Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the second and final joint operating budget work at session for the education and culture and health and human service joint committee. We're going to hear today about really important updates on our early care and education initiatives, which we met to discuss on February 5th and again on March 6th. So that's how much we care about our early care and education work. There's five agenda items today all relating to early care and education, childcare subsidies, children's opportunity alliance fund, NDA, the early care and education NDA, early childhood services, head start and pre-kindergarten services. We also have a CIP amendment at the end that we'll talk about. It's great to have all of our DHHS folks here. I see we've got Montgomery County Public Schools folks. We've got the OMB, General, many have General Services, maybe in the audience, they'll come later. And really, really, we wanna appreciate all the work that's been done prior to this session to continue to work together. And I know that's something that has not been easy, but very, very pleased. And I want to thank Mr. Rodriguez Hernandez, who's taken up this mantle and all of the team and our teams who have worked on this. So as has always been mentioned, you know, the goal here has always been how do we get the best system to cover the most amount of kids, get the most students in seats to help families, bring down costs, get the workforce in a better place, whether it paid better and it's more reliable, help providers, and then, but we know and then improve coordination across everybody in the system. So I know we'll, we have two great studies that we'll get a third soon. We have the Montgomery moving forward recommendations and advocacy, there's a lot going on here. So we're excited to see that. I will turn to my co-chair and good friend, Council Member Arminas, but just say we know this is a need. The demand in our county is huge for childcare and the whole system needs work and that's why we're here to make sure we make those investments to build a better system. So turn to my co-chair for any remarks. Yeah. Cool. Thanks, everybody. Good morning. Happy Friday. We have the Rare Friday session today. So just a couple of thoughts going in. And I've stayed fairly consistent in my comments among respective committees is that this continues to be a very unusual budget with a lot of moving parts in real time. And so we're going to discuss today's operating budget, a proposal that has recently come across our desk. And it's not that any of this work, of course, isn't important, isn't needed. It just has to be paired with the practical reality of the fiscal situation we find ourselves in at the moment which has a very uncomfortable amount of unknowns so but the work has never been more important than right now and I have been very impressed at the progress we've made in a number of key areas and I look forward to continuing that progress but as is always the case while we're discussing this within the context of the budget, we will have many more sessions within this upcoming fiscal and calendar year to talk about the policy work and the work that's on the ground and what more we can do to support you all in addition to the budget support. Thank you. Well said, as always. So Mr. Rodriguez Hernandez, I'll turn it over to you. It walk us through. All right, good morning everyone. I want to thank all of our partners here today from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Children Opportunity Alliance, MCPS, the College. It's really been a labor of love and I'm really excited for us to have this discussion today on their FR-26 recommended budget. So as noted today the committee will be reviewing FR-26 proposed budget changes for the early childhood services and childcare subsidy program areas under the Department of Health and Human Services, Children, Youth and Families Service Area. We will also be reviewing the Early Care and Education Non-Departmental Account, or NDA, and then the Early Care and Education Coordinating Entity, or Children Opportunity Aliances, as well. There's lots of acronyms, lots of ECEs, so we'll try to keep spelling them out as we have our conversation and discussion today. The executives recommended budget changes include the following programmatic staffing enhancements which is about $1.3 million for the Department's Early Childhood Services Program area, about $5 million for the ECE N DA and we will run through all of those or the early care and education and we will run through all of those after the presentations from our partners. I'll also note that council members Mink and Luki have submitted a proposal for one time $250,000 in addition to the general fund for the Children Opportunity Alliance and DA as well. The executive also recommended a few decreases in shifts for the early care and education sphere. Two of them relate to full-time employee positions that we will discuss later on and then a $231,200 reduction from one time FY25 funding for the Children's Opportunity Alliance as well. As noted, the HHS committee reviewed the compensation adjustments on April 21st for the entire department. However, I'll know that the ECE and DA also includes FY26 compensation adjustment and annualizations as well. And the Health and Human Services Committee also reviewed the operating budget and equity tool analysis for the department. However, the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice does not include analysis for our two NDAs, their Medicare and Education, and the Children Opportunity Alliance, and that the full council will review the 3% inflationary adjustments for the NDAs as well. And finally, at the end, we also had an extra child care renovations playground, CIP amendments submitted by the executive in April that we will review. And just for the public's awareness as well, on page three, you'll see a description of the different program areas that we're discussing today. And then on page four, we start with some information about vacancies where the Department of Human Health and Human Services and early childhood services program area has about six vacancies that was reported as of March so there could be changes as of now, however most are either in the interview stage or have selected a candidate. And then on page five we start the programmatic update. So you'll see section on the child care subsidies program. There were no specific enhancements outside of multi-program adjustments. So Council staff included an update here and that specifically administers the Working Parents Assistance Program Fund and they provided some information that all eligible children from birth to five receive the subsidies from the Early Care and Education NDA for the Working Parents Assistance Program or WPA. However, that children six years or older, starting September 2024, we're starting to be added to a wait list. And about as of March 2025, there are about 26 eligible children who are six or older on that wait list. And then moving forward to page six, it gives a nice table summary about the publicly funded and subsidized seats for child care here in the county. So they'll run through the Working Parents Assistance Program, the contract with Centro NIA, the Equal Care Supplemental, and then Head Start MCPS's pre-K efforts, and then of course the Blue Print for Maryland's future as well. The bottom of page seven, there's an update on the cross-community of County Child Care Center that our partners can speak more about as well, but did want to note that DHHS states that the million dollar commitment that we have for the state bond that they received is expected to be encumbered in this fiscal year 2025. We have a presentation from DHHS as well on the Community Connect portal that was an issue area that the committee and council focused on last year during our budget discussions and subsequent work sessions on and that will be provided after the presentations from our partners. And then unfortunately we have to talk about the federal and state potential impacts both looking at the Maryland child care scholarship where this Maryland State Department of Education has announced a temporary enrollment freeze for the Child Care Scholarship Program, a effective May 1st, which was yesterday. So all current and role-leaves are maintaining their scholarship. However, a wait list has been started for that program. And then we're also looking at our Head Start Federal Funds. We know that there's been some eliminations of the regions on the federal level, and that this was a rebad, recompatitive year for the county, DHHS and MCPS. So they had submitted an innovative proposal and they can also provide updates on the status of that proposal and potential impacts related to it. And also noting that we have a few federal childcare providers here, so they are providers within the federal government buildings that also had an impact on the federal level, so if there are any questions on that, we can discuss that as well. And then finally, on page 9, we have updates on the different studies and RFPs that the Department of Health and Human Services has put out. And as the Chair, Dr. Wando mentioned, that we have the studies completed for the Montgomery County Child Care Cost of Quality study, which you received a presentation on as well as the state of supply and demand for child care in the county. Finally, we have some information on the Maryland Excel's efforts here at the local level and DHHS does support providers in increasing their Excel's ratings. And as of February 2025, about 43.7% of center-based and letter of compliance programs, where I rated an excels level 3, 4, 5. So it's the higher you go, 5 being the highest quality level in rating that you can achieve. And then in February 2025 as well, about 17% of family child care and large family child care programs where it excels three, four, and five. So if there are additional questions on that, we can discuss that as well. And I'll turn it over to our partners and start with the first presentation. Sounds good, thank you. There's a lot to go over here. So good morning everyone, Jennifer Arnice, Senior Administrator for Early Child Services, DHHS. Thanks, I'm. Okay. So thank you for the opportunity for to review the budget from FY25 as well as our recommended budget for FY26. I want to first start our discussion today with focusing on two fundamental issues. First is that childcare opportunities are expensive and that these opportunities are hard to find in Montgomery County. So let's take a look at who we are serving, the children of Montgomery County. Based on our recently commissioned childcare supply and demand study, we know that there are approximately 57,000 children under the age of five living in our community. Among them, 32,000 are eligible for subsidized childcare. Even more telling is that one in four children live in households earning less than $60,000 a year, highlighting the economic vulnerability of many of our families. Despite this need, only 11,000 or so children are currently accessing a subsidized early-care seat, leaving an estimated 20,000 eligible children without access to financial supports. We must acknowledge that parent choice is prevalent. Not every family will want or need formal child care. Some may rely on relatives or choose to stay home with their children. So while we talk about this gap in absolute numbers, we are mindful the true demand may vary. So now let's talk to capacity. The county currently has 33,000 licensed child care seats for children birth to five. That means that we have a capacity to serve about 59% of the total population of young children in this age group. However, if we break down this down by age, we also know that there are roughly 22,000 children who are under the age of two, but only 19 percent of them can be served in existing infant toddler seats. The scenario improves greatly for our preschool children. This group reflects about 35,000 children with licensed care able to serve approximately 83 percent of them. So while we do have stronger capacity for preschool age children, the biggest supply demand gap remains with infants and toddlers. Addressing this gap will be crucial as we move forward with strategic planning and local investments. So as we continue to work through the fundamental issues of childcare opportunities are hard to find and they are expensive, I also, that I had put earlier, it's also critical to reflect on the system in which we are doing this work. This slide represents the collaborative structure of the early care and education system from the perspective of the builders. It helps us to visualize the complexity and interdependence of the players involved and the levers of influence that they each hold. At the center of the diagram is our shared goal. This central focus drives everything that we do and is grounded in our four priorities. Access and affordability, workforce development, sustainability, and expansion. The gear icons you see represent decision levers. These are the points in the system where different stakeholders make key decisions that directly impact early care and education, things like funding, policies, and regulations. The gear symbolizes influence and when they turn, they affect how the rest of the system moves. The arrows represent the key touch points and feedback loops that keep communication and collaboration flowing ensuring that the system remains responsive and aligned. These connections are crucial for driving coordinated progress rather than isolated efforts. You'll notice that the county government and public schools are shown with solid gears. That is intentional. That is intentional. These entities play a foundational role in the system. They administer public funding, align and steer regulatory priorities and practices, and they set and uphold essential regulations and program requirements. I do want to stress that the visual highlights a key truth. Change does not happen in isolation. Each part of this system plays a distinct role and real progress depends on how well we coordinate across these roles and levers. Earlier this year we spent intentional time strengthening our partnership between the members of the ECEI, the Early Care and Education Initiative, and our partners of the Children's Opportunity Alliance, with the goal of aligning our work, building trust and fostering transparency. Together we've committed to making meaningful progress by building on shared successes, acknowledging our own limitations, and maximizing the influence each of us holds within each perspective role. It's that kind of collaboration, thoughtful, honest, and purpose-driven that will move us closer to a system that truly supports children and families. So before I begin delving into the purpose of today's session, which is a fiscal review, I want to take a moment to sincerely thank the Council for your encouragement, persistence, and unwavering recognition of the importance of this work. You're pushed to prioritize early care and education, laid the foundation for everything we've accomplished this year. We've grounded our efforts in real local data, gathered through a series of major studies is that a lot of people are not going to be able to see the picture of the picture. care and education laid the foundation for everything we've accomplished this year. We've grounded our efforts in real local data, gathered through a series of major studies that elevated proper, sorry, provider voices, family experiences, and system realities. I'd like to begin by revisiting what the data revealed. Specifically, four key elements that consistently emerged across our studies. The first, access gaps are real, and they vary by geography, age group, and type of care. Families with infants and under-resource areas often face the fewest options. Two, the true cost of quality care exceeds with current funding models. Providers are doing incredible work, but often at a financial loss. Three, providers need deeper support, not just bonuses or one-time funds, but an infrastructure, a true infrastructure to help them operate sustainably. And four, families value trust and cultural responsiveness, relationships matter. They want caregivers who reflect and respect their values, languages and lived experiences. From these studies, we've identified key policy priorities that will guide our future policies, our future investments, and partnerships moving forward. First, we must increase infant and toddler capacity where the need is greatest. Second, we have to reimagine provider supports, not just through short-term reliefs, but through an infrastructure that helps providers grow and sustain their work. And third, we must target our supports to ensure equity and reach those most impacted. We are already moving forward with several new initiatives. The Equicare Grant, which provides flexible funds for families with infants and toddlers, while also helps to stabilize and strengthen our childcare programs. A new community portal has been designed to streamline access to resources for both families and providers, currently fully accessible to our childcare community and families. Dr. Neymhart is in the audience and she's available to provide an overview afterwards on the intricacies of this platform. And two, sorry, and two initiatives which we are pleased to share will be launching any day as we conclude the contractual process. The facility's fund which supports physical expansion and improvement of licensed childcare spaces and our shared services alliance which will ease administrative burdens so providers can focus on children. It's important also to note that Montgomery County is a leader in this space as we are the first in the state to make these four intentional investments. So as I review this year's budget, I want to emphasize that no part of our work happens in isolation. The progress that we make is directly influenced by the funding that we receive and the scope tied to it, both which are critical to maintaining momentum and fulfilling our responsibilities. Our early childhood work is made possible through a blend of local funding, including the Early Care and Education NDA, as well as our federal and state contributions. The strategic breeding of these funding streams along with the intentional alignment of their scopes enable us to maximize our impact for children and educators. On the right side of the slide, you'll see examples of our high impact efforts that reflect our priorities and core values. More detail can be found in the packet, but to highlight some of the numbers, we have served over 2,500 children through specific type of work, whether that's early intervention, supports in the classroom, or supports to seats. We have supported close to 100 child care programs with quality improvements, reaching accreditation, excels, and reaching higher standards. And we've created close to 1,000 new seats through our growing opportunities in family childcare, our supporting centrenia in the expansion of the Martha Godelsky Child Development Center, the Wheaton Child Care Center through Parks and Planning, which has been contracted and set to start building, cross community child care that has received a grant and a match from Montgomery County and is in the process of moving forward on that grant for this fiscal year and our family involvement center for families who choose not to go to regulated child care but have an opportunity and experience for their children that enhances their social and emotional development. For FY 25 approved budget, totals 13.4 million, which includes about 6.2 million in general funds and 7.2 in federal and state funding, specifically for the Child Care Resource Center, the Infant Early Child Mental Health, grant the Infants and Toddler Program and Head Start. Across all these funding sources, we are on track to fully spend down our allocated dollars for this year. Now into the NDA. Our total FY25 appropriation for the NDA is 20.3. At the end of quarter three, we have spent 10.2 million dollars, which includes prior year and current year spending, as well as our ongoing operating expenses. In addition, we have $5.9 million in a Convergence, again, both covering both prior and current year commitments. That brings our total of spent in Incombert to $16.2 million or about 80% of the total FY25 budget. As we begin the final quarter, we project spending an additional 4.3 in Combrance and Suspending through June 30th. This includes $2 million for WPA in Supplements, $1 million for the cross community, which I mentioned, which is a child development center in the final stages of the grant processing with a purchase order for it with. $480,000 for support to the facilities fund through the CDFI and 320,000 for our shared services. In summary, we're on track to fully spend down our FY25 appropriations by the end of the fiscal year, ensuring that our resources are being used efficiently and intentionally to support our goals. Now I want to walk through the FY26 recommended budget. Before going further, I want to emphasize two important points. At this time, we have yet to receive word on any federal or state funding. Our amounts are estimates based on communication with our funders. Secondly, I want to reinforce that the budget is not about new or expansion. The recommendations are based on sustaining progress, protecting access, and strengthening the equity-centered delivery model. First I'll review, excuse me. So for the FY26 Early Childhood Services, Recommended Budget, you'll note an increase to both the general funds and federal state funds. Because reductions to our childcare resource grant and the infant and early childhood mental health grant, we have had to shift 2.85 FTEs from the grants to the general funds, resulting in a slight increase to our early childhood services general fund portion. In addition, we are projecting a roll over from the Infant and Toddler Medicaid Revenue that must be reinvested back into the Infant and Toddler program. This increase has allowed us to move five positions originally funded by the ECI-NDA into the Infant and Toddler Grant. In respect to the ECI-NDA, with pandemic era funding gone and an unknown forecast of federal impacts, we've returned to a more limited fiscal environment. As a reminder, while our base budget was around $10 million, we've operated at a $20 million scale for the past four years. The county executive is requesting an additional $4.1 million to be added to the NDA, as well as the return of the $1 million previously appropriated to COA. And I want to highlight four key elements that influence this recommendation. As I previously mentioned, we have partially addressed staffing shifts associated with our general funds. We've also taken cost saving measures in our NDA by eliminating five positions. Without adequate funding to open two new additional family involvement centers, we've made the determination to eliminate four program specialists associated with that expansion. In addition, we maximize an existing position to consolidate the work of a program manager to oversee the newly created facilities fund. In FY26, we were required to recompete for a Head Start grant. Two significant changes prompted a shift in our model. The first is a new federal requirement that limits no more than 50% of the funds to be allocated to a designated agency. In our case, it resulted in a reduction of funds to Montgomery County Public Schools. The second was a call for an innovative, comprehensive response to community needs. Our submission focuses on implementing a birth to five model reflective of what we learned from our studies. Our proposal would serve 438 children by adding 86 community-based seats in addition to 370 school-based settings. The redesigned emphasizes our support for infants and toddlers, prioritizes full-day, full-year services for families, and creates an infrastructure support for community-based programs based on the cost of care. We are deeply aware of the uncertainty at the federal level, especially the possibility of reduced or eliminated funding for critical early childhood programs like Head Start, child care scholarships, and related supports. In response, and in close partnership with Children's Opportunity Alliance, we are proposing to return the $1 million that was to the ECI NDA that was allocated to COA in FY 25. We have collectively agreed with a shared prioritization plan to protect families and providers from the potential fallout of federal budget shifts. This includes prioritizing any early head start and the head start shortfalls should they arise. Next, we want to prioritize wraparound services for blueprint classrooms, ensuring that children continue to receive care beyond the grant approved days and times, maximizing full day full year care. We will deliver these funds quickly and directly through Equicare Initiative, which has become the cornerstone of our county's equity strategy. Lastly, in light of the recent freeze in Maryland's Child Care Scholarship program, it's important to acknowledge the strain this places on families who are already navigating a very limited options for available child care. This freeze increases the urgency for us to maintain strong local investments. Our proposal of $4.1 million increase is not for new programming. It is to sustain current numbers of children and families. We are already serving. As a reminder, the $10 million NDA appropriation is fully consumed by two core initiatives, $6 million for WPA and $4 million for ECHRICARE, which together support over 1,000 children. Without the additional $4.1 million, we would be forced to make significant and harmful reductions to programs. This would include eliminating our shared service initiative, ending the college scholarship program, which supports the workforce, closing the CDFI facility's fund, and even eliminating the WPA supplement and reducing the number of subsidized childcare seats. Beyond programs, we would also face cuts to critical staffing, those who provide workforce training, pedagogical coaching, and quality enhancement supports. These roles are essential to maintaining the integrity and impact of our early childhood system. Again, I want to stress that this request is not new. It's not a new investment, but simply allows us to maintain the level of service and infrastructure that we've built and that family and providers now rely on. So as I close, I want to ground us in the broader vision that has guided our work. Six years ago, the county made a bold commitment to building a comprehensive early childhood system, one rooted in strong collaboration and strategic investment across both public and private sectors. And FY 26 proposed budget reflects the executive's ongoing commitment to this vision with a clear and unwavering focus on serving the most vulnerable children. In today's uncertain federal fiscal climate, it's more important than ever that we protect and strengthen our local investments and maintain stability and ensure continuity for children and families. And as we said at the beginning, our work is centered on two fundamental challenges. Childcare opportunities are expensive, and childcare opportunities are hard to find. Every element of this budget, every partnership we sustain, and every investment that we protect is aimed at addressing those very challenges, so that many families can access the care they need and more children can thrive. Thank you. Thank you very much. A lot of information there and a lot of progress. And then we're going to go to our great partners at COA. So turn it over to you, Ms. Resne. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kimberly Russ-Nike, the executive director of the Montgomery County Children's Opportunity Alliance. Our county's designated early care and education coordinating entity. Thank you very much for having us here, members of the Education and Culture Committee and HHS committee. We're excited to share with you the progress we've made this year in Fiscal Year 25, as well as our plans for Fiscal Year 26. So our legislative mandate is to coordinate the early care and education system and focus on children from birth to age five. Through our common agenda planning and work, we have centered our work around increasing kindergarten readiness. According to the most recent census data, there are approximately 72,000 children, ages 0 to 5 in Montgomery County. And I acknowledge that earlier, uh, counsel, uh, Jen Arnay's presented a slide that showed there were approximately 57,000 children under the age of five and that report did not include five year olds only children zero through four. For the supply and demand study, contractors used proprietary software to forecast population data into fiscal year into 2024 while we depend on published census data. Given the general already shared data regarding how many kids we have, how many are eligible to be served, and how many we're actually serving, I want to layer in fiscal data to provide more color to the story. So this graphic represents of the 33,600 licensed seats in the county where the funding comes from. 14% of seats are filled by children receiving the state's child care scholarship. Some of course has a supplement with WPA. About 2% are filled by children on WPA alone. 7% are pre-K seats. 5% are special education pre-K seats. Unless then 0.1% are early head start or equi-care. That means that 70% of seats are accessed with families paying market rate tuition. What this graphic also does not show is that 30% of these seats are left vacant because families can't access or afford them, which puts all of these private child care businesses at risk. It also doesn't show the tens of thousands of kids under five who simply aren't accessing licensed care at all. But it does help us see how much we rely on these state funding streams, child care subsidy, pre-K, special education, to improve access and how much room there is to grow. So as of April 15th, we have made public an early care and education dashboard on our website. It was created in collaboration with multiple community stakeholders, including DHHS, MCPS, Montgomery College, our COA data advisory group, and other partners from childcare providers and other state and county level partners. The data dashboard will be regularly updated and used by the COA board, the COA steering committee and common agenda work groups, to help track progress from now until 2030. There is a tab for each of the four strategies connected to the ECE Common Agenda. Shown here is just one of the sections you can feel free to go to the website and check out and play with the data a little bit further. As we come to the close of fiscal year 25, it was a year of setting clear goals, building public momentum, researching best practices from across the country and piloting strategic interventions. A major accomplishment was the creation of our early care and education common agenda, which required extensive community outreach, stakeholder engagement, and the facilitation of an advisory group of key leaders close to the issue. Fiscal Year 25 was the first year we launched and facilitated advisory bodies as our legislation calls us to do. We have an active data advisory group and we engage business advisory leaders through a business breakfast hosted by United Therapeutics and several subcommittees with industry-specific leaders. We've also begun to build a campaign to build public awareness and increase political will for change by sharing key information both through broad public events, like this week's talk with author Dan Worry of the date who wrote the book called the day care myth, as well as more targeted presentations on important topics with child care association groups, parent groups, community school liaisons, and more. We leveraged data not just with the public dashboard, also through focused analysis such as for groups like the enough grantee group working in log branch and to understand to help them understand their child care deserts and engage data for decision making. We boosted resources by launching conversations about the fiscal data and engaging with the private sector. In April we partnered with Rupert Companies and the Rupert Family Foundation to host Breeze through the trees, an event that raised approximately $30,000 for a 5K run up county. And of course, we secured an and administered local dollars to Bridget Gap left by the state pre-K grants to several first-time grantees. We continuously support research notably by piloting a suite of interventions to build the capacity of providers to be eligible for the state pre-K grants. This year we contracted with local experts to provide technical assistance, grant writing, and administrative supports to support approximately 15 centers. We assisted multiple child care programs with the state pre-K grant, which was due on April 11th. And there is the potential that Montgomery County could have approximately 250 more community-based state-funded pre-K seats for the next school year, which is an increase from 354 this year. We awarded grants to four intermediary associations to build the capacity of family child care providers and our anticipated impact is raising awareness amongst approximately 254 family child care programs that are interested in potentially participating in the state pre-K grant in the future. We are pleased that the county will be taking on and sustaining these interventions through the DHHS blueprint coordinator. The back office administrative support that COA has provided to pre-K grantees will be moving in fiscal year 26 to the shared service alliance when that gets started. The $1 million also provided by Montgomery County during fiscal year 25 has helped our community to expand awareness and increase the pipeline for future state funded pre-K programs and seats. And of course we are gearing up to drive advocacy for systems change at all levels. Through our collaboration with MMF, we are engaging expert consultants to inform-level advocacy plans for recommendations to advance the EC workforce as a profession. And we've begun to engage and support stakeholders in using their voices for the first time. If you want to be inspired, take two minutes to watch Margarita Womack CEO and founder of Mosspinadas give oral testimony at the state level with the Child Care Affordability Commission legislation. We couldn't have done any of this work without the funding provided through the Montgomery County NDA or without the additional funds we've raised from the private community. Though this year is not over yet, funds so far have allowed us to build critical staffing and infrastructure through hiring our new community engagement liaison and a grant contract manager, engaging equity consultants purchasing new data software to help with our data dashboard, engaging expert researchers as a team of tax lawyers at the Children's Funding Project to help us think about the dedicated funding stream and we've also been able to fill some gaps to continue to advance community outreach, preparing for bus ads this spring for pre-K. We are on track to spend down all of our county funds both through MCPS and our COA and DA by the end of this fiscal year. All the funds have been committed and encumbered and we are working with various partners to spend those funds down by June 30th. We've been successful in raising private philanthropic support to support this work. So far we've reached our fundraising goal of 200,000 We braid and blend local county government funds and school system dollars and private philanthropy to sustain our work For fiscal year 26 we've put forward an ask today for an additional 250,000 to support our community engagement liaison position a a pilot community ambassador model and continued support for MMF state level advocacy. All of these are a part of our common agenda work and will help the work continue forward into the next fiscal year. Looking into fiscal year 26, we remain focused on our organizational mission to connect our community to build an equitable, accessible, high quality, and sustainable. Early childhood systems that narrows disparities and puts all young children on a path to reach their greatest potential. We will continue to partner with our community and other key stakeholders to ensure that families are fully informed, valued, and supported as their child's first teacher and strongest advocate. In fiscal year 26, we will be implementing a new workgroup structure connected to our common agenda. The COA Board has designated a steering committee that will steward and make progress on the common agenda. In June, we will kick off our common agenda steering committee and two new work groups focused on access and affordability and family navigation. We truly believe in the brilliance of our community to help us develop and implement the plans and strategies necessary to transform our early care and education system. Work groups will be made up of partners and allies who work together in implementing the strategies and follow the group's created work plan. The work group members will include government partners from DHHS, MCPS, County Council and the kind executives office as well as community members such as early care and education teachers, and administrators, nonprofit partners, and parents, and other committed partners and stakeholders. We're using results-based accountability strategies and meeting processes to help us move this work forward. Through the engagement of these groups and collaboration with key partners, we plan to drive systems change within each of the strategies of our common agenda. We have set numerous truly ambitious goals all in the interest of increasing the number of children demonstrating kindergarten readiness. Here are some of the strategies and tactics that are in the works for next year. We plan to engage local navigators and neighborhood ambassadors to build a network of early childhood champions that are able to effectively support families in knowing about and accessing existing resources. We want to continue to develop and pilot methods to incentivize the stabilization of infant and toddler seats while expanding pre-K at the same time. We're gearing up for implementation of advocacy campaigns related to the ECE workforce career ladders and the workforce registry recommendations coming out of the work with MMF. We plan to lay the groundwork for a sustainable dedicated funding stream focused on improving access and supporting the workforce and so much more. We understand that this is a difficult budget year for so many reasons outside of the control of our Montgomery County leaders. We are hearing from our partners about the impacts, reductions in the state and federal funds, such as cuts to the state's therapeutic child care grant. Yet, we also know that only about 2% of Montgomery County's operating budget went to programs and services targeted towards our youngest children, though they represent 7% of our total population. In the words of our superintendent, Dr. Taylor at Monday Night's Investing in Young Children is a smarter investment than K-12. With an annual return on 13% through better education, health, and economic outcomes for generations. There is so much more we can and should be doing for our young children. And we are doing the hard and slow work through research and community trust building to determine exactly what levers will yield us the highest results. Thank you for your continued support. Thank you so much, Mr. Resnick. That was a, there's a lot in those presentations and you guys sped through them. So really appreciate it. I just want to say, far, turn it back over to, or should we pause here for what do you think we should do? Question? What should? If there are any questions related to the presentations, I think this would be a great time. And then we can walk through the budget to some point. OK, so we'll pause here for questions. I will just say I am very, very, very pleased with ECI. Last year we had a lot of talk about this spending. I'm pleased with both and everybody, but I'm just starting with you. That we had a lot of talk about the spending plan. It's been a lot of time on it. There was, I think some healthy concern, which I shared about the fun, the carry-over balance, and your ability to spend down what is a large amount of money, though to Ms. Resnick's point not enough, given the large percentage of our kids. The fact that one in four, and I really appreciate you both following what I had tried to get us to do, we starting every time with what the gap is, where the kids are, how many are served, you know, and we've continued that. And both of you have, all of us have done that in multiple sessions over time. The fact that one in four of our young children lives in a household with less than $60,000, I just want to, the self-sufficiency standard is like $100,000, and that's the bare minimum for you to survive and just have some places to live. And 25% of our kids are living in households with $40,000 less than that. I just think underscores how urgent the need is here. That being said, I'm really happy to see that this is the first fiscal year. I think that you've operated under the assumption that there would be no carry forward balance, right? I know there was some kickin' and screaming on that a little bit, but we got there. And I guess my first my opinion, but tell me what I didn't see. I'll do a two-part response. I'll do the most important part of it. I'll do the most important part of it. I'll do the most important part of it. but tell me what I didn't see. I'll do a two-part response. I'll do the more emotional heart-string response and I'll let my colleague, Mrs. Lambert, talk about the actual fiscal implication there. From someone who, a subject matter expert within this field, in this space of early care and education, having the pressure, right, to really spend down those funds, we have a time limit. It gave us some urgency. But I think the other part of is that this was the year also where we had the combination of all of our studies that gave us the direction we wanted. So we were really responding to the pandemic from 2020 to 2024. There was a lot of fallout from the pandemic within our child care community with families. And so we were dealing in the moment and really responding to those most immediate needs. I think that this year the difference having those studies that really helped ground us in the direction we need to go in and being able to, I think that we are very fortunate in HHS. We have in early childhood services, we've been able to move very quickly in response to these needs, such as equicare. We lifted that up within four months. We were able to get that out to the exact population that we knew needed it. With the facilities fund and the shared services alliance, the studies we gave and really hearing the voices from our community about what the true needs are, helped us create a contract and a scope that would meet their needs. And I'm pleased that we're at the, I'm waiting for the ink to dry to announce. So that's more the emotional response to that. I'll let Ms. Lambert do the second half. Hello, Deborah Lambert from the Office of Management and Budget. From a fiscal perspective, $20 million sounds like an awful lot of money and it is to spend in one year or in cumbersome. So the challenge was, well, how much can we do that's one time? And you know, the facility fund, that's one time, the community connect portal, one time, and then beyond that, not too much other than the studies that were maybe two or three hundred thousand dollars a piece. And so when you're looking at it from a fiscal perspective, you're really faced with ongoing funding. And I think that Vivian Yao, Council staff last year pointed that out. That we- with ongoing funding. And I think that Vivian Yao, Council staff last year, pointed that out that we were doing a lot of ongoing spending, especially in the working parents assistance area in Equicare grants. I mean, those two areas, as Ms. Arnais pointed out, are $10 million right there, not even looking at the rest of this budget. And so we were faced with when we presented this budget to the executive to do cuts to the budget, we'd have to cut back significantly in areas like WPA. And quite frankly, the executive found that to be unacceptable. And so that is why he has proposed the budget that he has proposed to basically continue those ongoing services that we've been providing in fiscal year 25. And so that's kind of the overall fiscal perspective of why it is that this budget was developed in the way that it was. I appreciate that. And that being said, there will always be some ongoing things that you're doing, like you just mentioned with WPA, but I am pleased with the spin down to this point. I'll ask one question for you, Ms. Resonant, now I'll turn to my co-chair and colleagues. you can imagine the favorite quote from the packet and that you just said, I'm going to read it. As you lay the groundwork for a public dedicated funding stream, I think the numbers I quoted, there's all quotes of you, all you all, but that I highlighted around the need, around the gap, around the funding disparity given how much of the population are our youngest learners around the quoting Dr. Taylor, which is very nicely put in that the investment in our young 0-5 is so important. We're not going to be able to get there without that. We're going to have a system, we'll talk later this summer about system-related discussions, but I just wanted to throw that out there. Could you talk a little bit about the MMF work done so far with that was approved with the $100,000 supplemental and just what you've been doing with that and why that's necessary. Sure. So, Montgomery moving forward in partnership with Children's Opportunity Alliance has been focusing on three kind of buckets of work. One is related to doing research related to a workforce registry, which would be a state level item moving forward. The second is investigating career ladders and using the NAC model power to the profession and thinking about if that were to be implemented in Maryland, what implications that would have and what regulation changes might need to be made. The third is to stand up a state level ECE task force that would talk about the importance of really care and education as an economic imperative and bring together multiple different stakeholders at the state level. So with all of these pieces, we are doing the research and looking at best practices and trying to figure out whether these would be regulation changes or legislative changes. And so the hope is that by June 30th, when we get final reports from the different consultants who we are working with on those different topics, that they will basically have recommendations of who to talk to if it is a state legislation, potentially examples of other communities or states who have had legislative mandates or written legislative asks like that, that we can then hopefully move forward and begin to think about implementing those and working with state level partners in fiscal year 26 to implement some of those pieces. That's great. Obviously another big component of what do we need to be advocating for changes to get us to lay that groundwork. I'll pause there. I'll turn to coach your albiners. Thank you. It's Friday, so I'm going to start on a lighter note. Last night, I was up until about 1.30 in the morning, helping my son prepare a presentation for a project that he told my wife and I at nine o'clock at night. He had to deliver the following day. So I'm especially impressed by your slides and the makeup of them. They look great. They pop. Awesome job. So interestingly, about two weeks ago, I was having a conversation with a national philanthropist in this space. And she discussed how she lives in Montgomery County, how impressed she has been with our work around this area because of the system building and the collaboration and partnership and alliance between our public, private and nonprofit sectors. And so this work puts us in tremendously good position to weather this storm that's coming, is already here, where we can apply for more federal, well, not federal, more philanthropic funding, but also make the case at the state level to help MMMF and their work around workforce development underscore the importance of all of this. So on Chair Joandu and I were just commenting privately here how impressed we are at the evolution and we know all of us in this room know how far we've come. So it's really terrific. And some of this transition has been challenging at various points, but I just continue to be super impressed by your professionalism, your slides, and everything else that you all are doing. So I don't really have any questions at this point. We're going to dig into the budget itself, very short in short order, but I just wanted to underscore those points. That's what I look at. Thank you. And I appreciated the slide that showed the cogs in the wheels, right? And how everything works together. But I certainly appreciate what we're doing at the county and through MCPS. But I would make all four cornerstones equal, right? A solid foundation requires four cornerstones. And to me, especially the Montgomery College piece with the workforce and the ongoing credentialing in licensure, which is a huge pain point in this entire ecosystem that has been a pain point for over a decade. I wanna uplift that and that particular partnership in terms of what it means for our workforce and keeping training, retaining that particular workforce. I know with the state's announcements regarding not accepting more applicants putting them on a wait list for the state funds that that presents challenges, I want to thank you all for your work with Cross Community on making sure we're moving that forward for that childcare center, which is in one of the focus areas where we have a great need for childcare and appreciate Ben Wickener and his collaboration on that project with me over the years. And then I had some questions, sorry, I have to flip the page. I got a lot of notes. Thank you for the dashboard on the website. I love dashboards and I love the way you presented the information to us today and I apologize for not physically making it to run at the breeze through the trees. I was registered and had an unfortunate medical so that prevented me from breezing through the trees. But I hope this is going to be an annual event and I will be there next year with bells tied to my sneakers and promise to run and make noise through the trees. with respect to the work that Emma Mathis doing. And I know we've talked about this at other work sessions as well as to where adjustments need to be made and what specifically those adjustments are. And again, to Councilmember Albernol's point about how there have been bumps in the road over the time, but then everybody figures out how to make the things work together. And internally here in Montgomery County, with all of our different constituent parts to this system, I think we're doing really well. I want to know whether you've had conversations with the state board or with the assistance superintendent for early child care about whether they already have anything in the works where they are working through that with their AAGs to craft updated regulations or to discussed because departmental legislation gets submitted by Labor Day, a little before Labor Day. So I know the state legislative session just ended, except that because of the timing of that inside state government, time is of the essence on that front. So could someone speak to that, whether those conversations have taken place? So, yes, MMF has created work groups and steering committee to do this to guide this work. And they include members of Maryland State Department of Ed, including the assistant, super intended for the overseas early childhood division. So they're part of this conversation and actively engaged and are committed to moving any agenda items that are necessary. Great, that's great to hear. Thank you so much. And I appreciate the work of the children's opportunity alliance on continuing to engage with outside philanthropy and help raise your private funding as well. And I also appreciate that knowing what the fiscal landscape is that we're in with the levels of uncertainty that we have, that any development work is extra challenging at this time. So thank you for staying the course and for your optimistic projections about increasing your amount of private donations for FY 26. So with that, and I will turn it back. Thank you very much, Councillor Ming. Thank you for the presentation and thank you for the work from everybody, all of our partners in this space. We know that it's about to get a lot harder and appreciate the thoughtful planning to deal with that. And obviously this leaves us with a lot of question marks and things that we cannot control in regards to the federal government as to where we can reasonably expect to be a year from now. Just huge. I mean, that could just land us in so many different places because how much of this funding is going to have to be used to make up for damage being done by the Federal Administration, and how much do we get to use to make the forward progress that we know that we could make if not being hampered in that way. So that's just, you know, an unfortunate reality that the public and all of us are, you know, have to acknowledge now, but that makes it, you know, more important than ever to make sure that we have funding in this space. We cannot let what's happening at the federal level move as backwards. So appreciate that you have kind of a plan that allows us to accommodate what might happen to try to prevent us from backlighting and try to move us forward as much as possible depending on the circumstances in front of us. I appreciate the you know the work that has been done to to spend down those dollars to be really productive with them and the work that's been done for this space to be as cohesive as it has been and have a solid plan for moving forward together during what are sure to be racking times. So I'm moving into this fiscal year with much less confidence about what the federal picture is going to be, but with much more confidence about our local picture and really appreciate the deep work that has been done here to make that happen. I'm excited to dive more into the data dashboard into the portals and to all of our new tools that we have to facilitate this work within the early childhood space and with the public and to bring increased transparency and understanding about the progress that we have. One request and this will hopefully with the blue friend coordinator, there's going to be more people to help facilitate that work would be that as we're looking at the data and this is already, this is already so much clearer to me than it was a year ago to years ago. So I'm appreciating that. As we continue moving forward, that it would be really helpful to have the data broken down as much as possible. I know that there are some data limitations. But to have everything broken down by again down to that granular level of age group and income level. So within the, for the blueprint, relevant categories to have all that data broken out by blueprint tiers to have the K through two broken out. I know there are some places in which that's just, it's not possible on each of the ends of the age spectrum and for different subsidies and so on. But wherever as much as is possible, that is just I think gonna be so helpful in being able to see where where you know where those numbers are moving and due to and due to which pieces of the puzzle and also with a clear understanding about as clear as as possible not just the difference between how many children exist at these levels but but the demand that we, and again, this is difficult because if those seats are available and if they are funded, then does demand increase? Yes, it's something that's hard to measure, but appreciate the notes about weightless, those are indicators. But looking at demand, how many people are asking for those seats, and also the gaps in terms of where there are seats that are funded or where there are funds that are available in some spaces we have wait lists, and in some spaces we have childcare providers who have empty seats, and it's about making sure that a match is happening, or maybe those seats should be geographically situated elsewhere, and you know, you all on the ground would be best to be able to tell us like what's going on with those seats and how our dollars are helping to remedy that but being able to understand that picture there, the more that we can fill in those bits of information, that'll be helpful. Awesome. Thank you, Council Member Sales. Thank you. I'm just impressed with the ability of collaborating and making an effort to ensure that more of our children can take advantage of early childhood education in the next fiscal year. And I won't repeat what my colleagues have shared and just look forward to going through the rest of the items and ensuring that we make the best decisions for our students. Thank you. Here here, all right, back to you, Mr. Rodriguez and Ann. All right, now we're heading into the several budget discussion items for the committee to make recommendations on today. They span the DHHS operating budget as well as the two NDAs. So starting on page 10 of the Council staff report, the first few changes, regard the early childhood services program area under the Children, Youth and Family Service area in the Department of Health and Human Services. And Early Childhood Services or ECS serves children birth to five of services that support families, early care and education programs, and the community, including the administration of several programs like the Infants and Toddlers Program, the county's Resource and Referral Center, the State, Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Project, and more. For fiscal year 26, the county executive has recommended a shift of five early childhood services positions that were previously funded by the Early Care and Education Non-Departmental Account to the Consolidated Local Implementation Grant. So these positions were funded with General Funds through the Non-Departmental account and now will be funded by the grant. And the positions include a program manager, a community services aids and program specialists all working around the early childhood services functions. And for your record, the consolidated local implementation grant or the click is designated as like the single mechanism through which local jurisdictions can receive grants of federal and state funding that to that implement local early intervention programs and DHS does not expect any programmatic or fiscal impacts from the shift between the general funds to this click grant. Okay, no, that's the big thing at the end there. No expected impacts. Anyone have any questions on this one? Okay, so without objection. Thank you. The second is also for early childhood services and it's to reflect an enhancement of $175,340 in general funds to replace and supplement the reduction in Maryland Family Network grants. And so the, in fiscal year 24, the Maryland Family Network received about, the county received about $554,000 in grant funding. And then in fiscal year 25, they only received about $200,000 in funding. In fiscal year 25, DHHS was able to supplement that reduction through the use of the additional carry forward balance and the non non-apartmental account as well as lapses and positions. However, for this year, the department is prioritizing the personnel that administer the services under that grant, which include that ensuring children have strong families and quality learning environments. And so, DHS is recommending the $100 and the executive $175,340 in the general funds to maintain the manager of the child care support services and program specialists providing the child care provider licensure technical assistance. Anything you want to add on that? Okay, any questions? What's out objection? Similarly, the infant and early childhood mental health grant also had a reduction in fiscal year 25. So in fiscal year 24, they had approximately $355,000 and in fiscal year 25, $250,000. Again, the HHS was able to supplement the reduction during fiscal year 25, but is now asking for $130,8888 to prioritize the personnel who actually are more tenured than the current general fund positions that are supporting these services as to when the grant first started. And that is the coordinator that coordinates the data and record management for all the intakes and referrals as well as a therapist who provides the consultation services to the family and child care providers. As the infinite early childhood mental health grant helps to prevent identified treatment and reduce the impact of social, emotional, and other mental health problems among children birth to five. Child care space. I've seen an important program reflecting the reduction without objection. Okay. Moving on to the early care and education on departmental count and I do think our partners at DHHS really clearly stated out the impacts between fiscal year 25 and the Carey Ford balance into fiscal year 26 and specifically noting as our partners did that the executive has recommended enhancements to maintain the ongoing services. So page 13, 12 to 13 really provide the history of the balance and spending plan within the Early Care and Education NDA and you can also find the fiscal year 25 spending plan update and fiscal year 26 spending plan in the circle pages as well. And then we also had updates on the quarterly reports back in November as well. So in the studies and in February of this year. So I'm discussing both of the recommended enhancements for the NDA at one time as they as to how they relate and again the council received detailed explanation on them in the presentation. So the first is $4 million, $4 million, $380,634. And that is to maintain the ongoing services related to the publicly subsidized seats through the workers, working parents assistance program and EQUA care grants. And then the $1 million shift from the children's opportunity alliance and NDA from fiscal year 25 into fiscal year 26, where that will support any shortfalls and early head start to head start as well as the blueprint wrap-around costs. So currently blueprint programs are about six hours and 180 days a year and the funding will help support make them full day, morning and after care included as well as 365 days a year. Well, I mentioned earlier just pleased to see that the urgency created. We were in a much different place, but also acknowledged that there are ongoing expenses that need to be paid out of this. I think what the joint committee was looking for it. Last year and various degrees was when the demonstrated track record of spending it down. So I don't know if anyone there's a lot here, but we talked about it a little bit in the presentation out if there are any questions from colleagues on this. Okay, council member, Mink. Yeah, I mean, as we said last year I don't really care who's doing it as long as it's all getting done and now with if when everybody's getting all the things done you know it's that this is a really good space to invest in and councilman Luquian I'm sure we'll talk about our request shortly, but I appreciate you all coming together to come up with a plan to best safeguard the county, the community as well as move us forward as much as possible. That's really what we're looking for overall and so I really appreciate that. and also in terms of overall goals, which I know that this was a focus that COA had with the funding last year, which I'm sure is being taken into account broadly. But however, we can leverage available state dollars. We want to make sure that we are doing that, that we are helping to, you know, families, not film is that we are helping our providers to get onto those state funds as much as as possible. That's a great investment for us. There are spaces in which we don't have state funds that are available within the zero through five space and that's understood. But where we, where there are state funds available, really, really the return on investment to helping to make sure that our providers are getting onto those funds as quickly as possible Is a great one. So thank you for for that work to all of you and I'm certainly supportive of this Councilmember Liu Thank you. I want to echo Councilmember Minks sentiments and and also to Thank you for highlighting the importance of this and Dr. Taylor's statements and something Councilmember Minkin and I had been chatting about too was fundamental to some of the challenges that are K through 5 schools are experiencing are those where there are children who have had no early childhood exposure and show up day on a kindergarten, right? And so, and I know you emphasized greatly the need for the full day, full year year round type support, which creates that structure and it's structure with play, right? Learning through play, but you have your routine and that routine and that socialization and those daily having of expectations in the child's own little ecosystem are so critical to them moving onward where they're the little fish in the big pond at the K-5 environment to their success. will go towards ameliorating some of the challenges that our elementary schools have been experiencing over the past few years in the post-pandemic landscape so with that I support the request. Wonderful yeah I so it was so nice to have to scroll all the way to to C 51 to see the chart that we spent a lot of time on last year And and not have to do that This and I think councilmember Aron is this point about the The beautiful slide decks and pop in the fact that it's a Friday morning are benefiting you as well After a very long I just want to say I was feeling his pain because I had a 17 year old standing in my room at 10 p.m. last night asking me how to get to DC today where to park by the Jefferson Memorial and I need prom pictures. The promise tonight that you did not have a plan at 10 p.m. last night and also can I borrow some stuff? Yes. So it's just that kind of season. We need that that line item for preventing procrastination in zero to five. Get that going. All right. So without objection, we will accept this robust and spend down that will be actually spend overspendown by the end of the year is what you're anticipating right you know so is that correct? Yes the chart on page 13 does show that they do expect a little bit of overspending in the in the NDA for a really can education and that'll be fine because if you get the money going forward you want to just speak to that just for just for someone who's like I say the millions watching around seeing that there's $139,000.000. Oh and B has asked for the program folks to find a way not to overspend. So we're still working out a few details of how that's going to happen. But it's not a lot of money. And at this point, just my salary little less. Well, out of 20 million. Yes. I think that's one of the things we don't make that much is you think we make. We get a lot of complaints. A lot of people sitting on that side of the table make a lot more noise. But go ahead. Yes. But yeah, I mean, it's something that OMB is working with the program folks to find a way way to not quite spend all of that. So it's all in the noise at this point. Certainly reflective of the opposite issue we were concerned about, not spending quickly enough now, we're like, don't spend all of it. We won't be sending you a supple battle. Good, good to hear. Thank you. We don't need it. All right, so let's continue that. All right, and so just to summarize that the Early Care and Education Initiative NDA will have approximately a total of $15.6 million. That 10 million set for the subsidized seeds and about 4 million for the additional services that they provide through the Jewish Social Services Agency Partnerships and the Montgomery College Education Scholarships and more. That is on page 14. All right, two shifts within the non-departmental account. They don't have a fiscal impact, but they did note the 10 position changes. So the first was the five shifting from the NDA to the consolidated grant. And then the second is the shifting expenses from the personnel cost to the operating expenses to reflect the elimination of five vacant merit staff that were fully funded by the end day previously. That staff was going to find the expansion of the family involvement centers, which provided free play-based program in early childhood classroom setting for children's of all abilities and ages birth to five to learn from the parent educator team there. So those were two additional shifts that were included in the counting secondals. Appreciate that. Obviously, I think we'll accept those. I just did have a question. So just a little more context on why those were vacant and what does that mean for the current strategy and where we're headed? So yeah we had expected to open two new family involvement centers and so we had a total of ten positions turned into or created for this fiscal year so we could staff that. However, we are unable to open to new sites. So from the 10, we really need six staff. So those four are going to be eliminated since we're not expanding. Okay, and the reason for not being unable to open the sites? Costs, when we look at our NDA and what we're able to be able to afford finding a location that is adequate for good learning has been challenging and so that the cost is just something we can't absorb at this time. Prohibitive at this point. Okay, I appreciate that. So I think yeah, we accept, oh, Council Member Sales. I had a question about the Cross Community Center. Do we have a expected opening date and capacity? So they have submitted information to anywhere between 80 to 100 children. In terms of when they expect to open, they won't start construction until probably June. They have assigned lease for a location, they have assigned vendor to operate the childcare program. So first step, first is designing the space, remodeling, and an intent to operate a childcare program through MSE. So I would expect within the next 12 months. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. So without objection, we'll accept those. Now we are shifting to the children's opportunity alliance, non-departmental account, who serves as the Early Care and Education Coordinating Entity at the counting level. So as you all noted that in two up to 2022, the Council established the Early Care and Education Coordinating Entity and Designated C-Away as the as the the design me and I will note that the council is required to approve the entities that designate every three years and we're coming back up to that this summer July 2025 and we'll have further conversations about that moving forward but in fiscal year 25 that children's opportunity alliance received about $2, including $231,000, $200 in one time funding, as well as the Council proposed an approved shift of $1 million from the EC NDA to support the kindergarten seats. On page 15, the table on page 9 highlights how the Children's Opportunity Alliance utilized the million dollars and more on efforts such as the preschool seats, about 354 seats were supported with finally child care capacity building, child care pre-cave capacity building, grant writing supports, as well as the Montgomery moving forward state advocacy efforts we discussed, summer seats and a contract monitor as well. In fiscal year 26 as noted in the presentation, they will focus on implementing the steps related to the common agenda as well as the several strategies to help increase the number of publicly subsidized seeds from 11,000 to 18,000 and working with the data advisory group and business advisory groups all in line with common agenda to implement the strategies of transforming the early care and education system in the county. In the budget, the county executive did recommend the reduction of that one-time fiscal year 25 enhancement of $231,000 to $100.00. And the bottom of page 15 to the top of 16 highlights how that funding was utilized, including the data dashboard, public awareness, materials and campaigns, the blueprint supports, equity equity coach and staff and board member trainings as well. Wonderful yeah I pulled up the dashboard while I was here so it's good to see what the something that the money went towards and play around with a little bit. Anything you want to add here or comment on? I know you gave your presentation but you know. No I the only thing I is, you know, we've spent the last year really trying to work with community-based providers to understand what are the challenges, what are the fears, what are the concerns of the state pre-K program. And so I will say we got the low-hanging fruit, right? We found the centers who were the closest to that ready point and helped them to move forward. So we've got hopefully four or five new centers this year who are applying for new grants. We've got centers who we worked with last year who are applying for expansion and additional seats at additional locations. But I think the work moving forward with the Common Agenda Advisory Groups is really to think about how do we continue to build out those pre-K seats, while also keep in mind how that impacts infant and toddler seats and availability, but also I think the work to get more community-based providers ready and building towards that pipeline of the state pre-K funds is going to be a harder lift moving forward because we've gotten we've worked on the ones that were easy and now the ones are going to be more support and more work to get there so that's just something to think about moving forward. I appreciate that important context. So I think if there's no comments on this I know we're going to get to the year items next, but without objection we'll accept the CES recommendations for the reduction in one time, but then also the funds going forward. And just to note that the counting executives recommendation totals about the $775,000 for the children's opportunity alliance this year, which includes that reduction of the one-time funding and the shift into the early care and education NDA. And as you mentioned, yes, the next item is the proposed budget enhancement of one-time general funding of $250,000 as proposed by Council members Mink and Luke Key. All right, I'll turn over to the authors of the enhancement Council member, Lukey. Thank you. So I greatly appreciate the ongoing engagement conversation and collaborating with my colleague, Council Member Mink, on this. And as we're talking about a time when things are ever shifting in this landscape and impacting families, impacting what funding streams are available and impacting the how we go about the work of doing this knowing that we have these long-term goals and this common agenda that has been developed and we want to get there. It's more important than ever to continue this community engagement, continue our advocacy work with MMF, with the state and making sure that our interests are being heard, particularly since we are the state's largest county and we are the most diverse county. So Montgomery County is Maryland in miniature and we're able to help make change not just that impacts us but that impacts the entire state. This work is fundamental towards reaching our goals towards reaching the blueprint goals and without this we won't get there effectively in these troubled times. With that. Council Member Mink. Yeah, I mean, we're obviously, we're facing a very, very tight budget. And we also don't actually know how much revenue is going to be available yet. So a lot of these decisions are very much yet to be made. And so I know that all of us are doing a lot of deep thinking about how to prioritize different investments and different items that we have on the reconciliation list and that we will have on the reconciliation list. And I was talking to Councilman Ruludki about this earlier that we really have to think about, there's a human perspective that is in Montgomery County, like that's who we are, right? And there's also the fiscal perspective when we talk about return on investment. And investing in pre-K hits on both counts. So we wanna make sure that we are putting money into those spaces where when we put those dollars in we are getting more back. Obviously in terms of our values and where we want to see our community being but also in a fiscal perspective. And also in spaces where if we don't have this funding there, then there is not only a human consequence, but there's also a fiscal consequence. And again, this pre-K is a space where that is so. When we look at our children who are entering kindergarten now, and this was a point that Councilmember Lutke raised, we have kids now who are coming in and they're not potty trained. Not only is it that they're maybe not as not as ready to sit in a classroom and to be learning how to read. Like we have kids coming, we have kindergarten teachers who are trying to deal with potty training. That is how baseline we are at. And so that is a very, not having these services available for kids and for families is having a very, very direct impact on the K through 12 space and on our community in general. You know, and obviously there's the ability for parents who are wanting to get back into the workforce, but they can't afford to put their children in pre-K, very direct connection there. So these are very worthwhile investments. And I think, you know, the shifting of the million dollars into the ECEI to handle in a way that you all have agreed in a collaborative fashion makes the most sense right now is I think as everybody would acknowledge not because children's opportunity lines didn't spend those dollars well, it doesn't have the ability to spend money while you spend the money extremely well, everybody did this year. And so I have great confidence that whatever dollars that we ensure able to be in this space are also going to be a really good investment. This does the proposal that Councilmember Luke can I have has three line items. I'm wondering if we might want to consider putting each of those as a trunch onto the reconciliation list for I just I think that it's fair to consider for the for the full council to be able to consider when we get there they are you know as they are three three to girl again all good investments and but I think that it is it is going to be fair for everybody to have the opportunity to consider each of those and and I actually thought of that as I was sitting here so I've gotten a chance to talk to Councilor Lukia about that, but if she was a minimal, then okay. And noting also that the community engagement liaison, for example, that's a position that is not funded in this county budget otherwise, that is a position that you have had and is incredibly important. You know, when we look at our efforts to expand seats as well as our efforts to ensure that there are not empty seats that are available and that there are families in them. We have to have, you know, that type of, we have to have outreach and engagement and we need people to do that. So, you know, and that's also the community ambassador position speaks to that as well. So you know, these are all these are all important positions, but I do think that it might it might make sense to have them potentially a separate line at them. So with that, I would ask my colleagues to consider putting each of these three items onto the reconciliation. that's for consideration. Thank you very much. Why don't we start with just an explanation of what each will do from COA's perspective. Obviously the community engagement liaison's a little different in that you've already hired someone. We all know who that someone is. We love that someone. But what that will be for the ongoing funds, what that will do is that salary is that programming, if you can just maybe start with that one and then go through the other two so that everyone has an understanding of why you think these are necessary. I know I kind of asked you earlier a little bit about the MMMF1 but you can can. Sure. Yeah, so the three line items it's continuing and supporting our community engagement liaison position. The second one is a community ambassadors program. The third is funding to support MMMS continued work. For the community engagement liaison position moving into the implementation of our common agenda, of our categories categories is focusing on family navigation and part of what came up as our common agenda advisory group was talking and listening to community was many community members don't know that pre-K expansion is happening. They don't know that equicare exists and so we need to figure out how to intentionally get out into community and talk with community about the resources that exist. We also know that many families are making choices of whether to go towards family friend of neighbor care or formal care based upon maybe not necessarily knowing all of what they might be eligible or might what the opportunities are out there. And so part of what our community engagement liaison would be doing is working with tenant associations and different nonprofit partners, the diaper banks, et cetera, to make sure they have all the information and that we can be there and help families understand what resources are out there, how to connect. And I think also that work will help with the potential, and this is where a lot of our strategies are intertwined, thinking about the potential future dedicated funding stream. In order to have a dedicated funding stream, and as we've talked with other jurisdictions about doing that work, many of them have talked about the importance of mobilizing community and having community at large understand that critical importance of really care and education and being able to have community members voices and stories lifted up so that we can talk about the importance of increasing that investment in this space. So I think the work of the community engagement liaison is too full, not only helping with that family navigation part of it, but also helping to build the broader awareness about the importance of really caring education and helping us to potentially in the future do more advocacy related to the dedicated funding stream. The second piece is the community ambassadors model. So this also came out of the common agenda advisory group. It's a pilot, yes. And so part of what the advisory group talked about was even as many of them, and I will say this for me, my learning curve of ECE over the past five years has skyrocketed, right? And I say I came to ECE as a mom, not as an expert and someone who's worked in early childhood my entire career. And so understanding the brain science and the research and understanding how much growth and development happens in the zero to three space and thinking about our early care and education educators as the brain architects as Arthur, our author Dan Worry spoke about on Monday and really trying to help make sure that there are community members in our community who understand the zero to five landscape and all of the resources that exist there and how to help families navigate that. And so it is pairing together. We looked at models like lead for impact that is with housing. We looked at models like the Community Action Agency, which has the Advocacy Institute, and how do we pull some of those similar programs and have something be focused on early care and education so that we are building the knowledge of people in community about the importance of early care and education. And as Joe Hooks always reminds me, people trust who they trust. And so we need to get to the people who are the trusted people in community and ensure that they know and understand how important early care and education is and that they can be those navigators for families. There's one example of a parent in a housing development who says you know she's the person who everybody comes to and families come to her says, okay, do you need a provider who speaks Spanish, I'm Haric or French? And then that is the one person in community who helps all of those families in that complex figure out how and where to find care. We need to find more of those people in our community and make sure they have all of the right information and are really helping families to navigate the system and access supports as much as possible. So that's the second piece is the pilot. The third piece is continuing the work of Micah and me moving forward. So we've worked very quickly over the past three or four months to do the research around those three categories, the workforce registry, the ECE career letters, and the state level workforce, or task force, excuse me. And so the work moving forward will be taking the results from those final reports that will be submitted to us on June 30th and then moving forward with the next steps. Talking with members at MSTE about if it's regulation change, working with state level legislators about if this is legislative change that we need to put forward in the next session. So all of that work needs to continue and we just want to make sure that no balls are dropped and that that work continues so that we can make the improvements that need to be made. That was really helpful. Thank you for the explanation. I'll ask one question. I'll see if colleagues have questions. I'll turn to my coach here first. The community ambassador pilot versus the liaison, there's some overlap with the liaison. And I just want to, if these things go on the list, which we'll see in a second here, but how you would distinguish that. So the liaison position is purely that staff cost. There's no programmatic elements in that. Just paying what you're currently doing. Got it. Yes. The new thing is the pilot. The new, well, yes. So currently our community engagement liaison is part time, but our hope is that come July 1st, you will transition to be full time. Got it. And then it would be that 75,000. Got it. So it's perfect for that. at full answer P because we knew it was an important position for us to get started on. Got it. And then what do you see the the community ambassador pilot like you know I totally get the vision there and see the need of but that you have that as one time you want to see how it works and then see if you can raise the money or or or if you decide to come back and ask for that next year which is so we have a yes we want to pilot it and see how it works. We have a rough idea of how we want to, how we envision that coming together. We want to make sure we've got the right costs that we're bringing together, the right partners to be the speakers and connectors throughout the program, as well as I think part of what we're intrigued with this is, we've heard from a lot of families that they are choosing family-friendly for a neighbor care for a variety of different reasons. And so our hope is that once we have these ambassadors in place that they can help us do some grassroots surveying to understand what information families have about what services are available for early care and education, what are the decisions they're making and why so that then that will help us to inform, I mean, just listening to one of the data points from Jenner Nies today. If we know we only have infant and toddler seats to serve 18 or 19% of our families who have infants and toddlers, what percentage of our families actually want formal infant and toddler care versus what percentage of our families would prefer a family-friendly care versus formal care? And right now we don't have answers to that. And so our hope is to pilot this ambassador program and see if we can get some answers to things like that and that's why it's just unclear for a year to what the real cost would be which is why we're asking for it just as one time so we can learn and then figure out next steps. Appreciate that. Council Member Rauhmanus. Thank you very much. Appreciate Council members Lututke and Mink putting this forward. And of course, it builds off of this wonderful presentation and more importantly the work itself that we just talked about this morning and have been talking about for the last few years. Couple of questions. So how do you envision this leveraging some of the ongoing existing work that's with the NHHS? Where would those touch points be? What would that look like? Because we've obviously worked hard to make sure that we are leveraging our contacts, resources, and work on the ground. Just if you can talk a little bit more about that. Sure. So with each of the workgroups, this, the community engagement liaison would be managing the family navigation work group. And so members of that family navigation work group will include people from NCPS and HHS so that we are making sure to connect the dots. But it will also include community members from diaper banks or food banks or housing partners so that as we look at how do we engage families in community and make sure the messaging is clear that we're all coordinated in that. So that is how we plan to kind of coordinate that and ensure there's no duplication. Thank you. I did have the opportunity early this morning to speak to some reps from MMFs. I'm more familiar with how they would, it basically it's continuation of the work that they did this year, which makes sense because there's still obviously a lot of work that needs to be done in Annapolis to make sure we get what they're working on on workforce development over the goal line. So just a few thoughts on this. Yeah, it's again, it's Friday, about to see where my mind's at right now. This feels a little bit like a milkshake after a five guys hamburger and fries. It's like it's hard to say no. You know what I mean? Because this is apple pie stuff. These are telling me, man. These are obviously important investments. They expand and leverage the existing infrastructure we have. Having another set of very capable hands, being able to expand this work, reach more people, connect more dots. We need to be doing more of that than less. I get that. And I certainly am familiar with the heavy lifting that MMF is doing in anapolis. And obviously we want to continue the momentum that's been built this year and the year before that. So, you know, and so I'm not going to be able to lead. I'll support this, but I just want to expand on what Council Member Mink was saying earlier about the moving target. I just want to be very specific about it. So this entire budget, the entire budget, is predicated on a tax increase that was presented by the county executive. It started with a property tax increase, which he has pulled in favor of an income tax recommendation. And as our Geo committee learned earlier this week, and the full council is about to receive the same briefing that the Geo committee received, the 70 plus million dollar number is very squishy. Because it does not take into account the people whom have lost their jobs since January, nor does it take into account the people who will be losing their jobs moving forward. And so it's very difficult for us to be basing budget-related decisions on a number that we can't firmly state is an accurate number. And so it is disingenuous for us to endangering for us to set budget recommendations based on a number that is at best a moving target. And that is going to further complicate what we're already very complicated matters. So I'm concerned about things that are already within the base budget. Let alone any additions to expand existing infrastructure and programs as important and as wonderful as those things are. So I just want to be very clear about managing expectations here, knowing that, and there are other layers to this that we just have to have our eyes wide open for. But because, because we've come this far, because I believe and trust in the people that I am looking at right now. I'll support this effort just, you know, little skeptical it's actually gonna make it through. Appreciate that Council Member Abonaz, do you wanna say, you don't have to? Council Member? I mean, I'm just, you know, you know, we got this memo, this recommendation to, you know, put forth these resources to reach communities that are hard to engage. And we know that with the budget constraints, anything on this reconciliation is probably not going to make it through. So it's unfortunate that we are setting this up in this manner. You know I'll support it but this was not my understanding and it's unfortunate that this decision was made on the fly to now add this to the reconciliation and tranches. And so if this position isn't funded, you know, now we're all have to think about plan B. So that's all. Yeah, I mean, there's an open question. The committee, there's a proposal made. The amendment was, the adjustment was made by the sponsors to put it into three pieces. We could do that, we could do none of it, we could put one of them on to give it a better shot. I mean, I understand it's needed, it is apple pie, it is a milks know, I was going to say which milkshakes I prefer better, but I'm a chocolate guy. But the, the, so we could, part of why I was asking you to explain what in the relationship of the two, you have a position and you mentioned Joe Hooks who's in the community liaison position now. You want to make him full time. I could you could argue that that would be a priority as opposed to the other two and if you wanted to really go for that, it might have a better shot given the context. You know you've got five of us here. There's obviously six of us not here, but it will be a significant challenge. The income tax was mentioned. You know, all of our numbers are always, we don't know how much recordation takes. Things are always shifting and how much revenue we get in. And property tax is obviously the main driver, but income is a big driver. And what that number means going up or down, if we even approve it, right? That's the other thing. I think we must, at my opinion, but I'm not in one of my might feel that way. So we have to, we have to weigh all that. So I guess I would just ask the, would you, is my friend, you're doing a lot nodding, but I don't want to put words in your mouth. Are you, do you, for in your mind, is keeping the currently A's on position the most important thing or making that full-time rather? Yes, if I had to prioritize them on the three, that would be the top priority. Okay. In light of that, it's due the, I'm happy to go along with what you guys want to do, but I'm just thinking that might make more sense. Council members, please. I would, if it's a priority, I would like to leave it as is this one position, the rest can go into tranches. Well, I think that, so there's three tranches, one is that position, the other two are the new things. So what I'm suggesting is that you wouldn't put the other two on. None of them are in the budget. None of them are in the budget currently. None of them are in the budget currently. None of them are in the budget currently. None of them are in the budget currently. None of them are in the budget currently. None of them are in the budget currently. None of them are in the budget currently. None of them are in the budget currently. None of them are in the budget currently. None of them are are the new things. So what I'm suggesting is that you wouldn't put the other two on. None of them are in the budget. None of them are in the budget currently. So it all would go on the reconciliation list. That's a part-time position that they raised from philanthropy. So the trying is converted to a- To full-time position. Yeah. So the work's already being done. It would be a reduction in service that's already- That's what I'm thinking of, like, in the sense that you would be potentially losing service. Yeah, Council Member Rahman. Well, I think it's 6.1 half dozen, you know, there's going in tranches, but we mark within the budget, I mean, the staff recommendation, you know, it can say that's the highest priority of the three. You put in all three, but you say that that's the highest priority, it gets us the same place, but it all goes in. Yeah, I'm just thinking of how you look at the list. Yeah, you know, the visual of it. The customer will look. Right. And the list. Yeah. You know, the visual of it. Councilor Lutkin. Right. And the reason why when Councilmember Mink proposed splitting them up in that way is because there are distinct pieces to this work. Like for example, the MMF continuing advocacy work separate from the community engagement is on piece and I quickly agreed because I think it is important for everyone to see the full thing and yes 100% agree well your your analogy was given I have to have my gallbladder out so I didn't want to hear about hamburgers or milkshakes or anything else but you know it's important because I think knowing the situation we're in and knowing the difficult choices we've got to make, I would prefer to let everybody see all the pieces. You may not choose all of them. You may choose one. You may choose two. You may choose none, but then everybody has them there and understands because they didn't get the benefit of sitting through this session, right? So then they'll have a line item that says what it's for and then they consider them in comparison to one another. Make no mistake, we have some really rough decisions to make over the next week or so. So that's why I would prefer to leave them broken out in that way. Council member. Yeah, I mean I'm listening to all this also and I think I think the suggestion to mark them to make sure that we mark that that the community engagement liaison as being the top priority and that this is about the continuation, you know, and during the re-are able to continue that work. And that I think that that makes a lot of sense, and I think it also makes sense to have the other two, which we would note are high priorities within the grand scheme of things I think deserve to be in the conversation for the reasons noted. We don't know how it's all going to pan out. I mean, right now as it is, if we do know income tax at all, we will be cutting tens of millions of dollars from what the county executive sent over. So that's just is what it is. Reconciliation list, I mean tens of millions of dollars from the what was, we don't, we don't have tens of millions of suggested cuts that are coming out of committee sessions right now. So there is not tens of millions of dollars worth of stuff that people think that we should be cutting, which means that if we go that route, we will be cutting items that everybody has already agreed are really quite important. And then if we pass the income tax at depending at what level we pass it at, there is no level that we could pass it at that's going to let us have everything that we want to have and that the public is asking us to have. So doing some of the income tax will good. We'll make that. We'll make it significantly less brutal to make some of those trims, but the cuts are going to still be there. So we just we don't know what the picture is going to be at all, but that I just want to make sure that we're clear about like the extremes that we're looking at here. There were some essential items that we all agreed were not in the county executives budget. Some of which is sent over as amendments and again no income tax means we are cutting tens of millions of dollars from what was under so we don't until we know where we're going to end up in terms of how much revenue we're looking at whether we're going to do an income tax and how much we're going to we have very different questions in front of. What are the essential services that we are going to not provide? And we're just going to explain to the public why that is because this was not a time that we felt that we could do in income tax. Or, you know, what are we going to be able, what are we going to be able to do to make sure that some of this work continues that they've asked for us to continue. And I think it's really important we don't have a long timeline here before we all have to make a decision. And I'm hoping that we're going to get the public weighing in because this, I mean, it's not an easy, it's not an easy answer. It is not an easy answer for anybody's pocketbooks for the services that people find very important. So for me, I'm going to be doing a lot of outreach just to try to get a sense because I am hearing from people, and I'm sure everybody else is too. I'm hearing, we don't want taxes, and I'm hearing fund the schools, fund parks, fund pre-K. And fund, we don't have the food is being cut by the federal government. What are you going to do about that? Right? So and you know, and so we just need the public to understand so that we can decide as a community together. We can't do, we can't do all of those things. We can't do no taxes and fund all of those things. So I as a district council member feel that I need help from the public to understand. I mean, for me, trying to think about making the level of cuts that we'll have to do in order to do no income tax. That's really, really rough. But I do think that for our role, it really requires a community input because we're in very tough times and it's a big decision. Thank you. Well, we will get some, a lot of community input over the next two weeks leading up to the public hearing on the 13th and appreciate all the comments from my colleagues. So I think where we've landed, what I've heard is we will put all three on the list, but note that both for the packet, but for full council. The other thing is we'll have a benefit of a smaller version of this. And I'll certainly note when I present the Joint Committee's recommendation to the full council that there was a discussion. This was this of the three, they're all important. There was a discussion that from COA and from the sponsors that acknowledgement that this one would be the most important one. So council members will hear that. But all three will go on the list without objection, assuming everyone's okay with that. Yes, okay. So we'll put all three as items, but we'll note the asterisk spy. And I don't have her in the notes or whatever that this one was seen as the most important. All right. So that concludes the executives recommended budget enhancements and changes, as well as the council member proposed. just noting that all other items in the CE recommended operating budget are recommended for concurring with the executive recommendations. And we agree with that. Perfect. And then we have the CIP. Yes, the next item is from our Capcom Brisbane program. Thank you to all of our ECE folks in and COA and all the acronyms we love you very much. So this one's about renovations for playgrounds, right? I'm Chalka, All right. So on March 6, the Joint Committee Review and Reveed and Recommended Approval of January 2025, transmitted FY26 Capital Budget Amendments and FY25 to 30 Capital Improvement Project, Program Project Amendments for the Child Care Renovations Space. On April 2025, the County Executive had transmitted an additional FY26 capital budget and amendment to the FY25 to 30 CIP to reflect the addition of $850,000 in state aid. So in the January Transmittle and as approved by the Joint Committee, that amendment had shifted about, reduce the total project for child care innovations playgrounds by $2.5 million, including a shift of 1.9 into the beyond six year period, and that was approved by, and recommended for approval by the committee. This amendment simply reflects the addition of $850,000 in state aid, which is restricted for the use of child care playgrounds. The project description form highlights the new funding will accelerate work previously scheduled for fiscal year 27 until fiscal year 26 and at additional capacity in the out years. However, the executive branch is still finalizing the updated project schedules and funding allocations, which in that March 6th committee staff report, you can see this schedule as currently as it stood from the January Transmetal. And as noted in March, the executive staff stated a comprehensive re-evaluation of cost estimates across all of the child care renovation projects will be performed for the full FY27 to 32 CIP when more information is expected to be available. Appreciate that, anything to add? No. All right. So any colleagues have any questions on that? So without objection, we'll accept those changes to reflect the state aid. Thank you so much. I think we're done. All right. So without that, we are adjourned. Thank you so much.