. I'm just trying to understand. That's the way that this legislation is written. You get a tax pilot for one unit. It doesn't say. It's not correct. No, it's a 15% of the units. And you think he would have, you think he would supply 15% of his units at this price? I can't commit to it, but I know that he is supportive of the idea of a pilot for that percentage. You know, we were aware of that being a piece of the requirement, and so he's supportive of that. Well, that's another question I actually have for you, Ms. Riggby. In reading through this law, this legislation, it is not clear to me. It's not required, the disability and come housing units. Correct? So it's if you want to get a pilot. Right. I understand. So they're not required. You could just say no. I'm not going to do it at all. If you decide you don't want to get a pilot. But then you would have to cover, they would have to eat the cost of providing moderate income housing units, which is significant in the millions of dollars. So I thought they had to do that anyway. Can I please finish? For TOD. Yes, but that's why they're not happening. So this pilot is the thing that makes it possible for these door knobs to become real. So that is why, because what we're doing now isn't working. We have one unit under the current program. So we have to change how we do things if we want to actually house people. So question for you, Ms. Eisenberg, is 600 unit apartment complex considered an activity center? Is it also considered an activity center? I mean, we have to look at where the activity centers are. So they're geographically located? We were just looking at those maps. Could you look at that for me? Because I think this is an important consideration. So we'd have to pull a polpoco by design and see where our activity centers are located. You're saying no that it's not. I'm saying we were told repeatedly in countless hours of my life, I would never like to think about again that that map was not definitive terms of defining where the activity centers were that they could be in place. That would be correct. So marked or they could not be in places that were so marked like that. That it was illustrative only and I think we reached a agreement to include a statement like that in that so no, we will not be pulling up. We will not be pulling that up. Of course, these are activity centers. Of course, they are. Why is this a hard question? Yes, it's not. Well, they can evolve in the future. This legislation wouldn't prohibit them from becoming an activity center when that determined to be. No, I'm just, we said that for activity centers they had to have 20% MIU. So I absolutely think that we can and should raise it. So that is certainly something that I've discussed with other people who have been open to. Same 15% looks pretty low to me given what we said in in hookup by design. No, I totally agree. I'm totally open. I already have it drafted. So thank you so much for your support. So how would that possibly incentivize builders to build more TOD 600 unit apartment buildings if we're saying that they would have to put in another 5% of MIHU? So to clarify what CB18 does is that it allows DHCD to enter into an agreement. And I do think that we should look at expanding the mix per Laura Metals testimony because I think what we wouldn't want to do is to have it, to not have the mix and then have it such that we've abated most of the tax proceeds that we would be bringing in, right? Because if we want to have the resources to address our challenges, then we need to bring those resources in. So obviously the disability income units are heavily subsidized. The moderate income units are less heavily subsidized. So having a mix of moderate income, low income, and disability income would significantly help that tax evapment sort of mix and aspect. So we could still be getting in the resources. So instead of spinning in circles about how we don't have the resources to address our problems, we could take action. And so this bill would allow if they meet that mark, then they could enter in a pilot, and then we would actually have the units because they're not getting built now. I think that's the crux of it. It's not happening now. And if we want things to change, then we need to change how we do things. Mandy, how far is the 600 unit apartment building that Mr. Obrach is proposing from the train station? How far is it? I think it's within the three quarters of a mile required. I think it's even closer. It might be closer to a half mile. And what is the, what's the ingress in egress from the 600 unit apartment building to the train station? Is it a paid path? Is it a, is it a dirt path? Is it gravel? What is it? So I don't think it's, it's totally set in stone yet because we're only, we only are at sketch plan, right? It's halted. So there's no path right now. Is there a path? I don't think that it's fair to say there's no path. I think the plans aren't fully baked. It's certainly the goal right now. I'm just asking you for existing right now. There will be some sort of path to the Mark Train station. But there's not one now. I just want to know what there is right now. There's nothing now. There's just a sketch plan now. There's not a fully baked plan. But yes, there is a path to the mark train. I just don't know exactly what it looks like and I don't know that it's totally formed. Are you aware of anybody who takes that mark train to go to? Is it Dell computers whose tenant at the building that he wants to take to the commercial building wants to tear down. It's definitely a computer company. I think it's Dell. That's my understanding. I think it's Dell. Yeah. So it's Dell computers that's at the commercial building right now that he wants to tear down and make into 600 apartments. Do you know if there's anybody who travels on that train to get to the workplace? I'm not sure. I think that would be an interesting thing to know because the whole idea of this transitory and a development is that people get on the train. They travel to their workplace. Well that's the opposite though. You're asking if anybody travels in by train to Dell, whereas the TOD is who would live in the apartment and travel to their job? And there's an apartment building there now, so we can probably figure that out. I mean, yes, and do we know, have you done any market research to determine how many people from that apartment building use the train to get to their jobs? I'm not sure about that apartment. Don't you think that would be useful to find out if we're going to say this is all about transit-oriented development? We want people to take jobs. I'm not sure about that. Don't you think that would be useful to find out if we're going to say this is all about transit-oriented development? We want people to take transit. We can certainly look at market studies. I'm not sure what kind of access we have to the residents of that apartment building, but we're happy to survey. Just to survey. You could just talk to the apartment manager and ask them to survey the people who live there. seems like that would be easy enough to do. Because if nobody does it, then why do we even have a team? Thank you. Why are we even pretending to a centivize these particular types of developments for no reason? That is exactly what I'm thinking. Because I don't think anybody is using this transit right now. When if they are maybe 10 people at a 600, that's a lot of incentives that we're giving to TOD developers who are looking at getting frozen school surcharges, trying to get complete and total affo exemptions and then a pilot for building certain types of income units. That's a big ask. And I won't forget that you weren't here then, that Mr. O'Break met with us in February 2024 and he wanted to discuss how our local regulations encouraged developers to build units that increased the number of students attending schools. I did meet with him. I received a multi-page PowerPoint that itemized all the fees that new developments are required to pay in the county. Thank you very much Ms. Eisenberg. I appreciate the fact that we have increased the fees and that you have asked us to do so. And I think that's appropriate because those fees have been increased in accordance with the amount of time and effort that Ms. Eisenberg's department, the Department of Planning and Zoning, has to put into in order to ensure that our developers are following our rules. And I was asked to make a cheaper to build his project. When I bought at the suggestion, I was told that they would take their development to Baltimore City. I said, fine. And here we are, a year later. And we're getting now a piece of legislation from Ms. Rigby saying, oh, we're going to make a cheaper, we're going to get rid of Afo. We're going to give you a pilot for building certain types of units. Just Wednesday, I was at a meeting at MECO, which stands for the Maryland Association of Counties, which is definitely more Republican than Democratic. Given the percentage, I know David loves it. It's his favorite place in the entire state. And I am the representative and David is our alternative this year. So I think he will probably remember this. Because and the only reason why I mention that is because Mako is not a liberal, a bastion of liberalness. And we were being presented with one of the bills that the governor had put forward. I'm sure through the secretary of housing. And hidden in that bill was what they called early vesting, which means that at the time they filed their plan, they would start counting that would be the count for APFO, early investing, whereas right now, correct me if I'm wrong, Miss Eisenberg, right now APFO, you put in your plan, you file your plan, and then you You have to wait four years for app vote, right? And then you can start your construction, right? Once you get out of the bend. Okay. So I take that back. I think the earlyvesting meant that you could start your construction right away, because otherwise that would what I just described would be what we do. That you could start start your construction right away away and that would be four years, and that would be the Afo period. And the MECO employee who is responsible for following through on that bill stood up in front of all of us, and there were about 50 or 60 people in that room and he said in the most energetic voice you could possibly imagine this is nothing but a developer giveaway and we will do everything we can to fight this so I just I want you to you to know what this group that represents counties from all in the city, from all over the state of Maryland, feel about this type of developer giveaway. And they're going to be fighting it at the state level. Just to clarify, this bill has nothing to do with early vesting., but it does have to do with getting rid of APFO completely. Well, it's only for those areas located in the map. I thought there was actually really good testimony from one of the opponents of the bill. They said, this is the only place in the whole county where we're exempting APFO. And I was like, yes, that's it. Our one size fits all approach of APPO has been so harmful. You have places like Owen Brown Village Center that could absolutely benefit from reinvestment and redevelopment, but it's prohibited. And our one size fits all laws do that. And so this is taking a very targeted look, following Hoco by design, which, you know, we all, and I know you spent so much time on that. And so this is saying where we said we want to have housing development that this is where we should focus it. And the other thing is, and we all know this is true. And, you know, I think we might have done some things differently looking back but Howard County now has some of the highest and least predictable school search charge fees in the whole state and a challenge with that is that basically every new home in the county we've added a cost of almost 50 thousand dollars to those new homes and when comes to rents, about half of the rent is because of our county regulations. And I'm not saying that we should remove all of them, but I am saying that we should take a scalpel and be very specific and determined about cleaning up our side of the house to really affect housing affordability. And so that is why this is so focused in these three, not just these three areas, but also these three policy elements because we should be doing this with precision and focus. And so this is not with the state bill and make go just to be clear is not opposing this bill. And I just really appreciate good faith and an open-minded willingness to solve these challenges that face us. I just like to point out, I see that we have an advocate back here who understands Afo that Bowen Bridge Elementary School is right now at 112.5% utilization. This I'm only talking about the schools right now. When's the last time either of you went to Bowman Bridge? I've been I've been to plenty of overcrowded schools miss Rippy and you may love your overcrowded school. That's great. You'll maybe you'll love it even more when it gets even more overcrowded. Hanover Hills Elementary School, 114.9%. Forest Ridge Elementary School, 113.2%. These are just the schools that would be impacted by the 600 unit apartment building. Laura Woods, 105.3% protection valley middle school 118.4% Thomas via deck middle school 118.1% Hammond middle school 115.4% Murray Hill middle school 101.5% And this is what the school district said that they wanted to do in the years that they wanted to do it because this response to your issue because you said but the school's district isn't doing anything. They are trying to do things. So in 2020 because of Bowman Bridge a new elementary school was added in this region for 2027. Do we have that? No. yes, we do. I take it back. We do. Boundary review in 2026. In 2021, again, for Bowman Bridge Elementary School, obviously there's a big focus. I'm not the only one who thinks that there are problems with overgranted schools. A new elementary school was added again. This time it moved back to 2028 with a boundary review in 2027. In 2023 again, Bowman Bridge elementary school, a future Southeast elementary school with a boundary review. In 2023, Patuxon Valley middle school was added with TVMS and MHMS additions to these, that's two other middle schools, Thomas Viaduct and Murray Hill, and a boundary review. In 2024, oh look, Bowen Bridge is back because of the overcrowding. Again, a future Southeast Elementary School with the boundary review, still nothing. And in 2024, Patuxon Valley Middle School, again, with the additions and the Boundary Review. So I think they have been doing, they have been doing the school district has been trying very, very, very hard to address these overcrowding issues. And we have, as a county, not given the school district enough capital funding in order to allow all of these various things to proceed. But there's under capacity schools in that same region. They keep doing reviews. They're not in that region. But they keep doing reviews, but they're not using the capacity that exists around the corner. They are not in there's no localized way to change this situation. No look, I mean, they could send them halfway across the county. That is, all right, Mr. Reb. Let Mr. Reb answer that question, please. Thank you very much, Chair Walsh. So it's essential that when we talk about students in our county that we are also touching on housing stability Because when I was last at Bolman Bridge I Got to hear from a little girl who was really excited to get her own room Because that's a real story from real students so Looking at the state-rated capacity because the state is also very frustrated at how the locals are managing their resources or not managing their resources. And so I think it's also helpful to talk about real students instead of percentages. So if you look at the state rated capacities, which to be clear are not a clear one-to-one ratio or anything, for example, Gilford Elementary's state-rated capacity is higher than its local-rated capacity. So, do I think that there is room for clarity there? Yes. And I think it's important we look at the metric that the state uses to actually fund our schools Because otherwise we're we're not necessarily managing our resources and our taxpayer dollars in the best way for our students their parents or their grandparents so at At Bowman Bridge we are under state-rated capacity 100% of state-rated capacity by 90 students. And at Hammond Elementary, we are over state-rated capacity by 58 students. However, most puzzlingly to me, you have the milk producers, Wellington farms, which built single-family detached houses and town homes And a path right to gourmet crossing elementary, but those students are actually bust across Over to Hammond Elementary and what's gourmet crossing sitting at? Gourmet crossing is 288 students below 100% state rated capacity So I do think that there are opportunities for the school board to think wisely about this. And also, for example, going back to that milk producers one, it's no surprise to me that bullman bridges numbers fluctuate like that because the catchment area is super large. So I would hope that one of the things that they're doing is taking a look at these places before they come online, before students are in a school and have built relationships to say where's the best place for folks to go? You could eliminate one, if not more, buses from in use by having some of those kids walk to their closest school. And so those are some of the things that I really do hope that they consider and take advantage of. But regardless, I think this is actually a great time Mr. Brownow. If you could talk about some of the methodologies you use for your pupil yield analysis. Because it really showed that new types of developments, newer multifamily buildings produce far less students. Then. analysis because it really showed that new types of developments, new or multifamily buildings produce far less students than your single family detached homes and also the different regions. So if you could just touch on the methodology and how you approach that because I think we should really be using data backed approaches in our decision making. Sure, yeah, I'd be glad to discuss the report and just a little background of the report, the report was produced for the purposes of the APFO review committee. I think it was actually called for in Hokobe Design as something to do, as sort of a deep dive into looking at the pupil yields, looking at the details of apartments versus townhouses versus single-family detached, and also looking even further into apartments in terms of the type of apartment. And so what we did was we set had an agreement with the school system and they gave us records of all of the enrollments about 600,000 records for the last 10 years because we wanted to look at trends also. So we took those 600,000 records, and they combined them with our land use database, kind of, you know, overlaying them on a map. And we're able to tie them to the type of housing. We also looked at the housing survey, that the department housing does each year. And that survey is really good because it has more information that we have. We basically basically have the type of unit whether it's an apartment or whether it's a townhouse or a single family detached the housing survey actually looks at it's a survey but it covers about 80% of all rental housing in the county so it's a multifamily rental housing survey and it It looks at, it has rents, and it also has bedrooms per unit. And also the type of apartment, which is really important whether it's a garden style apartment versus a mid-rise elevator style apartment versus a high-rise. We don't have very many high high rise. I think high rises, there are nine stories are up. And there's only a few of those like in downtown Columbia. But the newer types of apartment units that are being built are considered mid-rise elevator. And they're typically, they might have retail. It's a mixed-use sort of development like downtown Columbia. You might have retail on the first floor. And then you might have three or four stories, maybe five stories above that, served by elevators. And that's different than a two or three-story garden apartment that would have stairs, for example. Now most of the housing, mostly apartment housing in the county is garden styles, because historically we've had garden style apartments. But some of the newer types of housing being built are the structures in downtown Columbia, the metropolitan, Juniper, Marlow that you're familiar with. And also some of the new apartment styles along the one quarter. So their elevator served three to four stories tall, and maybe a first floor retail underneath. So the housing survey, tying the data, the school data to the housing survey was brought us to kind of look at the yields for those types of units. And it was the first time that we've ever really done that in Howard County for purposes again to look at what these yields are by unit type. And so one reason that's important to look at multifamily more closely is because the future development in Howard County is going to be mostly 60% of apartments, rentals, and condos. Given the land use, given everything it was talked about in Hoke by Design, given the activity centers, they're just not allowed, let alone left for single family detached and townhouses in the county. So most of the future development will be apartments and multifamily dwelling. So, you probably, if you read this, I guess I'll be open to questions about it. But one of the things that this points out is that the newer built apartment units, like in downtown Cumbria, Columbia have lower yields compared to single family detached and single family attached. I think the average apartment yield county wide is like 0.31. And that includes all of the garden apartments we have in the county. And then if there's a chart on page, one of these pages that has, for example, the metropolitan has 0.01. So the metropolitan downtown Columbia has 0.01. How many MIU apartments are in that complex? That was actually I think the first none. Right. The answers to none. Correct. Yes. Thank you. You can just answer the question. Yes. And because that was one of the first Columbia units built before the agreement was changed to allow more apartments. But Juniper and Marla, which were more recently built in the Marywell weather section of Columbia, do have some modern income housing in them. So I mean, the point of the study is to look at the yields coming out of these newer types of apartment units being built. So the average is about 0.48 students per house. County-wide for all units type, That's what this chart shows on page 21. Whereas the metropolitan has 0.01, 10M flat, which is right next to the metropolitan point. No, MIH use. That's correct. And the student yield a 0.03. And then Juniper, which does have some MIH use, and their yield is 0.06. How many MIHUs? I don't know. Whatever it was, whatever the down, it's going to be planned called for. Mr. Brona, could you read out the Annapolis Junction which is in a TOD? So the Annapolis Junction, right. So the Annapolis Junction which is as .04. And that would be the project next to the new one. You keep asking about MIHU. Is there a different student yield, MIHU unit versus non-MIHU in a high-rise apartment? I don't think there would be because the MIHU units in the apartments are the same size typically as any other area. But no, I think that because they're more affordable a family can live there and that it plays like the inflats and juniper you're looking at rents of two to three thousand five hundred dollars for a space and people with families generally if they can afford rent like that, then they're looking at buying something if they have a family. Yeah, and the big, so one of the biggest variables is the number of bedrooms in apartments, right? And so for an example, and downtown Columbia is unique, I think one probably wouldn't have the same mix. But the metropolitan has 237 studio and one bedroom units. So this is why it has actually low yield. So about 62% of all the units of 380 units total are studio one bedroom. 29% are two bedroom units, and 32 units are 8% or three better units. So really depends on the type of apartment complex that's being built, how many studios in One Better Room? And the cost. And the cost. And the cost. So there's another chart in here that shows that the higher the rent, also the lower the yield. That's right. On page 21 though, I mean, I think it also has to do with geography because that's related to how much you're going to pay. So of these projects that are identified on page 21, how many of them are on the route, which of those are on the route one quarter? So an example is mission places on the route one quarter and that yield is 0.26, which is about half of the county wide yield. squared Square is on the root one quarter, Azure at Oxford Square at .27. Those are two that I can, and Brompton House, which is higher at .31. So Brompton House, Blue Stream, a .31 is the, at .31 is the average apartment yield county wide. So really, again, it depends on the type of apartment being built. And I don't know the unit mix of Brompton House, but it could have more three bedrooms or two bedrooms relative to the types of units in downtown Columbia. So really it really depends on what's being built. Okay. Is this that wait please? Is this data reflected on page 21 from the school system or from a survey conducted by the, by the, where is this data from? So this is taking the school system data. So all of the students enrolled in September 2023. Uh-huh. And then laid over top the housing survey. So basically, for example, Brompton House, we know how many units are in Brompton House and we know how many children were in Brompton. How many pupils were in the Brompton House and that's how the yield came up. So it's taking school data and overlaying it with the housing survey. So the school is providing the number of children? Yes, yeah. The school provided the number of children for the last 10 years. In this chart, in particular, just for 2023. Actual children, yeah, enrolled. So what is the survey, what is the data provided by the survey? So the housing survey, what it provides is more details of 80% of all the departments in the county. And it has the location where it is, and it has how many one bedroom, two bedrooms, three bedrooms, it has rents. So because it had all that information, we were able to create these sort of cross tabulation between students versus rents and students versus numbers of bedrooms per unit, that kind of thing. Okay, but we have location in number of one, two, and three bedroom units from an approved DPC plan, right? We have in have, in our DPC landing database, we have, for apartments, we have, all we have is apartment units and apartment complexes in the number of units. We don't know how many, how many of one bedroom's two bedrooms to three bedrooms, and we don't know the rents. I get the rent how many, the architectural typically of units in, we just approve apartments with units. We don't know how many one bedroom, two bedrooms, three bedrooms. Is that right? Yeah, that's not right. Well, I don't know, sometimes in that STP, so it may come up on the STP. Could you turn on your microphone, Ms. Eisenhower? We can look on the front sheet of the STP and see, yes. Right. It's not. That would be ill, right. I've seen it. Yeah. So it could be on the STP in terms of traffic. It is on the STP. But it does change when it comes to times that do building, the information. Okay. I mean, and I ask because obviously all the root 1 ones are on one side of this chart. So I really, in this discussion, I don't really care about downtown Columbia, because I think it's totally not relevant. I agree. Unless you want to start by as a person who represents your sexually luxury stuff along root one. And I highly in support of that. Let's put it right next to you. I don't know. A gravel pit like this is. But it's not relevant. It's really not relevant. It's not. Right, and I wasn't. So I don't want a gravel pit like this is, but it's not relevant. It's really not relevant. It's not. Right, and I wasn't. So I don't want to hear about Juniper. I mean, you're not making your case. Yeah, I wasn't trying to make it relevant. I was just trying to. OK, because all of us on Route 1 see those bus stops in the morning. So even this, I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. So go to Hanover Hills at the time that school gets in. And this, I don't, it just, it does not jive with lived experience. Of people who live there and people who represent the people who live there. It just doesn't. Yeah, for sure, the left side of your chart. Rich, I mean, I see them when I go to events there. It's rich people with dogs. But on this side, it's working families with lots of kids. So there's a disconnect here. The TOD apartment, that is on here, the real TOD, because I don't consider, I have a lot of strong feelings about Oxford Square, because I think you have to start where the station actually is, and not where you imagine could be but residences in anapolis junction, which is an apartment building in Anapolis junction and this average to OD is at point zero four But the countywide average for for all the housing unit types is at point 48 and even even when you get to the root one stuff, you're still, I mean, I got a lot of questions about what's going on in a text in Square, honestly. But, and Pennamon Park, because they just seem huge outliers. And so it really makes you wonder what's going on there. But, but, Residence is a NAPLIS junction is at .04. And I guess one of the questions would be how can we incentivize more sort of smaller, more affordable units that have one in two bedrooms. Ms. Hainel looks like you have something to add here. So just on our plan, the intention for anapolis junction for this TOD is 75% of the units would be studio or one bedroom apartments with the remaining 25% split that are a little bit bigger either two bedroom or three bedroom, but 75% of these units would be studio or one bedroom. So with that Mr. Broughnoud, I mean do you have analysis by the studio bedroom? 75%. Right. Yes. So on the next page 22, it kind of gets your question, Mr. Riggby, about production square. It really has to do with the size of the units, which is common sense. You know, average bedrooms per unit. So, production square is relatively high at 1.73 bedrooms per bring in Oxford Square at 1.63 bedrooms per unit. You know, metropolitan is 1.46. I don't know what the average would come up to be. And the percentages that were just stated, but it could probably be figured out. If it's 75% or two to one bedroom, but then it sounds like it would be on the lower end of the bedroom's pre-unit. Below that, that shows that, you know, as the, again, it makes sense as the number of bedrooms pre-unit goes up, the number of students in those units is higher. So, I wonder if that is sort of a piece that we could put in to try and make sure that we're really generating the type of housing that we're seeking in TODs. And at the same time, not significantly affecting our school capacity. I think that if the big push on this bill is the disability income unit, units that Mr. Obrek says that he's going to build that we should get some sort of guarantee from him before allowing this project to go forward or before allowing this legislation to go forward. instead of it being a, here's your incentive, it should be, here's the requirement and this is what you would get. If you, and this is what you would get. If you, and this is, you will get a pilot in return. Instead of a may, it should be a shout. And we could do it legislatively, or we could get a written guarantee from Mr. Obrecht that that's what he would do. Otherwise, we have one unit and just curious, where is that unit? What kind developer did that? Or is it somebody who owns a house and did it in some sort of assisted living? It is in a development. The other units are MIHUs, but there was an opportunity over their community center to do a unit for a person with a disability income. And because it had an elevator, they were able to make a unit above the community center. Well, that actually, I have some other questions about the disability income aspect of this. So I'm wondering, does DIAG mean that the unit is accessible for residents who have a physical disability or is it just people who have disability income, which may mean that they don't have a physical disability and if they did have have a physical disability, how do you guarantee that there are units that have universal design and are accessible to people with that disability? And then the last question I have about this whole thing is are people who are on disability income? Do they generally work? I don't know if people on disability income generally work or are they prohibited from working? They're not prohibited by this program, the program. Not by the income, but if you're receiving disability income come right I don't know if you're Prohibited from also working because I know there's some sort of regulations involving that like maybe you could get 10 or 20% of I don't know if it's outside Income I I thought maybe you would know because you dealt with it, but obviously you don't deal with it because you only have one for in-communics. You can work, but I don't know what the cap is, what you can earn before it could jeopardize your disability income. There's a kind of question. Well, this goes back to my views about a TOD. If you're making 15% of the apartment building disability income and most of those people, if not all of them, are not working outside of there where they're living, that it's just one more, why are we giving an incentive for 600 apartments to exist there? Well, there's a lot of places that people would want to go that they may not have access to transportation, but it might not be for work. So if you have mobility limitations, living in a TOD really expands your access to lots of different communities and places. You can roll there. You can roll to the rail. You know, the- My understanding and correct me if I'm wrong, Ms. Rebe, I'm sure that you know the train schedule, but that there's only like three times that it goes back and forth to Baltimore and Washington, D.C., via all of these TOD stops in the morning and in the evening. At least I know my friends, especially in the evening, have said, oh, I don't catch the 530 trade, I'm not going to be able to get it again until 620. know, I'm just wondering if that's still the case or if they have actually done something to enhance that terrain schedule? Sure, so as a former commuter from the station, I can tell you that it was more than four right now it's one, two, three, three, four, five, six in the morning and three in the evening. But obviously how they changed the schedules is dependent on a lot of things. They had expanded it to weekend service and then they had to restrictive. But it does get you a lot closer to the Odinton stops as well, which part of the reason is that the Camden line, which we are based off of, is owned by CSX, and then the pen line is owned by Amtrak. And, you know, so you do have these addition, these, these options. You do have to, you know, be on time if you have to catch a train. But, but really does provide options. The hope would be this would obviously contribute to our revenue. We actually received testimony from Maryland Department of Transportation in support of this bill to support the TOD initiatives. So I just, I wouldn't want us to think that people who receive disability income that the only benefit of them living at a train station is to go for employment because I think humans do a lot more than that and this connects them to a lot more than just employment. So I also, Missy, go ahead. Missy Aramund, did you have any questions you'd like to ask? Only just Would it help I know we have a scatter graph here But if you could pull that average bedroom number by By the specific projects that are on these charts Oh, we have it You have it. Yeah, actually so, right, so on the, on the top. Yeah, it's right about the scatter graph. The one difference to the scatter graph is all of the projects in the housing survey. So yeah, we have that data. The second thing is is we're going to get app foes in to us. So we got to deal with this bill, and then we're going to deal with AppFot again. Like, I need this updated for 2024. Yes. Because we were flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, and then we're plus 650. Is that an aberration? It's like who knows? But, you know, like, I like to go back to pre-2000 to 2019 you said plus 650 We added 650 students this year is that what it looks like oh Well, because Are you looking at on page three there? Yeah, oh in's interesting. That's so I think we're going to need 2024 if they want to say their draft numbers because they haven't had their year in audit yet. I don't care, but they're best guests of what we have for 2020. Yeah, we should be able to get that information. No problem. And it would and and I mean, I'm not optimistic that you have it the next week, but it would be I'll fall it, no problem. And it would, and, and I mean, I'm not optimistic that you have it the next week, but it would be helpful to even know now. Yeah, I mean, we have, we can get the enrollment data, but you're the latest enrollment data, so I think that would be helpful. Okay, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I have one question, I'll turn it back to you, Ms. Young, for a couple more, is, It was a surprise to me in the physical analysis where I mentioned all these other projects in a queue. How does what's proposed in this CB whatever number? How does this affect those already in process projects? I don't really care who answers. I don't know if that's you Miss Eisenberg because you're the director of the agency that's reviewing and approving these kinds of plans. Excuse me repeat the question one more time please. Sure, and I'll turn. Does this bill look backward and with all these other TODs get the advantage of this bill? No app though, et cetera. Fixed. Fixed search charges. I think it depends on how the bill is written. I mean, if something's in the pipeline now, would they get out? I mean, if they're already at their sketch plan and they're in the wait, then I would assume they would get out. Mr. Cook, what? Could you answer that? We will. Pardon me? We'll send you an answer. You'll send it to us? You can't. In writing. Yeah. You can't give us a name. The answer can't be it depends. No, it really can't be. So the way the bill is written, it reads prospectively. Okay. There's nothing that indicates that it's a director or actor. There's a couple of code provisions that I want to look at before answering. for answering questions. Okay, fine. I think that's what the director is referring to. All right. And I think that's what the director is referring to. All right, and I think the other piece is, it depends on how we structure that system of, like Lisa Markovitz's suggestion of back from the permit four years, or at submission and how you structure that piece is definitely gonna change that outcome. Well how long does it take? I mean how long does it really take to get one of these buildings, one of these high rights departments buildings built and like the first kid goes to school? So it takes an example I have is Marlow because that's the most recent one that was that's not a good example. You're back to downtown Columbia. I'm talking about bill. This is how long it takes to get it. How it goes through the process. How long it takes to get built? Not how many students. And I was a bit surprised because we do the projections every year. Marlow was, I think, one of the biggest apartment complexes we've ever had in the county. 477. because we do the projections every year. Marlow was, I think, one of the biggest apartment complexes we've ever had in the county, 470, something units. And so by the time of building permit was issued for construction. And then, of course, you have up to three years to build. And so that depends on the market, depends on their finances and all this stuff. So you can get a building permit, and they're not starting to construction for a year. I don't know the laps for Marlow, but I do know that it took, so once it was built and it's got its UNO from Bill N-O. You said not to give an excuse. You said building permit issued, they construct it, and then DILP issues, you said not to give anancy permit people can move into it, it's completed. Could you speak up a little bit? Sure, so it took three years for the apartment to get least up. Four of these stuff. So all of the apartment units to be rented out was about a three year process for a very large apartment building. And then from the time that, from the time in the process that this bill would be impactful, which is what submission, how far, if a new process, how far long, or how not far along does a project need to be right now that's already in concept, like this project, it's in concept, right? What do they have to have done or not done for this bill to impact them? So this project's in sketch? And so they're in the end. So anything that is already submitted to the county, let's say, won't be able to, you guys will be the first ones through the shoot, maybe, right, under the new bill. Okay, if it gets back, right. Okay, so let's say this bill passes next month. Okay. How many years is it going to take before they get that UNO, that building plan? So it depends. So they have to get through the final SDP process so there and there been so they still have a lot to process coming out of the plan. So they have to finalize their SDP their site development plan. So it just depends on how long it takes them to get through that process so that could be you know another couple years away. And I'm thinking it because we've talked about this concept of grandfathering, or sunset. And I'm like, OK, let's do a five-year sunset. Well, you might be two years into this five years before you even dig a hole. And then the lease up, like at what point would you know? Did it work? Did it not work? Should we have passed it? Should we have not? Like I'm just trying to get a sense of that whole. It could be five years because if it's three years or two to three years, from sketch to site plan to building permit and for a 650 unit building, another three years, it could be six years, six six seven years Absolutely now at what point in that process under the normal on the normal system now would they have needed to get their allocations would they Well in this case they're on hold they let's say they weren't on hold Same thing if they're on a hold then the typical process for a large building like that would be Three years of planning. Correct. Is that makes sense? Yeah, yes. They would come in with their presimidial. And then since it's on the route one, then they have to go through all their japp reviews and things like that. And then they would come in and then go through to their site development plans. That's like three years just to ramp up to that point. And probably another two years I must get through their STPs. We'd say four years total without even going through being in the bin for schools being closed. But if the school was open, that's never a word of pass. At what point in that process do you say here's your allocations? Right now. Now, right. Right. OK, before they go through the test. At the sketch plan is when they would get their allocations. So they're at the first time they get tested when they're at their sketch. So if they had allocations, now they would have their allocations. They would go through to the SDP process. So now because they did not have, they did not pass the adequacy test. Now they're on hold and they're in the bin and they can't process while they're in the bin. So that's the big thing you can't process while waiting. So now they're paused. So now when... did not pass the adequacy test. Now they're on hold and they're in the bin and they can't process while they're in the bin. So that's the big thing, you can't process. Correct. So now they're paused. So now when they come out of the bin, now they can go ahead and process through the STP process. Why can't you process while you're waiting? Because that's how our law works. Okay. Is it okay? That's the early best thing. I know Chair Walsh, we had this discussion about processing plans while you're waiting for school seats. I pulled the provision just so that way everyone has it. It's 16-11-05-C-7-I-B. That requires the four fails. And so just I know that was a discussion that we had as to when you could start processing and when your allocations were. So assuming that this okay I know and we had that conversation because it doesn't again in any way jive with lived experience on this council over six years. And so we pulled, if you recall, in maybe the first year, I actually tried to extend that full waiting period until seven years because it was at that point in time meaningless, just as you said, it takes about the same time to approve a plan as it does to get out of the waiting bin. And so we had, I think analysis from you, Mr. Brownow, which was showing that the average wait time is actually 1.9 years, never approximates three or five or whatever. Yeah, I think that was the average wait time of being held up in the school's bin. Yeah. So that's what we're talking about. Right. So that would be a pause. So if the normal process without the school's bin waiting is for a large project like this three to five years or longer, then you would add another year and a half to that. Because they... process without the school's bend, waiting is for a large project like this, three to five years or longer, then you would add another year and a half to that because there would be in the wait bend for that period of time and they can't process, the way our EPPF law works, you can't process plans as long as you're in the wait bend. There's a reason for that, it makes sense because when the first EPPFO committee came together to create the statute, the concept was that the developers wanted to be tested at their initial plan submission because they didn't want to spend a lot of money in design, site plan, design and all that. They went and they went to the predictability. So if you're tested at sketch plan and then you fail the school test so they know they're on hold and so then you keep taking the schools test every year but once you get out then you can proceed with the rest of your planning. So processing while you're on hold is a much different sort of situation than what we have in the bill. And the way the school chart works also is it's always three years ahead. So the first year in the testing chart is always three years ahead of the current year. Because the thinking is the units aren't going to be there until three years from the initial plan submission. Okay. If you're not processing sooner than that, then the students may be there sooner than the test, than what the chart shows. The general gist of my conversation with you, Ms. Hano, being that as applied, the waiting period in our current Apple standards is in my view, inality. Because again, going back to this analysis, they're not waiting three or five years for you to start looking at something else. They're in there for an average of 1.9, which means half of them are less than 1.9. That's how averages work, which is obviously not three or five years or the seven I was shooting for. And I didn't go back and look at this notion of sketch plan or otherwise, but depending on the project, and now six years in as a council member who this is my very favorite topic, it seems like every project that comes through has a different process. With your predecessor Amy Gown, we'd ask for the flow chart, and it didn't fail that every successive project we asked about had a different flow chart. So the code as it is talks about initial plans, it talks about preliminary plans, it talks about sketch plans. I think we need to be way more specific about what we're talking about. Because if you guys can't answer the questions straight away and Office of Law has to look it up, then that's an ambiguity I am not comfortable with. Agreed. And it will always, always, always be exploited. And probably already has, based on an analysis that shows that the average way of time is 1.9 years So I mean that's that's the problem I have right now is I was told that this could be a pilot because you know There weren't any other things and then I get a fiscal analysis that lists five or six and we have public testimony for my Empowers at least another. I need I need to understand how this affects them and in a way I'm like you know what if they want to also do 15% or 20% DIH use sign them up but you can't get the exemption from an abful you can't freeze your rates just because you've been dialing around I think a real problem with our current DPC standards in general is that they allow a developer to seize the land and submit something to Miss Eisenberg and freeze the world, C-Turf Valley. That's insane. The world has changed and I don't want us to be the inadvertent authors of another one of those. I mean, the very section of Apple starts out with one of those. If you were here then and this and not in that like, I just think we need to be very specific. That's my biggest concern right now with this proposal as it is. Rue 1 is a totally different animal. It's a totally different animal. TOD absolutely should work and we just demonstrated how bad we are at planning and zoning with the Oxford Square. Like, we should just learn our lessons and move on. And I think this is a good way to do it. But I think it may take too big a swipe and we've got to figure out what universities that were swiping at. Those are kind of my general comments that, again, that's my big issue is, I was the proponent of this notion of a sunset or a pilot. But I don't know when to cut it off, like Mr. Youngman said, and I don't know who else is in the mix to gauge kind of risk and lots of income if we were to extend the freezing of a surcharge or an exemption of a illusory way of time. Maybe a couple more questions. Ms. Young and we'll move on to our last topic. Well, and it also, how many you saw with, were there six? I have that somewhere in my notes too that are in the way pin right now that, or that have filed, but they're not in the way pin. They're just, they haven't moved forward. Isn't that what you said? Ms. Rikby, they haven't moved forward. And is the reason why they haven't moved forward? because of that, foers, the reason why they haven't moved forward is we just don is the reason why they haven't moved forward is we just don't know why they haven't moved forward. Three are in the weight bend. Three of the seven are in the weight bend. And then four are not. Well there's three in the weight bend including the 650 we've been discussing. And which one is that? I have so many. So, so. That's the one in Annapolis Junction Drive. That's the one in Annapolis Junction. It's in the way pin. That's my way pin. And then, the Donald Properties is in the way pin. And Dorsey Center, those are both in Dorsey. The Dorsey Tuity, those are both in. Two in Dorsey and one in Annapolis Junction are in the weapon. And how many units altogether do they, are they in the WAPIN for? So Dorsey is 250. O'Donnell property is 285. 100, 0, 0, 1, 0, junction drive is 650. That's a lot of units. There were 1,200 units. And how long three in the wait been? How long have they been in the wait been? So Dorsey Business Center has failed four times. So they're ready to come out? So in July, they would get to go because they would pass the fifth test. And then the O'Donnell is tested once, so they have a ways to go. and then junction drive has passed. It has failed the test. Okay. And then the O'Donnell is tested once so they have a ways to go. And then Junction Drive has passed. Has failed the test twice. So they have two more years to go. Yeah. Okay. Can we wait one second? Miss Hereder, whoever is in charge of the fiscal analysis at analysts still? Rebecca did this for us but it's not as consistent. We more details on this chart we saw that too in terms of address and you know Mr. Brownhouse describing three but I only see a notation that two are in there and if we could just have her follow up with Mr. Brownow and give us more details there but a lot of these plan what no if they could link the plan to each other that that would be a matter yeah yeah I mean these are sdp's that's a site development plan right how can you have a site development plan if you're still in hold on the school's been and you're not getting anything processed but a sketch plan because in some cases if you're an apartment project and you're not going to be subdivided in the land your initial submission is a site plan sdp so that's the only plan that you just submit Right? Yeah. So Yeah. So there is no wait. There's no wait. There's no wait. Please make me stop having this conversation. Please get Miss Heineau the flow chart. Okay. Thank you. Well, but I agree with what Miss Walsh is saying because it is confusing from the outside perspective of when you come into this flow chart. And then there's the other piece of there's all these things that are happening outside of the county's process in terms of lining up your financing and making sure you have your builders and, you know, and obviously material costs with tariffs and workforce challenges with changes to TPS programs and things like that are definitely coming our way. But I think adding that clarity and I agree on the specificity, I hear that and will work to make sure that it's really clear and specific. So the other four, do you have any idea what's holding up the other four? I mean, Ms. Rigby seemed very concerned that all of these developments were not moving forward. And I'm just, so we now know that three of them have been ones out. But the other four that are not being held up by APO. Did you refer to the fiscal study? Is that what you were talking about? Yes, yeah, the other. So you like Patic Point is listed there. So Patic Point already passed to Afo. Right. So they're under construction. OK. I mentioned corridor road. What's listed here is actually in pieces. So Patic Point is three different plans because they're at the different planning stages. So I think their so Patik Point is really the one that's additional but it's all these different parcels that are going into Patik Point and they were all held up by APO and now they're going to now they're all under construction because they passed the past APO. Well because did they pass it or did they do the full weight period? I think they might have waited a few years. They waited. So now they'll add to the overcrusted schools down there. Okay. And how many apartments are there? Do we know at Patock Point? There's condos and two over two. So there's exclusively four purchase available at paddock point at this point in time. Which allegedly will yield more students, but we'll see. Well, but again, that's based on unit size. So you're you're really looking at the unit size within the condo buildings and then also within the two over two buildings as well. Okay, you have more. How about one more miss this well. Okay. You have more. How about one more, Miss Yoh? Okay. Now I have to decide which one, because I still have a lot more. Okay. Then ask the really good one. No, it's hard for me to decide which one that is. Oh, I'm gonna ask this one, Ms. Rigby. Given that so much of what we have been discussing with APFO is the lack of school capacity, I want to know if in the future you will be an advocate for adding more money to our school capital budget. I know. But she's also on the HP 1450 task force with me. And I would like to hear her strong voice in our last meeting this week. So I think it's really essential when we talk about having the funds to add to school capacity projects that we have those funds to add to school capacity projects. Where that money comes from is our property tax and our income tax. When you an apartment like and I'm just using this as the example because it's right here, but Miss Heinell correct me if I'm wrong the current yield from that office building is about two hundred thousand dollars of tax revenue to the county Correct and what is the projected tax revenue from what you're planning to build? Over the next. So I have different calculations. Over the next. Just a year calculation. The year calculation is 4.2 million a year. Thank you. So that is essential because that goes to our general fund. From that general fund, we're looking at paying the capital bonds and the debt service with those funds. So the answer is absolutely, I'm an HCPSS grad. I want us to have the money to do the things we need to do. And to do that, we've got to make different choices like passing this bill and probably passing this wall, just bill after and you know I think that there are a lot of things that we could do to make a difference in terms of what we have and for resources available to school capacity you know absolutely 43 needed to be built and it's needed to be built a while ago but it hasn't and part of that is because we don't have those resources. So I support getting more resources in so we can get more resources out. We do have the resources. And we have been talking about that on 14, 50 now for months. So anyway, I would have liked to agree with my colleague based on the data shared. Cross your hands when you say that. Okay, okay. All right. Simulated congressional experts. We, I think we're going to close then that discussion. Thank you on CB 18 to our guests to help us better figure that out. We await some follow-up from you and we'll work with that. Last up this morning we have CB 20 and I think we have, I thought I saw Mr. Healey here. I think we have Dr. Sun Budget Administrator and Mr. Refye Healey from Finance. Oh good, I was like kind of thumbs the thumbs up. Okay. Okay. Yes. There you are. Mr. Anderson, and I realized I think in a hearing I called you Mr. Thomas. That's quite alright. I could not find my aqua books, but Mr. Gby already has made the request. If I send you the link, can you pull up the aqua page? Absolutely. It's in the bill, actually. So if you go to the 2024 aqua, which is our most recent, it'll be on page 87 and that's the same page while here so I'll be a little bit more context sitting. CB20 is my bill and it's the latest iteration of an attempt to focus us as county government and the various stakeholders involved school board, school system, executive, and this county council on what to do with surpluses in our annual budget. It's no surprise to anyone that they have been excessive, in my view, I guess. Over the last several years, there have been various explanations for it over the years, but there seems to be a different explanation every year. And that wouldn't be surprised in 2025 if we find ourselves in the same circumstance. So this bill is an effort to capture that excess surplus revenue, is that term of art is used in our charter and repurpose it exclusively for deferred capital maintenance needs of our school system. And so what I asked Mr. Anders, 87, 87 to pull up is the page from the annual comprehensive financial report that was issued. I think it was issued the end of 2024, it's for the period ending June 30th. What am I doing? Oh right, right, yeah, I know the rule. Isaiah, you think I looked at an electronic document. So so good. My children cleaned up and I have no idea where all my act for a library is. I don't, I'm like at a loss. And really, can we go to 86 first, please? So this is what we talked about with the external auditor when he came for our monthly meeting. And these are the fun balances. General fund is that first category. And Mr. Haley, if I'm saying something ridiculous please just interrupt. Do you know that I'm still trying to get there. And so what we heard from him, the external auditor from CLA, was there these four categories of, I'm looking over at Mr. Haley, four categories of of fund balance. And so, non-spendable is the first. You see that at the top right underfambe balances. Restricted is after that, committed is after that. And then one more page over, please, to 87. And then assigned is up at the top. So that leaves unassigned, which is one row from the bottom. That unassigned number for 2024 was $36 million. And that's taking into account all of the variously described categories of assignments above it. And so if you'll see there's already been allotted for the next year, not 2024, but for fiscal 2026, $50 million, it says, in capital projects, Educator Loan Assistance Program, 900,000. FY25, two of them are pay-goes and budgeted one-time initiatives, and then there's a second FY2026, one-time operating budget initiative. All of those tens and tens of millions are stripped out from the fund balance because they are according to this document assigned and that still leaves an unassigned balance just for fiscal year 2024, right? Of $36 million. So you can go to this same page, not this same page obviously, but the same chart in a successive years, or preceding years, I guess is what I did. And that's the analysis that's on page two of this actual bill. And pull that unassigned fund balance, second from the bottom, first column, from each one of those aquifers. And so we did. So in 2024, it was that $36.5 million. In 23, it was $76.1 million. In 22, it was 34. In 21, it was 24. In 20, it was 21. And fiscal year 2019, it was 18. I went back to 2019 because that's the first year that we're in office. And the executive who's here now was in office. And it showed, to me at least, a difference in how things were, for example, assigned. So if you went to this same table in the 2019 budget, which was kind of inherited from a prior executive, you wouldn't see these kind of swipes at future years. I'm obviously not an accountant or a, I don't know, I finance year, or this is not my strong suit. But to me, again, as a layperson, I look at some of this stuff and I say I don't understand why an FY 2026 capital expenditure is in a backwards looking, aquedocumen. So what I'm saying is I could probably figure out a way to get in a really big fight about what of that assigned stuff should also be in the unassigned found balance available to us for this purpose. But even if I, you know, and that's why I made a joke about in the friendliest way possible, these are the executives' compilations of his own fund balances, you know, approved by this outside auditor that says for last year, it was $36 million. We see that year after year, even when really big swipes are taken out. Like for example, $111 million. I think it's time for us as a council to act. I was grateful to the Board of Education for supporting this, both in written testimony and Chair Mosley came and testified in its support. They noted, I'm going to die. They noted that I need four votes to pass this. And I think one of the things that we have to do as a second part, and I'll brought this up and everyone did four votes as a high bar. So I didn't want to get into the mechanics of it if this is going nowhere. But I think part two is getting the school system to agree. I think you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm you. Sorry. I would like not to be so. Thank you. That's why I didn't talk in the last one. Getting this call system to agree to the methodology. Just from our conversation of that last IAC amendment, I mean, I'm the biggest critic of how that process exists right now. And so it hurts me to my core that I am at the same time criticizing the boards, particularly methodology for identifying priority projects for spenders, expenditures like this. I still am fighting with all my heart to find ways that we can repurpose, especially at least that on a signed fund balanced. I have some questions for law that I didn't think of until that public hearing. And one is I think the board is looking at this is a very finite thing that applies only to that 36 million. I think it goes back in time, doesn't it? Each of these preceding years has its own that fiscal year unassigned balance, right? So how would we draw a line in terms of how far back we can claw excess surplus funds for school system needs? Good morning, Rahu, here, Director of Finance. I'll start with your very last question. Unfortunately, you can't fall back because when we say on our sign fund balance, this is a balance sheet. It is at a point in time, which means it goes back all the way. So what really happens here is that all our sign fund balance comes from your net position of your basic revenue and expenditure spending. And so that comes into your own assigned phone balance. So this is the point of time. It doesn't, it calculates everything from prior years, as many years as you can go. It reports all of them as of today or as of June 30th. in this financial report, you want to sign phone balance is $36 million, which incorporates everything that has been prior. That's the way our county standards allow us to report this in a balance sheet. What is the real telling us is that, when you do your financials, your state rate of net position like your revenues and expenditures, that is based by your appropriation that you approve. That happens once a year. However, how do we not report all of the ongoing fiscal questions, believe that it can't be as embarked upon? We reflect that in our fund balance. In our balance sheet, so balance sheet incorporates all your assets, your liabilities, and your phone balance. Those are the three components that makes up your phone balance. So when you say cash for example, our cash is in section of the county. So we have that. Like when you look at already the phone balance, if you see we show that $85 million, $89 now, $85, which is here budget tabulation account, that if you look at it every year, you can see there's been a gradual increase year over year. And if you look below on this page that you're looking at, if you see, you're going to see subsequent year budget tabulation account of an additional $10.6 million. That is what we are assigning from this end of this year because the way the chart is reached is that we can only assign fund balance to establish Renny DeFond for prior year. So this current year, we know this year ended at a profit. So the money that is due for this year is 10.6. So we are signing that. So at the end of this fiscal year, this $10 million now move in addition to the $85 million, which you now give us approximately 95. And then at the end of the fiscal year, we see what this current year balance will be based on calculation. And at times, I think in my history in the county, there has been, I think, one year where the rainy day fund was lower because our revenue and expenditure became lower compared to previous year. It does happen when there's a huge revenue shortfall. To go into some of the explanation you were making. Under the governmental accounting center, both rule, there are mainly these categories, four major categories of fund balance. One is not spendable. Pretty much is saying we can spend that because they are tied to assets. And the second one is restricted, because, if you look, Gerraffo doesn't have any restriction. Most of them are tied to say foreign or outside body, giving us money. And if you look, if you see far-rescue, there's a summit, can we develop it? If you look at capital projects, there's a summit. Based on what the Estana body has already restricted us to. And then you look at the committed. The committed is your charter requirement, which is the $85 million. And then you have the citizen election fund, which is not a commitment based on what the council has passed. And that is there. And if you look, those are the two main ones we have in general fund. Then when it comes to assignment, that is now led for how we want to spend all the money we have available. And it's basically the county executive prerogative on how it decides how the assignment works. We need all of that because as the general requirements takes a decision, you couldn't need to build. 6, 15 clearly shows that you can spend this money for one time a year. And this is what this is designated for. And when you said a quick comment on the prior to FY18, you said this wasn't clearly shown. It has always been there. The years have never been accorded out. I would put them in, so we just combine like, for example, if we have capital projects, $50 million plus capital projects we have now, that amount to increase. And I think this was done based on these councils requests that we want to show to be clearly specific on how front balances have been used. Like the $111 million you mentioned, that is now being moved, but as of June 30, it was in move to the capital project. Once you approved the capital project for FY25, that money was moved to the capital projects. But because this statement was done before the effectiveness of the FY25 budget, we have to show it here. And so normally what we would have done is add this $50 million to that. We would not have been about $161 million, which we would be confusing. So what we've done here is to specify that only $50 million from this year is not been assigned for one time use. And likewise the various other breakdown there. For the $84 million, you can see that was in the operating budget for this year, which has been, if not fully spent, I've not reviewed the financials yet. But all of that has been spent for one time. That is operating, but one time in spenditures. And so school projects, $10 million is going to be in their school project. And then the policy reserve is the 3% that we agreed to. And as all of you ahead, we share that we now have a 10% reserve. Green Day 7% plus the policy reserve of 3% to help the county show demonstrate to the credit merely the first credit written agencies that we now have a 10% in reserve that is there that to demonstrate to them that we are physically responsible in meeting our obligation if the need ever arises. Unfortunately, they say that, but whenever you touch it, they don't see it as a what would be eligible for redirecting to capital schools needs would be that $36 million. So, is something like this, and here I'm going to ask you this, Mr. Cook. Again, if we were to pass this by the super majority required at our next voting session, would this apply then to the next year? And so when the aquifer came out in the end of 25, we would go to the same table and find that same figure. And then automatically that would be directed to the school's capital needs. Or would we have to have a bill like this every single year in order to achieve that result? So the way that we read the bill is that if it were passed, it would signal to essentially the board to put money in their budget request to the exact if it isn't and they're already for what is referred to in the bill. because deferred maintenance, which is hard to connect actually with the board's capital project, but leave me that a... or what is referred to in the bill, I think is deferred maintenance, which is hard to connect actually with the board's capital project, but leaving that aside. And then if the exec says, I agree, we'll put it in, then it comes into the budget, it comes down to you all, assuming there are no changes, then it would get funded that way. But the sums available, I guess, at this point is based on unassigned fund balance as of the end of FY24. Right? Yeah. Right. Okay, so we would have to file something like this year after year you're saying? If if if somebody on the council wanted to do the same Exercise every budget year than yes, okay. All right, just to add We need to take into consideration that the executive is designing his budget which will be come to the council. So some of these on our sign phone balance may have been used. I don't know. So but it is possible because you don't wait till the end for budget to arrive at the council for you to know how this on our sign phone balance is being used but I know it's within the county exactly progressive to spend some of these money and some of them may be going to the schools but it has is going through the budget process now which I know you'll be receiving the next month and some of this money would definitely be be being the budget process. I say one time it's been the show. OK, and I mean, whether or not your answer was it, it will renew or not, Mr. Cook. I really see the utility of this as a one-year exercise. And I'm just saying if I was the county executive, and I knew this bill was out there and it applied to successive years, then I would just bump up those assignments to gobble up my unassigned balance. So I don't- What you worry about because then because it's one year removed, you worry about sort of almost an overspending to try to make sure we don't finish with a fun balance, which could knock us into the negative if we get five budget. And there. Just a quick caution. Yes. The goal is never to always spend your fully on assigned fun balance because during the fiscal year things happen. As we've all noticed, we're seeing this year. If that happens and we end end up, because everybody spends that money, we can't pull money back from the schools. Once you all vote on the county executive signs, the money goes straight to school. We are going to dispose those funds. If there's a budget cause that occurs, that is going to come in here. You're going to see a negative, which is going to signal to everybody, all our staff and folks, that there's something wrong in Howard County. And that's a caveat we want to know, because we always want to have at least a positive here. If he's negative, that's a signal. That what is the underlying issue. And as you've all noticed, there are based on the written agencies commenting on their press releases, that they are very proud of how our county reacts to economic downtones and always being able to demonstrate that we'll always keep our power to drive. And you're coming back to talk about that bomb presentation meeting in April's monthly meeting, right? That goes into some of this rainy, no? No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No, I'm not related to this. But I mean, I get that, obviously. But I was just, yeah, I get that. I think this is a one-year thing, whether or not practically we could do it or would do it every successive year. I feel like that's, this is a one-time swipe, I think. Go ahead. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. I was just asking because in through the process of the task force for House Bill 1450, a suggestion has been made to recommend a percentage of Pego go to the capital needs of the school system. So I guess one of my questions is how these interplay together, because I would assume that part of this fun balance sort of rolls into next year's Pego. But I'm wondering, yeah, I'm essentially wondering about the interaction of the two elements together and then the second would be Would it be a safer approach to do a percentage of the unassigned fund balance like 80% to give that little buffer Just so that you're not in the negative ideally Why can that tell the council what to do? But that would be ideal Because like I said you don't want to have a negative and more so truly this budget process you may actually get the budget The budget from the county executive to have equally have spent some of these And I sign up that fund balance for obviously for one time in spend it's and that's the nice the beauty of When we have our these fund balances you can spend them for Recording the expenditure has to be one time expenditures and that's the nice, the beauty of when we have our these phone balances. You can't spend them for recurring expenditure, it has to be one time. And I think that's what we've used them for. So having the percentage will be ideal because that will issues that you are not trying to spend the entire $36 million and more so if there are priorities that are equally critical that need a one-time need, it could equally be some of that as well. Sorry, did you all talk about the legality of that or by what device that could be achieved? Because I mean that's what we always run up against as the council is that the budget is the exclusive, you know, authority of the executive. So only by that 615 clause in the charter could we kind of pull this out versus something. I mean, I think I would be totally agreeable to that and would have tried to file something like that, you know, five years ago. But we are very limited, I think, in terms of what we can do in terms of dictating, especially going forward the budget. So I'd say that one of the a positive thing about the framework of the committee is that a lot of the suggestions are made in terms of what would be great. So they're not necessarily constrained by reality in a lot of ways. It's like the state should do another build to learn and they really should. That'd be really great but we also can't necessarily control the outcome of the entire state budget. But I think in the specific Pego suggestion it was talked about working with the state delegation which is a much smaller subset and seems much more feasible than the entire Maryland General delegation. And I think I heard that from Katie Frey-Hester. Well, and also there are 15 people on this HB-1450 task force from throughout the county government and the state delegation. I like to think could be wrong but I would like to think that when we submit our report, our recommendations that they will be taken quite seriously by the county executive who will contemplate that in, I guess, see after this budget, one budget left. So would contemplate that those recommendations maybe even for this budget, but also the next budget. But I do have a couple of questions, so we can go back to your bill. So the first thing is in this bill that we would have to change 615B of the charter. Am I reading that right? No, we wouldn't. No, that's, I think to do the percent of Pega, we'd have to do some kind of referendum. But I think I'm exercising authority allowed me under 615. To require a percent of Pega, we probably would have to do something. Yeah, I would agree more than just this recommendation. No, I'm saying this bill is exercising authority already established under 615b. So long as we have the super majority to dedicate fiscal year 26 access surplus revenue for the deferred capital maintenance needs. So I guess I am still confused about the legality of this. we can just say this is what we're going to do under the charter. Four of us can just say to the county executive we're going to do this in our budget. We want you. No, not we're going to do it. But you have to do this. The budget is already done. There's already a fiscal year 26 budget. Right. We're going back almost a year and a half now because the aquifer is that far delayed. Right. So Mr. Healy said that money isn't there anymore. That money has already been I'm confused. I said he wasn wasn't there. OK. If you look, all of this assignment has been, it's not there. So this money is not going to be allocated. When we designed it, when the county executive design is budget, this $36 million on our side is on our side. Could be used for over one time expenditures. What I'm asking is that the where the the the charter 615B reads is allows the county executive to spend the on a sign balance however it wants. Yes. And there's $10 million in their preschool capital. Yes. OK. So which is never enough. Don't get me wrong. That is never enough. We're $79 million short every year according to the state. So that's so this legally we can take what? That's when I'm trying with four votes. Okay? What can we do legally with four votes, okay? What can we do legally with four votes? I think that the fact of office of law. Yeah, the way the bill operates in terms of 615B, is it signaling an intent if it were to pass the council to the board because the request starts with the board. It starts with the board and I we want x dollars for deferred maintenance that perhaps isn't in our request that we approved recently right maybe it is I don't know. That request is then presented to the exec and he decides whether he wants to include that in his budget or not. He either reduces it and sends down a different request for capital or he sends down 100% of what the board requests for its capital budget. In which case, I assume the council wouldn't touch that and so it would be appropriated to the board. This is really a signalling an intent by the body to have the board start the process by asking for some of money for deferred maintenance. So it doesn't actually... No, I mean, there's... And it's for the board, it's not even for us. It doesn't change anything else about the budget system, which by state law, the board comes up with its requests, right? It comes over, as a matter of state law, it goes with the exec. The exec can fully fund it or partially fund it. And if it's partially funded when it comes down to the body, you all can make upward appropriations up to the board requested in a particular category taking money from the county budget to add that money back in. So it's March 24th. We're going to get the school district's capital budget on April 1st, correct? Well, we already know it. Right, I thought we already knew it. And we'll get the county capital budget, right? So is it is going to fully fund it? So the school can't fund more into it. And we can't put more into it because by state code, it specifically says the county council may restore any denial or reduction made by the county executive and the annual budget submitted by the county board. And that's all we can do. Correct. So if the county executive, I forget with their budget, their capital budget is this year. Does anybody, I thought it was around 100. That's what I thought, yeah, around 110. So the capital budget is around 110, which think it's a lot more that they've asked for, a lot more this year than they ever have in the past. Yay school district, they're finally getting it. And the county executive says I'm going to fully fund your 110 million. Then even this low, let's get them to ask for the unassigned balance this year. Isn't really going to make a difference because we can't give it to them even if they the county executive has already said here's my fully funding you asked for this and it's fully funded. I mean no I don't think so that is the ordinary budget process this is not ordinary. The ordinary budget process is just that we've done that five years now six years. Yeah seven and eight is coming up. So this would say dear school board after you have asked for 110 million. Yes and the county executive has given you 102 million. No that's state and local. Well, if the county executive said that he was fully funding it, what does that mean? Does that mean the county executive isn't using just the county's money to fully fund their request? I think the total school's capital budget is about $100 million. And some part of that is funded by the state, and some part of that is funded by Howard County. So when the executive announces, I'm fully funding the school's capital budget request, he is fully funding that portion of the overall amount that is required of the county. I guess I would like to, that's one thing I would like to say. So that's the say that state is matching those that's for lack of better word That's the loophole is that the charter reads the county can't fund over their request. No, that's state law That's not the chart. Okay, so the county can't stand over their request But technically if the county's funding 70 and the state's funding 30 then we could fund another 30 We really are having a hard time understanding it. So I just... Stay... in the state's funding 30, then we could fund another 30. Is that what the report was saying? No, we really are having a hard time understanding it. Yeah, so state law provides that the Board of Education determines what the Board's budget is, including the capital budget of the Board. Right? If they decide they want their capital budget request for this coming fiscal year to be 100, 110, 200, a number. It doesn't matter. It's their choice. And where they put that money is their choice. The county is basically a bank. And so when it comes, when the board's budget request comes to the executive, he only has one choice to fully fund each category or he has the option under state law to cut by some number. When the budget comes down to the council, if there's been a cut over a reduction by the exec, the council has the power under state law to restore that cut. Right. We've always had that power. Right, and that's the beginning and the end of it. The budget passes, the money is transferred to the board periodically. And I guess the final point on this is that there's no guarantee that the board actually spends the money the way it's been appropriated by the county. They oftentimes will ask for transfers, which the county council either gives a thumbs up or a thumbs down to. I don't know. I've ever seen it do a thumbs down so and then unlike certain other recipients of county money once that money is appropriated to them, it does not come back to the county it falls to their their fund balance. So then if if the county executive's budget is going to come down with a full funding which is made up of county and state funds To this 110 million dollars and this law worked to pass This extra 36 million dollars still can't go to the school system not unless the board asked for it Yeah, so the so the board of ed would have to would have to vote to revise its request. Or do something set afterwards. Can they do that as ladies may? I'm not going to comment about what the board can do. But there is a time set by state law by which the board has to get its budget request to the county because we have our own budget calendar. And I don't know what the deadline is, but I assume it's sometime prior to April 1st when the capital budget comes down to the charter. And that's kind of what drives the ship. If there's a subsequent amendment to their request, if the executive wants to accept the amendment, he can. Does the executive have to accept the amendment? Okay, I'm remembering last year and you may recall this. Are you guys are making this way too hard? I'm not trying to touch this year's fiscal budget. Like we've already now had two votes on it. We had a special legislative session so we could vote on the 12 so we could get to the state by the 13th or there wasn't going to be state matching. But this is for the 2026 budget. It does. Yeah. Which is the budget that we're looking at right now. Right, that was this bill would apply to the upcoming FY26 budget by its own terms. But the money came from the previous year. Yeah, it doesn't matter where from. We're just saying, but I'm just saying, if he's going to send the budget down in two weeks and says I'm fully funding capital and the deadline has passed, then even if this bill passes, we can't give him extra money. But to be clear, the school system has long, and I don't know if it's different for operating versus capital but you know they're regularly making this operating budget good $1,000,000 more. We don't know what's actually going to be kept. And then they're voting the day before we vote. So clearly they have this process of amending their budget. And to me, this is a defined amount that we see that we know is real, that is supposed to be there for the next year. We could put a percentage on it to ensure we don't go into the negative because I think we all want to stay on the right side of the bond agencies. And then this would say, hey, there's this amount, please, like for sure it would be great to amend your budget. And they would see that and know that To me this is a really focused ask and and it's Sort of tying it. I like the look back because we know it's real money, right? It's not theoretical money It's real and hopefully hasn't been appropriated too far and hopefully this discussion discussion also helps with that formulation of it. And if we pass it, I mean, I normally wouldn't say this, but it's uncharted waters. If we pass it and there's some challenge at some point and it can't get done, it can't get done. Yeah, I'd love to live in a world where like deadlines matter and those amounts are definitive and things are clear But that hasn't really been the process from the school system It was last year, but I'd not prior to that and it doesn't seem this year like it's gonna be that either so So I think it makes a lot of sense So how soon will we know I guess this is for you mr. Refu? How soon will we know, I guess this is for you, Mr. Refu, how soon will we know where that unassigned fund balance, that unassigned fund balance can go to capital or operating, that 36 million that's in there. The only thing for one time expenditures. It can only go for one time expenditures. Okay. So we'll know in six, seven days for the capital. For the capital because that's a one time. Yes. Yes. Although I know you don't you guys put road resurfacing under operating which never has made sense to me. Okay. Yes. It doesn't make sense to you either. That's why you're laughing. Okay. The rural surface normally is always, it depends on where it goes, but it's assigned here as a capital or capital athlete. All right, so I'm just thinking of the timing of this again since it's for this year. We would have to get this passed. We wouldn't be voting on it for another two weeks. Then we, that would be like the first week or in the second week in April, and then we would have to tell the school board, well by then we would know we're all that money gone. But we would have to say, oh, you need to ask for more money than whatever you have asked for already, assuming that they asked for $110 million and $70 million of it was from the county. And then let's say they asked for another $20 million, but all of that unassigned fund balance had already been assigned. So then we, the county council, would have to go back into the budget and find $20 million. Very likely. Okay. I just wanted to get the mechanics of the loveliness of how this process would work. Okay. So then we would be screamed at by everybody who was saying you can't take $20 million from me, that's not fair, okay. All right. Wait, Deb, I don't know where you're going with this. Again, I'm trying to figure out how it really works. This is extra budget process. Like I don't know what you're talking about in terms of going back and having them an amended answer. I don't think that's an option at this point in time of the year. So they tried that last year. You don't remember that? We just literally did it last week. Didn't we just vote on the amendment on the 12th so we could see? Right, but there was also an attempt last year, one week before we were voting on our a, actually maybe three days before we were voting on our budget, where the school district said, if you want us to give you a request for another $4 million to our budget, we can do that if you think you can find the money. You don't remember that? No, I'm not trying to do that. That just is Mr. Cook said, there's two points here. One is to Mr. Healey's boss, which is stopped under estimating revenues. And then doling out that kind of assignment, like Santa Claus every year. Well, that's number one. And Pego. And Pego is more Santa Claus. Yes, it's more Santa Claus. So we're saying it's more. The timing of this is not accidental. We're doing this right before we get that new. Stop doing that, stop doing that. It's not too Mr. Haley, it's tear boss. But the second one is because we keep hearing this hand ringing from the board that there's not enough money. And I keep saying yes there is. I think you keep saying yes there. Yeah. Here it is from the last years audited fiscal year thing. There it is. We are now in the 10th, the ninth month of fiscal year 25. I'm assuming you and other people who work for Mr. Coward, Dr. Cavendball know what about what that number is going to be for this year. It's not like a mysterious thing that nobody knows until December of 20th, you know, the year before. I'm not saying that that number is mysterious. I'm concerned about that number already being assigned. That was unassigned from last year. The budget has been worked on now for the last three months. I don't know what that, this bill is for 26. I don't know what's already been assigned. Let me finish. So this is all I got. This is the most updated information I have. I don't have the intel that Mr. Healey and probably Dr. Son has about nine months into fiscal year 2025. I don't think we can do this as part of the ordinary course of budget and I don't want to because why don't want it to supplant what's already supposed to be going towards the school system. I want that so-called artificial cap of $54 million. I want to go back and make an amendment if for whatever reason the Board of Education leaves state money on the table. Again, what I'm trying to say is next time around board, and I don't think they can do it out of course, because of course I want to use state leverage. I want to maximize bill to learn and CIP funds, which we do not do. You're the one who keeps saying the $79 million. So they start working on their capital budget like the day after we pass it, they do their feasibility in June and it has all different projects on it again. We have this conversation every year. I could literally hit repeat. And so what I'm trying to do by this bill is say starting in June, after we all like get over our budget headache, you're going to have your original fight with the executive about how much you're going to get, you're going to have some indication from the state about what's available from CIP and Bill to learn and whatever state funding sources may or may not exist at that point. Plus, $36 million from this council bill. Independent of the ordinary cycle of fiscal year 26. So if I have to clean up some language in here that that is suggesting otherwise, I don't understand like I Don't understand it doesn't work. So otherwise. I don't think so 615 B is not separate from the budget process It's part of the budget article, but I'm saying next year in their fiscal 2027 They'll have their ordinary course and they'll have They'll have the 36 right but the concepts of of Pega, which is what 615B really is about, is going to be part of the budget that's going to come down here in a few weeks. The next round of what is now excess surplus isn't going to be known until October this year after 25 closes. So this bill is applicable, the way it's written and the way it would operate, it would apply to this upcoming budget, FY26. But what could does that do if we can't get it in the state process? Why can't it carry over to 27? Well, it's by its own terms, it's termed, right? It's supposed to be through FY26, which will end June 30th of 26. So that's the way I think it's written. That's the way it looks like it's written to me. Yeah. So that's why I said it the outset. It really starts with the board because it's their budget. And if they want to request more money, and there's time, and the exec says yes, and it can come in, then it's in. We're not at that point yet, because the budget hasn't come down. And I actually don't really know where the board is in terms of their process, but I suspect whoever said it is correct. There have been discussions along the way. I mean, once the audit came out for 24 in October of last year, you knew what fund balance was. But I'm saying, what if you changed? I mean, you're saying this because it says in the fiscal year 2026 budget in the title. And yeah, I mean, it has to apply to a, it's part of the budget article in the charter. So it's about, it's about dealing with excess surplus, right? So this, this provision and the rainy day fund came into existence because the county was actually funding ongoing expenses with surplus until they found themselves overspent and under-revenued and we were going over a fiscal cliff. So the charter was amendment to add a rainy day fund and as part of that, if there were funds left over that didn't need to go into rainy day fund because the amount required was met, that became excess surplus. And then a system was set up to prevent the use of excess surplus for basically ongoing expenses and recreating the problem. And it was limited to the things that are in 615 B. Debt service, capital projects, and non-recurring expenses in the operating budget, including capital outweighs, your votes. Okay. The council has the power to tweak those restrictions by essentially using excess surplus for essentially an operating expense. This bill essentially is taking a slightly different tack on what 615B is saying about capital project and is saying essentially to the people who have control over that issue, namely the Board of Education first and primary, and then the exec is put more money into deferred maintenance, whatever that means. And that's what this bill does. So if the board's already asked for what they want, they're not going to ask for any more. This bill won't be able to force them to ask. And if they don't ask the executive has no authority to exercise, just make a decision on whatever is that they've asked for. OK. We're going to, we're going to come back to you law and figure out how to amend this because that is not, that's not how I understand this would work. And it doesn't work that way as Ms. Young has gone out of her way to explain. Well, I don't know that I did a very good job of explaining it all. I did was ask a bunch of questions. I mean, I'd love to see that we could do something more. There's always, it's always better. This is a, I do something more. I do something more. I have it to file a bill that doesn't do anything. Certainly, we were talking about percentages. You could amend 615B in the charter and add it as a category of expenditures. If you're going to do that I would suggest a car bout in the event that we do end up in sort of a negative number. That's not what I've tried to hear though and that's two years away. I like it. We have a year by year. I just cannot stand another budget year watching tens of millions of dollars go through our fingers while our kids are in these decrepit schools. Like I really cannot take it another budget year. Unless we want to start conducting our budget meetings in some of those classrooms, maybe that would make the point. But I really, I mean we don't have windows here too, but we do have air conditioning. There were two points, and I acknowledge the first one, which was to send that message to your boss. But the second one was definitely to actually have an impact, and so we'll work with you about that. I don't know why Ms. Herit is not yelling at me, because we're at 1232, right? So I will take that, yes, Mr. Healy. I just want clarification, I know the point that has been made, just want to clarify that all the previous county executive has not assigned funds. All of them since I've been here, have been in the counties since 2007. Every county executive has assigned the fund balance the way they want to spend it for the following year. Once we close the books, it's a requirement before we sign off on the audit to ask how is the assignment and that is being the way it's been done by history. So it's not just the current kind of exactly is in all the previous county executives. All right. Thank you for sharing that. You know once I find my library I'm going to find you and we can look at 2019 versus 2024. But well, D1 will do its review of this and figure out if we can make a way to make this actually more effective other than as a message because I can write a message without a bill. Thank you all. With that, we are adjourned. Thanks for having me. This meeting is no longer being recorded. Get away from me, though.