Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this session of the Government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee. We have a number of budgets to review today. I think we have 10 items on our agenda this morning. So we're going to dig in and first start with our Office of Human Resources. We see everybody is here. I'm going to turn over first to Miss Ghasli and she's gonna rock us through the packet. Sorry. Okay, awesome. So, just taking you through the packet to the office and first start with... Sorry. So for the office of human Resources, the county executive is recommending an increase of about $46.4 million or $12.03% from the FY25 approved operating budget. Of this amount, $45.6 million or 10.9% are for cost adjustments for employee and retiree health benefits. The executive's recommended increase includes $367,000 in programmatic and staffing and health enhancements. This includes the following five items. $120,000 for the countywide management training programs. $176,000 for the shift of customer service resources from TeBS toR, $39,000 for personnel costs from the employee group health insurance fund to the general fund, and about $30,000 in personnel costs from the general fund to the employee group health insurance fund, and then lastly, $32,000 for the NeoGov applicant tracking system subscription modules. The executive's recommendation also includes a $815,000 increase for compensation adjustments and required operating expenses. These items reflect a continuation of current staffing and service levels. The operating budget equity tool analysis for the department states that the Office of Human Resources plays a unique role in advancing the county's commitments to advancing racial equity and social justice, specifically through its county-wide reach and partnerships, as well as its inclusive recruitment practices. On page two of your packet, you will find a table detailing out the budget for OHR, including what was approved in FY25 and what is being recommended for FY26, in the Fund as well as the employee health self insurance fund. In terms of vacancies as of April 2025, there are 22 vacancies in OHR with 20 and active recruitment. 16 positions have pending start dates and there are two vacant positions associated with the LEAP4 MCG program, which are not being actively recruited for at this moment. A summary of the vacancies are detailed in the packet for your perusing. Pages three and four of the staff packet provide greater detail about the background and functions of OHR and also provide the OBET information which is relevant to OHR. In summary, OHR has a variety of strengths with their commitment to racial equity in social justice, which is particularly shown through their partnerships with other departments and reporting of demographic information and gender pay equity. On page 5, you will find a summary of the county executive's recommended budget changes, which we will go over in more detail as we move through the packet. Starting with the first proposed increase for $120,000 to enhance county-wide management training programs. The recommended funding will support two Montgomery County Leadership Academy cohorts or MCLA. The Montgomery County personnel regulations require the OHR director to provide leadership development programs to managers and supervisors. Without funding to the MCLA, OHR's ability to provide management training programs will be limited. These programs provide management growth opportunities and help support equal access to training. Moving on to the second item is the shift of customer service resources from TABS to OHR in the amount of $176,000 and $76, including two FTEs. The county executive is recommending this increase to shift the resources from tabs to OHR, and this shift is meant to increase accessibility and provide a more consistent and customer friendly experience. OHR also plans to restore an in-person customer care presence. These two positions will deliver direct assistance to OHR customers. OHR and Tabs partner together to transfer the two existing vacant MC311 positions to OHR to provide on-site support and will transition call services for county employees while using the existing customer relationship management system. Candidates for these two positions have received conditional offers and OHR anticipates onboarding these employees in April of 2025. Next is the shift of the Leap4MCG resources from OHR to the Department of General Services. This is a proposed decrease of $100,505. The county executive has proposed this decrease to shift one position from OHR to DGS. Leap for MCG was launched in July of 2021 to provide employment opportunities for persons with disabilities. The program created three positions that each had two year terms. The program stipulates that upon completion of the two year term, that the employee may be transitioned into a permanent role within the assigned department. DGS served as an early adopter of this program and has successfully employed a leap for MCG higher since 2021. This request reassigns the term position and funding to DGS, with the understanding that DGS will reclassify the employee and position to a permanent status. If this shift is not approved, the employee will be terminated effective June 30, 2025, as there are no further options to retain the incumbent in the term position. Next, moving on to the NeoGov applicant tracking system subscription module in the amount of $32,075. This increase reflects a contractual adjustment for the county's applicant tracking system to maintain operations of the recruitment slash hiring system. If this item is not funded, the county will be in violation of its contractual terms and risks impacting the positive results achieved in hiring since implementation of the system in August of 2024. And then moving on to the realignment of personnel costs from the employee group health insurance fund to the general fund, and the amount of $39,145. When OHR was asked about the rationale for this realignment, the department detailed that this is an administrative adjustment and does not represent a true increase. If this item is not approved, spending will not be aligned with the assigned work. Next, for the self insurance fund, this is a claims expenditure adjustment in the amount of $45.6 million. The county executive is recommending this increase for the claims expenditure adjustment, and the estimated cost increase in the FY26 budget is based on a combination of future expenses that were projected during the annual rate setting exercise. During the rate setting review last summer, medical expense costs were trending upwards, increasing from 4.5% to 5.5%. While the prescription costs trend remains steady from the previous year at 11%. While plan design has not changed, the insurance industry has experienced inflationary pressures over the past few years. And overall, this is a required increase to reflect a group health insurance increase across all departments. And lastly in your packet, you'll see a summary of the different realigned programs for OHR. OHR's budget includes several administrative shifts in funding and staffing, reflecting operational changes made to improve the county's human resources delivery framework. And FY24, OHR consolidated recruitment and selection, classification and compensation, and professional learning and organizational development under the talent acquisition and management umbrella. Additional information about the real diamonds can be found detailed in your packet from pages seven to eight. And lastly, from pages to eight to nine, you will find the summary table of the budget changes which were recommended by the county executive. Thank you. Thank you so much. Director Anderson, would you like to say a few words and introduce your team? Good morning. I'm going to say a very few words. Good morning to you. Council President Stewart, my friend Council Member Freason, and my ace Council Member Katz. I was concerned. I know, right? I was. That was very concerned. So This is the third budget that I've been here to present to you in the two years and five months and I'm not counting since I've been here. We take our budget responsibilities very seriously, but this process has sort of disabused me of any notion that I will win the lottery. You all have a hard job this year. And there's no story to our budget. We're asking for one item, $120,000 for a leadership program that has proven results that we have only been able to deliver to two cohorts free of charge delivered by USG in partnership with us. This is our chance to rectify a problem, to address a problem that's longstanding. Manager failure is the number one reason that employees leave, the quality of the management, this sort of inability for managers to lead them and to attend to their career growth. So OHR continues to lead the county's efforts to build a strong and really resilient workforce. You have a copy of our packet that shows our progress. I've spoken to many of you, all of you, at multiple points to tell you what our progress is. staff staff is committed, the staff has grown and stretched, and we have learned and redoubled our commitments to support recruitment, staffing, and benefits for all employees. So we've learned what's important is what is discussed, what's monitored, what's measured. I listened intently during these last two years to the instructions of this council. OHR has rethought, retooled, restructured, and we continue to shift services, resources to close gaps in our practice. We take our customer service seriously. We strive to delight and amaze given our meager resources. We've partnered with our colleagues and other departments to share resources. Tebs didn't back away from us after they helped us with bringing them forward the ATS last year. They gave us a position in 2024. They gave us cash in 2024. They didn't back up from us. Instead, they gave us in FY252 vacant positions to help us address our frontline, front facing customer service needs. That's one of the areas that employees throughout the county complain about that they have to call 3-1-1, tell all of their deepest darkest health needs to 3-1-1, and then wait. We're trying to address that. We work in close partnership with HHS. They have actually had a decrease in their vacancy rate these last couple of years because we are intentional about visiting with them. We've been there twice to talk to their senior leadership. We have a standing Thursday meeting with them for their hiring managers to get help. Our staff talks with their hiring teams multiple times a week. We work closely with the Office of the County Attorney. They guide us on challenging EEO issues and help us with our labor problems. OHR's budget is 99 percent people. Everything that's in there looks at a person, our staff, it looks at the health benefits for employees, it looks at a minimal amount of training. You'll see in your packet, we've gone from $300 something thousand dollars in 2010 down to 30. If we had just kept that money, we would have had $400,000 to absolutely train employees. So I'll say this, I recognize that this year's budget is lean and that you do have a hard job. Our work doesn't directly sit in front of the hungry person, the unhoused person, or the sick person. But it absolutely is important to help this county meet its mandate to care for those unhoused, sick, and hungry people. If we don't get this right, nobody wins. We're foundational to this work in the county. I want you to know that I appreciate your leadership and your support. The confidential conversations we've had, the good advice that you always give to me. I'm very appreciative of that. I take this responsibility, your faith in me, the county executives, the CAOs. My team, back at the EOB, watching us, watching watching me coming back again. We all take it very seriously but we cannot keep doing this on a wing in a prayer. We've got to have this money. I appreciate it but a little cash will help a lot. So I'm here with the Brain Trust yet again. I have our senior budget analyst, Shantay Jackson, division chief for administration extraordinaire, Jenna Shovlin, the stalwart general, Dr. Lelita Wheaton, and my ace in the whole policy division chief, just like Mr. Kent, Sam Fraschauer. And we're here to answer the question. We should get together. Right. And to ACES. It's right here. All right. Good pocket pay. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Well, thank you very much, Director Anderson, and the entire team. Over the last few years, our Office of Human Resources has really stepped up and filled a need. You know, I think the first year that this Council and you came before us, we had a lot of questions and we did a deep dive into vacancies and how we were doing that. And your team really rose to that challenge and has really helped, I think departments and our county be stronger I did have just One question on the request for the management training. I could not remember how many people were in a cohort So there's up to 35 people in each cohort the last two the, the practice runs had 30 each. Mm-hmm. Okay. Great. So in my mind, I think you're correct that the idea of training and having the support for our managers keeps good people in place and reduces that turnover, which reduces your work, which reduces us, you know, quite frankly, losing talent, but also resources here in the county. So I'm okay. I don't know if council member Friedzen? Yeah. I won't bury the lead. I also support the 120,000. You've done it well finding other resources, proven that it is working and have come back with lean asks, which we appreciate. And I think we should reward good behavior. And I also think we need to support our team. And I think this is a good example of it, a cost effective way for us to make an impact on recruitment and retention, which is obviously a major need. So supportive of that, I will say that you get two aces in your hand, you should bet. So put your chips in the middle. Yeah, for a pro-gurface, but I appreciate all the work. I also appreciate the cross-departmental coordination. That was not happening. We pushed pretty hard on that. Clearly, there was major disconnects, prior to two years and five months. And however many days ago, and there have been a lot of intentional efforts. I know that starts at the top, but it's also true of the whole teams. And that integration is happening much more. It's clear to to us we don't see it every day, but it's obvious when you're coming before the committee particularly during budget times when it's not happening. It's almost like you don't realize it when it is happening, but you, you know, it's like a flashing red light when it's not happening and it's a troubling dynamic and it's been something that has frustrated. The predecessor of this committee with Councilmember Katz and me and this committee over the last few cycles and so really appreciate that as well and just wanna acknowledge that. I hope that continues and expands, but clearly that's happening. This is one of the dynamics with the vacancies that we're seeing of being able to utilize vacancies that aren't happening in one department in another so that we don't have to just keep adding and looking at vacancies that aren't going down, but actually can start addressing that in a workforce that actually makes sense. I did have a question just, obviously this is not a choice, really, that we have with the pair of bills. But the self-insurance fund number is a staggering number, $45.6 million. What's the plan on that in terms of looking to bring those costs in line? I mean, something's got to give at some point. We're not going to be able to maintain $45.6 million increases on an annualized basis. I mean, that's just, you know, again, it's not a discretionary question. We have to pay the bills that we have where a self-insurance program, and you know, you've got to pay the bills. But that's not sustainable at all. So I just wanted to see if we could dig into that. So some of the work that we have done is to put more guardrails around the things that are causing the increased costs. The GLP ones like OZAMPIC, the biosimilars are increasingly expensive. These inflationary costs have also served to increase everything. So I'm going to hand off to Jenna Shovlin, who deals with us every day, and I want you to know that Jenna's in their swinging every time to try to figure out ways to help us maintain a healthy population. It's a commitment that we have to our employees and to make sure that we're being fiscally responsible where we can. So, General, I... Much are the hierarchy of extraordinary versus ace. Titles, I think it's a fairly flat structure in terms of hierarchy, but I think A.C. is on. I understand. Jenna Shovlin, OHR. So this is a very timely question because we actually did our annual review with CBS yesterday. And to Tracy's point, we had some significant increases around the GLP ones. first year they really started coming onto the market. Outside of the inflationary pressures these are very expensive medications. So we implemented a utilization management program called SmartLogic January 1, 2024 and based on that program alone we were actually able to save over five million dollars on the the commercial side in 2024 and close to $600,000 on the Medicare side. So as we look at, you know, most of health, I'm sorry. It basically- What was the savings result of? The result of real lining drugs that had been prescribed off label based on FDA approval. So if you are supposed to be prescribed, say, Wagovi, which is an anti-obesity drug, but you were placed on a exempt, which is a diabetic drug you switched. And the cost there was cost savings there. You also re-aligned to determine whether or not the need was actually there. There was also in some instances people just coming off of the drugs because I would imagine most people know that the side effects with a lot of these drugs are not always tolerable by the patient. So we did see some people just in essence come off of them altogether. But there was a very strong move to make sure that we were aligning the utilization of the drugs in this class with the FDA approval and, you know, ensuring that the efficacy associated with the drug therapy that went along with either the coma bretid or the disease was lined up with what it needs to be lined up with. So that continues. So when it comes to biosimilars, fairly new to market drugs that are similarly situated to drugs like Humaira was the one that opened up last year. Humaira has historically been a very expensive drug. The prescription to biosimilar help cut those costs by 70%. So there are constantly ways we're looking at trying to either reduce the costs associated with utilization management, authorizations, and then there are also just new and very inventive drug therapies that are coming on the market that we're, you know, trying to ensure, you know, users are obviously getting access to drugs that they need to treat the diseases or the comorbidities that go along with those diseases while also looking at strategies to ensure we're maintaining costs at a fairly level-level playing field. The fact of the matter is the GLP ones are here. They are here to stay. The FDA approvals for the indications for these drugs are growing. It was, you know, a couple of years ago, basically, antidiobetics versus any obesity. Now we're seeing things for cardiovascular. We're seeing things for kidney disease. So they're here to stay. So it's really trying to put some guardrails around how they're prescribed. I don't know if that helps. On the medical, and I also can mention on the medical side, we, what we've also tried to do is encourage people to take active engagement in their own health through the disease and wellness programs. Lily Rojas and Amanda Co. helped run a gold standard program, one of the best in the country. And so through active engagement with our population by encouraging people to participate in wellness, participate in these disease management programs that are offered through the medical providers, we're hopeful that we'll see some changes in terms of the actual costs incurred because we are primarily self-insured for these plans, right? So we pay the claims as they are incurred. So really focusing in on the wellness and the disease management side has been a primary focus of Karen Bass and her wellness team. Appreciate it. I would suggest, I mean this is not a budget question, but it's a massive budget issue because again, we cannot keep up with these increased costs. And we're going to have to figure out how to be a lot more creative. It sounds like some of that work is already underway, which I very much appreciate. Perhaps after budget, I can suggest to the Chair and Council President that we revisit these issues and talk about a long-term strategy, but it is a ticking time bomb for fiscal dynamics here. If we're going to have these medications that are here to stay. There's going to be another version of these types of medication and they're going to be very expensive. And we have to pay for the side effects too because you might need to have medication to deal with the side effects of medication and it's going to be a challenging dynamic. But obviously sticks out out here. I mean, this is a huge number. And we're arguing over 120,000 and wanting to make sure that we talked about the 46 million. And I'm concerned that the 46 million is growing, not shrinking over time. And so I just think we need to come back to that. But I appreciate it. Again, it's not a question in the sense that we have to pay that bill. It's an obligation that we unfortunately have. Thank you. Okay. That's my regards. Thank you very much. On the self-insurance part, if we weren't self-insured, if we went to a commercial broker, how much more would we be paying? I think that would be the, and you don't have to, I don't know that you're going to know that off the top of your head, but I think that's something that we need to know as well. How much we're actually saving by being self-insured. And I too am supportive of the budget itself in general, but I wanted to just publicly thank you for hearing the concerns of this committee and the council, and really the public in general for the concern that we had trying to hire people. And you heard it loud and clear. You continued to work, and we really continued to attract the best to the best, but it's gotten more and more difficult to do that, some other people have figured out air systems. But your department works to make certain you had mentioned for the unhoused, et cetera. Your department hires people to make certain of the unhoused, the housed, the people who have had a lot of fortune in life and a lot of people that have had no fortune in life are all looked after in Montgomery County and I can tell you we're most appreciative of that. We sincerely are. So thank you and your team for everything you're doing. Thank you, Madam President. Great. Terrific. Well I think that's unanimous from the committee. No objections to the county executive's recommended budget for OHR. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. All right. We'll move along now an increase of $309,000 or 13.97% from the FY25 approved operating budget for the Office of Labor Relations. The executive's recommended increase includes $63,000 in programmatic and staffing enhancements. The staff report includes information on the two proposed enhancements below. The first being for $33,300, this enhancement is to procure software to improve labor and employee relations case management. And the second one is for $29,910. This increase cost is for the collective bargaining consultant services contract escalation. The executive's recommendation also includes a $101,000 increase for compensation adjustments and required operating expenses. These items reflect a continuation of current staffing and service levels. The operating budget equity tool analysis for the department states that the Office of Labor Relations proposed FY26 budget will enable activities across all areas of the Garfrem work, including concrete steps towards operationalizing racial equity in its work. The Labor Relations Management Committee NDA is also covered in the staff report as item number three, and the county executive has recommended no funding for this NDA and FY26. On page two of the staff packet, you'll find a summary table of the FY25 approved budget and the FY26 recommended budgets for the Office of Labor Relations, below that is some information about the background and functions of OLR. The Obed for OLR details OLR is planned to develop a racial equity and social justice vision statement, which will enable racial equity as a key value in guiding their work. And at the bottom of page three, you will find table two which details the county executives recommended budget changes for FY26. As we move through the packet, I'll detail each proposed change. First beginning with the $33,000, $33,300 enhancement to procure software to improve labor and employee relations for their case management system. OLR currently uses an in-house grievance tracker that is built and maintained by the team and O&B shared services. The system currently does not have the functionality necessary to track items efficiently for OLR. To meet their needs, OLR is using two separate systems leading to data and accuracy and workload issues. OLR wishes to procure a comprehensive labor and employee relations case management software solution. The software will help to improve efficiency and grievance tracking while also enabling OLR to assess data analytics for their work. If this item is not funded, OLR will have to continue using their outdated and inefficient system. It is also important to note that this item will be an ongoing cost. The current request for $33,300 is for FY26. However, in the out years, the monetary request for operating expenses is estimated to be $23,400. The first year cost also includes one-time costs for installation, configuration, and training. Next is the increased cost for collective bargaining consultant services for their contract escalation in the amount of $29,910. The county executive is recommending this increase to escalate the collective bargaining consultant services contract. A new contract went into effect on April 4, 2025, and upon expiration of the prior contract, a competitive bid was put out. The cost increase represents the pricing of the new contract to provide the same level of service. When OLR was asked about the role of consultants, they detailed that consultants provide critical support to the county during term negotiations and off-cycle bargaining. Specifically, they provide data analysis alongside modeling and costing that OLR must have in order to prepare economic proposals. Without funding for this item, OLR's ability to enter collective bargaining with necessary data and analysis will be hindered. It is also important to note that this item represents maintenance level funding. Next to cover the Labor Management Relations Committee NDA, the Labor Management Relations Committee was established to foster cooperative labor relations between the county and employees in the Mech Gio Union. The committee attempts to resolve matters that affect bargaining unit employees, both county wide and department specific. This NDA provides funds to implement the recommendations of the committee. Additionally, the committee is also a McGio contractual obligation. In FY25, the executive recommended no funding for this NDA, as well as no funding for this NDA in FY26. The executive notes that there is sufficient fund balances from prior years available for use. for your reference the current NDA balance is 107,896 dollars. The table on page five details for you summary of the budget changes that were recommended by the county executive for committee consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Harling and your team. Thank you for being here. I don't know if you have any remarks you want to make to the committee. Sure. I'll keep it brief. Thank you so much for your time today. I'm joined by my colleagues, Deputy Director for the office, James Donaldson and Labor Manager, George Lacey. As you know, we've grown modestly in the past year, but we still remain a small but mighty team. We lead labor relations for the county. In fact, our team is so small, we're all right here. I appreciate the work they do every day. I want to make sure to thank them for that. We negotiate the CBAs, which are highly impactful to the county. We provide every day real-time guidance to departments regarding employee issues, maybe related to performance, conduct, CBA language, and everything in between. We process all grievances. We administer the collective bargaining agreements. We manage ADR processes, mediation, conflict facilitation, LMRCs, and we offer county-wide trainings on labor and employee relations issues and have expanded those offerings in the past year. We are asking for some modest enhancements to ensure that we can continue this work and to perform efficiently and effectively. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you have. So I had I had one question just to start us off on the Obed feedback, given the expansion of doing trainings and other things. One of the recommendations was to diversify the type of materials planning to discuss and staff meetings, ensuring conversations, connect to OLR's broader mission. didn't know if your team has had time to digest that feedback yet and any thoughts on how you might look at the work moving forward. We have not yet fully digested the feedback. We will be taking this back. We have made some improvements in this area and will continue to make improvements. I think for us, it's a matter of drilling down and figuring out how to incorporate this into the work that we do every day, which can be challenging because there are a number of factors that influence our work. It's not all within our control But yes, we will be taking that back to figure out how we can improve in that space Great terrific colleagues councilmember Freiza Thanks First of all, thanks for all the work you do Questions about the first thing is the difference between the compensation adjustments for FY26 and all other compensation adjustments. I'm assuming that FY26 compensation adjustments are related to the negotiated agreements and that's just the compensation and benefits with the COLA's and the GWA and that's what it would cost. So that's what the $60,000 is. I just wouldn't better understand the $179,800, if you have a pretty small team. It's a fairly substantial other category. So could you just explain that? Shantay Jackson with the Office of Management and Budget. If you'll recall, OLR was one of the departments that had some positions repurposed to them, and those positions have now been filled. So these are the adjustments for the funding that went from the other departments to OLR the difference with the hiring of the individuals for the positions. I'm not sure I'm following. I mean I understand the concept of shifting from another position but if it's a funded position in one... It may have been funded in the other department at a lower level so if you know I can't recall the exact departments off top of my head, but some of the positions were not at the same level that OLR hired. So OLR has labor relations specialists, one, two, and three, and the grades are, is it 21, 23, and 25, and some of the positions that may have been transferred from the other department let's say one was an office service coordinator at a grade 16 There is a difference when oh well are reclassified those positions to the labor relations specialists and then actually hired the Employees into the position in those shifts happen last year But they're realized if they occurred after the CE's recommended budget had been submitted. It's a timing issue for when the budget is submitted versus when they may have actually completed the reclassification and actually brought the folks on board for the information that was brought into the system for budget development for F-26att 26. When the proposed shift occurred, you would know that you're going from an office coordinator in one department to a labor relations one, two, or three and that there's a cost difference. It shouldn't be baked into the budget proposal sent by the county executive last year. Correct. It was. But then when OLR actually hired for the folks, there could have been some, increases or decreases. We provide a base level of budget support for vacant or new positions. The repurposed reclassified. So was budgeted at the midpoint, what's saying? Correct. And higher than the midpoint. It could have been or again, you share with us the details. Yes. That I mean, obviously we don't need names, but you know, the positions, what was repurposed where it came from, what was projected in the budget last year and approved and what was actually spent. Yes. Because I think that would be helpful for us to know, We talk about these shifts as if they're Apple to Apple, but you made very clear that they're not. And that's not true. Because I think that would be helpful for us to know. We talk about these shifts as if they're a dollar, you know, Apple to Apple, but, you know, you made very clear that they're not. And that's not shared with the council. And ultimately, I think it should be. So if you could share that with us, the details of that, I would appreciate it. You know, these are all in comfort positions and there's a cost. This is like the $46 million. you know, we owe this money. We have to pay this money. So I'm not suggesting that we don't. I believe Director, Deputy Director Donald. Sure, please. Good morning everyone. James Donaldson, Deputy Director of OLR. The other thing to recall is the restoration of the lapse. And so the conversation with OLR in the prior cycle when we received all this position was a frank conversation about how long it takes to hire and fill vacancies. And we as a department are in a very different place with that right now than we were at that time. We have one vacancy in our entire team. We've already completed first round and second round interviews and reference to that vacancy. We were calling references and we intend to fill it within the next few weeks. And so it's noted in the packet that that 179 that you drew our attention to also includes the $144,000 of lapse that's being restored to account for the fact that we've now completed that progression of hiring. The other matter that we're experiencing in reference to what Ms. Jackson was saying is the market value of individuals who have highly relevant experience for the work that we do, which is very specialized. And so, while the practice is often to budget a vacancy at 1.25% of the midpoint or whatever, that's not a realistic hiring point for people that do what we do for a living. And we've already collaborated with OHR and a classifications that you look at all of that to do all of that via consultants in terms of market research, etc. The outcome of that is not yet resolved, that is something that we've pursued to try to address this very issue. I just wanted to kind of highlight those pieces of it as well to get the whole picture. I appreciate that. and of the 176 144,182 was from the lapse the one-time lapse that council At it last year, okay, and then is the lapse expectation for the department zero this year? No, it's a there's a small amount of Laps I can get you what that number is, but this is the bulk of that is the restoration. And then the small remaining amount is, again, the additional amount to the higher. That's what I thought. Okay. All right. If you could provide that for us. Obviously, the budgeted amount should be the amount that you realistically expect to occur. It sounds like that's a work in progress, but I would expect moving forward after you complete that work with OHR, that what you present to us with these repurposing of positions and new positions, et cetera, is actually the amount of money that you expect to hire and offer to folks, or else we run into this issue. We're approving one number, and we're actually agreeing to a different number, which is really not an appropriate way to budget and creates major sustainability questions if it happens at scale. Similar to that, I just want to ask about the consultant services contract. What does the consultant do exactly?. The consultant provides critical support during bargaining. So when we enter into bargaining, we need information to develop our proposals and our strategy. Obviously, the consultant provides comparable data in the region and beyond regarding wages, perhaps negotiated GWAs and other collective bargaining agreements, comparable pension plans, those kinds of things, so that we can formulate our proposals. They also do costing of proposals. They might provide modeling, so it's different scenarios we can look at in terms of developing a proposal, those kinds of things. And they'll drill down into providing specific information to help us with maybe it's a retention problem, a recruiting problem, or something that we want to address in a creative way, or in a specific way, and they will help us with providing data I'm in ultimately doing the cost down all the economics. And what's the total cost of the contract? With the consultant? This is the increase, but what's the total amount? I don't know. We can get, we'll get it. Yeah, if you could share that with me. I asked because there was a contract that was signed on April 4, which was weeks ago. And there was a commitment, apparently, that was made to an amount that hasn't been funded unless I'm mistaken. So this is a challenging dynamic. Normally, you only procure services for money that you have appropriated. In this case, you've procured services in a contract unless I'm mistaken for money that has yet to be appropriated. And so I'm just trying to understand the process and the timing. Because the timeline is a little troubling that is set up that it's budget gets submitted mid-March. Contract is signed on April 4th at its prospective. And now you're asking for the money for the contract that you already signed for an additional $29,910. And we haven't appropriated the funding for it and more of the appropriating authority. So I'm just trying to understand. I believe Deputy Director Donelson was involved in the procurement process. And although the new contract went into effect April 4th, I believe the negotiations occurred at a different day. So as with many or potentially all of not a a procurement person county contracts we're not obliged to purchase X dollars via that contractual vehicle. What we've done is we put out a competitive bid, we negotiated a contract, we finalized and signed it just recently. But if we don't have the funds we're not obligated to spend the money. We abide by all the county processes for managing that budget. And so with those specific consultants, we need something. Like if we're putting a work group together, prepping for term bargaining, whatever we may be doing, we can solve with them. We tell them what it is we need. They send us a scope of work with a quote. We approve or deny that and convert the funds, et cetera. And so if you all did not find that contract or didn't fund it at the level, we would obviously expend the money we had. The concern is that that would put us on bad footing, walking into collective bargaining, because we need to ensure that we have a really solid basis of contextual data to be able to arm ourselves with while we negotiate, make proposals, and do things make sense for the long-term sustainability of the county. But to your specific concern, we wouldn't be obligated to pay like X dollars under that vehicle, obviously, especially if we didn't have it. So the 29,000, I'm just trying to understand the contract works. How early contract? Correct, it's hourly for different levels of consultants. And so when we say like like, here's the project we need done. We need comparable for starting salaries for police officers, whatever it may be. They'll be like, you know, this is how many hours of which type of person that would be. This is the total cost that would be. Okay. Incombr the funds. Build the invoices against the incumbrance. These are, you have to estimate it, right? So the rates are hourly rates. We're estimating the amount of work we have. We're walking into negotiations in the fall with multiple unions. And so we anticipate higher cost also for that reason than we might have had in a year like this past when we're being negotiated with a single bargaining unit. And so its projections were committed to managing our budget responsibly. And so whatever it is that we're appropriated is what we're going to manage. Does that address the concern or if not please let me know. Yeah okay. So you're just asking for you're essentially asking for more money in order to pay for more hours at a higher rate that was negotiated in the hourly contract that you have. Or to potentially pay for the same level of service at a higher rate. It sort of depends like our operation differs year-to-year, but that's the basic idea is to get what we need for the kind of base layer of like research and preparatory. We're accounting for their cost increase and what we're looking at negotiation-wise in the fall. Okay. Thank you. You could provide us the actual amount of the contract and how the rates change and I would actually ask for the actuals, not just the budget amounts, but the actuals related to collectiveective bargaining consultant costs over the last several years just so we can compare that may help Thanks I'm fine. You're fine. All right I think the looks like the we have a couple of follow-up items for Information to be provided by the office of labor relations, but overall this committee recommends the Council adopt the County Executive's recommended budget. So thank you and we look forward to the additional information. All right, now we'll move on to the Working Families Income Supplement NDA. I will say on this one we did receive a memo late yesterday afternoon from the County Executive With a proposal that we are waiting on amendments to the budget from the County Executive that would change the Working families income supplement or a suggestion from him But we thought we would have staff just kind of go over and we can answer questions generally but I think this is an item that will either bring back to go if we have time or just go straight to full council. The county executive is recommending an increase of 3.1 million or 11.3% from the FY25 approved operating budget for the working families income supplement NDA. The working families income supplement NDA has one recommended enhancement which is for the 3.1 million dollars. This is for increase cost due to actual state billing. As we go through the packet I'll share more in detail about this cost increase. Table 1 shows the summary of the county executives FY25 approved budget and FY26 recommended budget for this NDA. Below, there is a short summary detailing the background of the working families income supplement, NDA. There is no OBET analysis available for this NDA. For information about the OBET analysis, please look at the staff report that was submitted for the Department of Finance where WFIS is housed under. Table 2 lays out the one recommended budget change by the county executive, which will dive more into now. So for this increase cost due to actual state billing, this increases to a real line annual appropriations with actual expenses invoiced by the state. WFIS informed council staff that the current appropriation is insufficient, which requires the lifting of budget controls during the fiscal year and end of year transfers. Montgomery County is one of the few local jurisdictions in the country that offers a supplement to the state EITC. Currently the Montgomery County Working Families Income supplement is a 56% match of the state EITC for eligible county residents. The state has increased its match to the federal EITC to 50% up from 45%. And currently the total combined county and state match is about 78% of the federal EITC. A consideration that the committee may want to consider is that the WFIS reported to council staff that a 1% increase or decrease in the county's match would result in a $559,000 impact. If the committee were interested in finding savings in the WFIS, it could consider reducing the current 56% match to a lower amount. Page three of the staff report details a summary of the budget items discussed and the items for committee consideration. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Does the Department of Finance or OMB have anything to add on this? Not this time. I probably have any questions about this because we'll have to come back to it. That's exactly. Thank you for that overview. And we will see you back again at some point to discuss What we do with this and the county executives potential amendments on this so thank you for being here All right, we'll now move on to our next item which is the public education fund NDA Okay, the county executive recommends maintaining level funding of of $333,333 from the FY25 approved operating budget for the Public Elections Fund to NDA. The executive's recommended budget includes two items, $283,000 for a catch-up increase for the Public Elections Fund to increase the fund balance in advance of the FY27 election cycle and $50,000 for contractor support for the State of Maryland Public Financing Program. As we go through the packet, I will speak to each item in greater detail. And below, you will also see Table 1, which details are recommended and approved budgets from FY25 and FY26. So for the Public Elections Fund background, on pages 1 and 2, you'll find some background information about the fund and how it functions. The Public Elections Fund provides for the distribution of public contributions to qualified candidates in a contested election and is under illegal framework. In terms of the OBET analysis, the Public Elections Fund NDA did not receive an OBET analysis, and for information regarding the relevant OBET analysis, please refer to the staff report that was submitted for the Department of Finance. As we move into the budget discussion items, you'll find a table two which details the county executive's recommended budget changes. First beginning with the increased cost for the public elections fund catch up increase in the amount of 283 thousand dollars. In 2023 a final recommendation was given by the Public Elections Fund Committee which recommended a four year budget appropriation plan. That four year plan starting in FY 24 aimed to fund the program to 1 million dollars via 250 thousand dollar a year appropriations. However, the program was not funded in FY24 due to fiscal constraints. This led to a shift to a three-year budget appropriation strategy. The three-year plan recommends an appropriation of $333,333 each year to achieve the $1 million target for the FY27 election cycle. Overall, the goal is to achieve $5 million in the fund. In your packet, you'll also find Table 3, which displays the total fund balance as of March 2025. Currently, the March 2025 balance, including income from interest, is about $4.6 million, and of that, the FY25 interest income was about $98,000, or almost $99 actually. Next is the increased cost for contractor support for the state of Maryland Public Financing Program in the amount of $50,000. This $50,000 increased request from the state board of elections is to support a resource center at the SBE. The SBE recently hired a contractor to handle all of the Maryland counties that utilize public campaign financing and has requested that each county make a one-time contribution per election cycle to help offset the cost of this resource. This resource was deemed necessary by the SBE to help administer the increased distribution requests with more counties utilizing these types of programs and to reduce distribution requests delays for the upcoming election cycle. If this resource is not able to be subsidized by county's funding, it might not be able to be absorbed in the state's budget for the next fiscal year. If this contractor resource isn't available, it could delay the review and processing of individual county candidates, certifications, distributions, and responses to campaign inquiries The contractor resources under contract with the SBE and was on boarded in early March. And for note, this item is a one-time request for 2026 and no request is anticipated by the SBE and the FY27 budget. At the end of page four, you'll find a summary table with the recommended budget changes for committee review. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the update. Any comments from OMD or the public education? No elections, sorry. Yeah. Did no person say anything? Right. Good. All right. Well, in my mind, this is something we need to move forward with. We have elections coming up in the near future. And this breakdown makes sense to me, colleagues. No, we're good. We will accept the county executive's recommendation for this. And thank you for your morning and excellent work. And now we're going to switch it over and do the office of racial equity and social justice. And when she is ready, I will turn over to Miss Mendy Singleton to walk us through the packet. Oh, yeah, no, it's hard. Yeah. You got it. Now? No. I'm I think your eyes. Got it. Good morning. So this morning we're going to talk about the budget for the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice. This summary, the county executive recommends an increase of $108,766 or a 6.94 percent increase from the approved operating budget for the Office of Facial Equity and Social Justice. The increase is recommended for ORA, ESJ, consists entirely of compensation adjustments and non-discretionary operating expenses. The operating budget equity tool analysis for ORA, ORA, ESJ, demonstrates a strong commitment to advancing racial equity and social justice and council staff has not identified any potential reductions for committee consideration. With respect to the budget, the recommended budget is $1,676, $1,676,448,000. The personnel cost are $1,438,211 and staffing for the FTEs are 8.5 FTEs. The operating costs are 238,238,237 dollars or 7 percent change from the FY25 approved budget. Also, in the package, you have a department background. You have the operating budget equity tool analysis. And as I think you know, this is changed from a numerical rating score to a modified SWOT and analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, but just these strengths and opportunities. And those are listed and summarized on page two. And then for the remainder of the budget discussion items, those are on page three, outlining the compensation adjustments, the net all other personal cost adjustments, and then that net operating cost adjustments. And then you have the summary of the committee decision points, which I spoke a little bit about earlier. Great. Thank you so much. Ms. Ward, do you have any opening remarks, or things you want to update on? I don't know. Just want to thank you all for your continued support. Just a flat budget this year. No new ass. We'll continue to do our work with our staff of eight and a half. Many other vendors or contracts will use through our contracting, outdoor operating or operating dollars, which is a small pot. But I think sufficient for coming here. Great. Awesome. Since you're here, I do have some questions. Always a good opportunity to catch up for a few moments. But we know that the OBET tool has been changed. And have you received any feedback? How are you finding the differences working? I think the jury's still out. I think we are waiting as we are in the midst of budget. Honestly watching closely and the interactions during budget with departments and council accountability will have a follow-up with all of the departments about a debrief about the ease or lack thereof for department users. We will consider, as we always do, changing the tool depending on the ease of use, the understanding and where we think departments are in the process. Yeah, so I think we're anxious for May when I won't start that debriefing process. Great. And can you remind me when departments were provided information, how they were communicated to you with the results of their OBEAT score? Sure. They are provided in a memo for me, as well as their score, not just their score., not their score. Right, we don't need to be analysis. We got the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. And then the letters in the memo says, please contact us if you would like to have a one-on-one and we scheduled one-on-one this one-on-one this year with our top 10, which was basically the biggest departments, budget-wise, and went through the tool, our analysis, and they were able to give us feedback on what, you know, what they thought, where, you know, where there were summer buttocks, maybe there were some misunderstandings, but we made sure to schedule one-on-ones with those top 10 departments, and as always, ask departments to follow up with us, should they want that level of technical assistance at the end of budget? Great. And that happens. What's the time frame? I'm just curious, because as we go through budgets, sometimes it's hard to know how much they've been able to digest the findings so far. I'm trying to think of when we sent those over. Gosh, it always worked. So we sent, I think we sent that over, February. Okay. I'll double check with my folks and they were able to have one-on-ones with us before it went over to you all in March. Great. And then one other question I feel like this comes up every budget year but who, which departments are supposed to do their OBEH? Which departments aren't mandated to do it, but you look at them. And I just, I feel like we're hearing from colleagues and there's, I feel like each year. A little confusion. Yeah. The legislation calls for the executive and legislative branches to go through the racial equity and social justice a little bit process. And so that does not include judicial branch. And so courts, sheriff, all folks who are not in the two executive or legislative branches. So MCPS does also not go, well, not they do, but not to the extent that this one goes through. WSSC does not, park and planning does not, as well as judicial branch. But if like I think the office of the county attorney who's here today and other folks, the executive branch. So they do it. And if one of the departments or branches that you talked about does do it, you all will, even if they're not mandated to do it, you all will. We'll take a look at it. Okay. All right. Thank you for clarifying that. Good. We were joined by Council Member Balkham. Can I just, you can follow up on that, yeah, and then I'll turn to my colleague. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, you're good, you're good. So non-departmental agencies, the NDAs, they're not covered. Okay, I think that's, we're getting a lot of that question. Yeah. Council Member Freetzain or Katz? No. All right. Well, we will follow up probably with more. I know we have an item before this committee that we weren't able to schedule before getting into budget, but it is on our list and I promise. We will as soon as we wrap up budget. More questions, then. Yeah. Terrific. Well, thank you for being here. Thank you very much for that. And this committee recommends to full counsel the County Executive Recommended Budget for the Office of Racial Equity and Social Investors. Thank you very much. All right. Up next is our Department of General Services. And we'll have Mr. Mia walk us through the packet when he is ready. Okay, good morning. Item 7 before you is covering the DGS operating budget, both the general fund and the printed mail fund portion of them. There are also a total of seven CIP amendments submitted by the executive in March and April for consideration as well. In terms of operating budget, the total increase for DGS this year in FY26 is about little less than 5 million or about 10% from FY25 approved. Most of the increases are in a general fund portion. They include one new full-time position to support facilities management, as well as a number of operating budget impacts related to maintenance of newly open facilities, including the Silver Spring Aquatic Center, as well as 260 Jefferson Crosses Street and some other facilities as well. There are also about $3.1 million in compensation adjustments, and a general fund portion of the DGS operating budget. And there's also a $27,000 item for a 3% inflationary adjustment for contract service providers, which will be reviewed by the full council separately. On the print and mail portion, there are no staffing or programmatic enhancements. The increase is about 235,000 and that's mostly related to required operating expenses. So I'll stop there and go further a little bit. All right, Director Deice, you wanna? Thank you, David Dice Director of the Department of General Services. I'm joined by my two deputies, Greg Boykin, who runs our operating department side of things. And Greg Austin, he's the Department of Greg's, who runs our capital and development side. I'm pleased to be here. I'm not going to pretend to be as eloquent as the human resources director who did a fine job standing for department. You all are very much aware of what we do. Many people are not because we're everywhere but not always seen. Although I did get the air start circulating in this room about half an hour ago. So you can thank me for that. I'm the gas leak. Yeah, well, we're also the ones that. We're talking about that. We're also the ones that close the COB. Thank you. We did get it. So I'm starting. And one list is a lot longer than I've ever had. Exactly. But anyway, we're pleased to be here and answer any of the questions you have. Great. I think I just want to start off if we could on the new position that Mr. Mia talked about if you could talk more about the need and what that position would be doing. Certainly. There's two positions, one that you talked with HR about that we're getting from them as a fiscal assistant. This position, and it's captured on page 9 and 10. You can see the amount of escalation that's occurred with the invoices that DGS processes each year. And we're currently doing this work with the contract resource, but the volume is expanding and the contract is expiring. So we are concerned, I am concerned about getting into position where we simply cannot process invoices in a timely manner. The relative comparison with other departments that have staff larger than we have to do this work, we are struggling to keep up with invoice payments and processing. The work that this position does is listed on the top of page 10. Working with payment issues with vendors, working with finance, P-card transactions, monthly statements. So we've gone from just in three years from 6,700 invoices processed to over 10,000. It's just the nature of the expanding aspect of what we do. And if we're going to be faithful to the business community and maintain a positive reputation for timely payment, we need the staff to process the invoices. And do we have the analysis done of like continuing with contract services versus bringing on a position? And is that, is there going to be a savings there? Is that, how does that get offset? Because I imagine if we bring on a full-time position, then we don't need the contract. That's correct. We would eliminate the contract to have the position. Yeah, so is there a savings there? How much is the contract for? I don't have that figure in front of me. Do we have that? I can get you that figure. Yeah, I think, I mean, for me, I think before, I mean, the need is there, right? And as you said, we need to make sure, I mean, and we hear from folks when their invoices do get held up in the business community and others as well. So there is an obvious need to be processing these invoices in a timely manner. I think before I'm prepared to move forward and talking about adding an FTE to our county government, which is something that we've also talked about in terms of what that does to our long-term sustainability for our government. I'd like to have a little bit more information to know about the advantages and disadvantages of continuing with the contract versus bringing on a full term. What I do notice that the current contract is $27.64 an hour in this position. I'm not sure what pay grade this is, but we'll get you the financial breakdown and comparison. Yeah, Councilman Frieson, did you want to follow it? Yeah, I mean there's two questions here. One is the obvious question you heard from the council president, which is, what is the cost benefit here? And does it make sense to continue the contract? The other question is, if the contract is expiring, why don't we see the cost savings, $27.64, How many hours was it budgeted for? And shouldn't we see a shift of a reduction in X number of hours for this contract and replacing it with this full-time equivalent position? Is this the full amount that we're getting? The 72,000? Is this the ongoing? I mean, yeah, and this contract was not budgeted. It's been pulled out of our resources just trying to address the problem before it became a problem. So we brought on the, through an existing county contract, DGS has been covering these costs. So we're in a deficit because of this, but we're priority has been to get bills paid. And how long have we had the contract? A year, two years? I feel like we need to have more information here. Okay. If we've had a contract for two years that actually wasn't budgeted for or brought before us as a committee as something, that's a whole nother issue. And so, appreciate you finding your own budget to do this. But, Mr. Me, I think before we can make a recommendation on this part of it, I think we need a lot more information on how long we've had this contract. If it's going to end, like, what are the cost benefits to going to an FTE here? And, yeah. Yeah, I'll just, I mean, this is starting to become a theme. We've heard this morning that there's the budget that comes to us, what you're asking for. And then there's the actual budget that your departments are dealing with, which seems to be like a second set of books. And that's troubling. Like the fact that there is a separate account of which you found money to utilize another contract somewhere else, and that's nowhere to be found. And it's been ongoing for multiple years and I'm not, we're not spending money. This is not spending it elsewhere. I understand, but you get authorized to spend money exactly how the council authorizes it to be spent. That's what an appropriation is. It is a legally binding enablement for the department to spend money. The idea of discretion, we're seeing this at the federal level, I just want to be very careful in how this is responded to, and it's not just directed at you, and in your department, this is a broader point that I was making that we have heard repeatedly this morning, that there is, we have a huge number of vacancies in county government. I have been sounding the alarm on this for years. One of the reasons why that is troubling is that it provides a cushion for departments to spend money without appropriate levels of fiscal oversight, which bypasses the appropriation authority under the charter, which is our Constitution in the county of the county council. So yes, there should be some level of wiggle room to be able to meet urgent needs, but there are limits to that. And what we've seen is a repeated pattern, almost in every department that we've heard from today where there have been examples of changes and things that are happening where we approve one thing and the reality is something else. And at no point does it ever come back to the council for approval and no point does it ever come back to the council for notice. And we are duly elected to provide appropriation authority to pass the budget, to provide executive departments with authority to spend taxpayer dollars. And it's coming back to the council that provides the public with the sunlight to understand how their money is being spent So I you know, I just I'm making this is a broader point. It's not a DGS point. It's a broader point, but Yes, we need to find out the cost benefit between Continuing in a contract at $27.64 or whatever that's going to be moving forward. But there is a bigger question here of what comes to us and what we're approving and what is actually happening within executive departments. And I will just note that I am increasingly troubled from what I am hearing about things that are being approved and have been approved for multiple years and different things that are actually happening in the operations of county government. Okay. Council member Katz. Thank you. And in your analysis. And I believe that you need to pay your bills. And I believe you probably did the right thing to hire somebody on a contract candidly. But in your analysis could you let us know how fast that vendor is paying that the how fast the contractor is paying that vendor because you're dealing with businesses that are waiting for that check and how fast we would be able to pay the vendor with a new full tone. Okay, thank you. Great. Sorry, Mr. Mia, is that where you paused? Am I turning it back to you or did we go over BlackRock yet? No, we have. Okay, okay. Leave me, I know. I didn't think you were... I didn't move around. Is there anything else in the part of the budget for DGS that you've gone over that we haven't discussed? There are $1.7 million in operating budget impacts being added. So although this is technically new funding for FY26, it does reflect maintenance costs for previous county investments in the CIP. And those dollars are straightforward are straightforward calculations squared footage times rate, and so really no issues on that one. Okay. Any questions on those? No? All right. We'll turn back to you. And then the third enhancement in the DGS General Fund is the one time funding for BlackRock. The executive is requesting $125,000 in FY26 recommended budget for BlackRock. This is to provide ongoing operating support for their BlackRock's budget. This is in addition to the $70,000 I was funded in FY25 through the DGS General Fund operating budget, as well as a $260,000 supplemental that was approved by Council a year ago in the FY24 operating budget. So if approved total support for BlackRock since FY 24, total about $445,000. Okay. All right. Since we have the district council member here, I will turn it over to her. Sure. Thank you. So we did fund BlackRock in 2024 and 2025. And with the idea of we have the county owns several arts facilities. And we know that those arts facilities provide more than just the arts in our community. They are economic drivers. They are part of the community fabric, they do a lot of community engagement and they often do the work of the county in making sure that we have movies on the lawn or we have seasonal celebrations and also hosting convening county events, specifically that either the county council or the county executive branch requests to have space in those facilities. So one of the when we looked at providing funding in 24 as a supplemental in 25 in the budget, the question was, well, what about other arts facilities in the community? Venues that the county actually owns. And so there is an OOLO study, Office of Legislative Oversight Study, going on to look at the sustainability of these county-owned facilities post-COVID. We understand that like many nonprofit organizations, the art centers took a major hit that they're still recovering from. So that study is coming forward. with a particular intention of looking at what is a sustainable model for the county to support these entities for non-arts funding? We have the Arts and Humanities Council who provides arts funding for all of our arts organizations, regardless of who owns those entities. And that, and Arts and Humanities Council does a great job of looking at a formulaic model of providing support. But we know that a lot of these entities provide so much more to the community than arts activities. So, potential model would be to look at what are those activities and what do they cost to provide. And so this is considered one time funding in that we need to have a much longer discussion, a much more in depth discussion about how we're going to be sustainable in the future. So of course I support this request and I hope you do too. Thank you. Council Member Frizzan Yeah, well first of all, appreciate the district council member for her advocacy, appreciate BlackRock for all of their work. I mean, this is a good example of an area of the county as the district council member noted where there aren't a lot of county and public facilities where we don't have the Silver Spring Civic Center that serves a similar function in silver spring where we don't have the Silver Spring Civic Center that serves a similar function in Silver Spring, where we don't have the Wheaton facilities that we have in a community that relies on it in a significant way. I really appreciated the request in receiving the community activities outside of the the arts and the $275,000 estimated value that we are receiving. The organization doesn't charge the county an appropriate amount for every time it is utilized in this way. So this is a really good deal for us in the sense that not only are we getting a major public benefit for the entire up county and for the region, really, but we're also just dollar for dollar getting a good deal in the sense that we're not paying a facilities fee and the cost for the wear and tear and all the other dynamics. We didn't pay an appropriate level to use this facility as a community hub for a great deal of the pandemic, not to mention all of the community events that take place there as well. So I'm enthusiastically in support of this as I was last year, appreciate that we're moving forward with it and look forward to continuing to see what BlackRock is able to do with the partnership of the county to provide this community resource beyond just an arts organization because it really is a civic center in addition to an arts organization. I'm very glad that we have a board member as representation to be able to ensure that it is serving the broader community needs in addition to the arts. The arts are a community need to be clear and something that is needed now more than ever given everything that's happening but it's so much more than that as well. So appreciate it and look forward to supporting. Okay, Council Member Katz. Thank you. I tell him supportive, but I am confused. In their packet, it says that we, that it is corrective to reflect the addition of the 190,000 from the state. But it was, so how much are we actually using for county money is one I'm asking. So it's, it's, it was 70,000 FY25, the current year. Yep. The request is 125 in FY26. OK. The original request in 25 was 250,000 or 60,000. 260. But we got 190 from the state. So anyhow, that's the bottom line figure. Thank you. Great. All right. Well, my job is made easier going last. One, I just want to say thank you to Katie for being here. The Chief Executive Officer at Block Rock and all the excellent work you've been doing. And I just want to reiterate what my colleagues have said. I think particularly at this time we find ourselves in our county and with all that's going on from the federal administration having a place that is here that will, you know, continue with programming be supportive of our community is gonna be so important moving forward. And so I think this is really an easy one to make sure we keep in the budget. So, all right., with the recommendation of the committee, we will suggest keeping that in the budget. Thanks a lot. Turn it down. You're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome. It's fine. Turning to page 10 of the packet. It's the first of several CIP amendments. The executive has requested. First on is the ADA compliance CIP. This was originally submitted in January with a scope enhancement of $3.2 million in FY26 to support the design and construction of ADM improvements at the Germantown Outdoor Pool. The previously approved CIP only had included the funding for the design portion. In a smart transmission, these executive revises project due to physical constraints, essentially removing the 3.2 million and there were some other minor changes relating to acceleration and transfers of money, but essentially in his March amendment, the executive did remove the 3.2 million in funding. And there's a complete list of scheduled changes on circles 15 through 17 as requested by the committee at their last review on March 21st. Any questions on that? No questions? The second amendment is actually energy conservation, MCGCIP, not energy modernization. That's a separate project that was a type on my part. The, in its the executive, accelerate some funding into earlier years to support implementation of the county's BEPS program. However, in its market amendment due to physical constraints, particularly in geo bonds, the amendments were essentially reversed to the previously approved level, again due to physical constraints. Okay. Not seeing any questions? The next amendment is the only community building which the joint committee of GO and EC reviewed last month. That project was approved by the council as an amendment to allow a land acquisition occur. This month, in fact, the executive has submitted an April amendment reflecting the actual amount of state funding for that project, essentially additional $200,000 was approved by the state in April. Okay. Okay. Continue. Okay. Again, the next project was the only infant and toddler program set improvements, CIP. This again was a project previous reviewed by a joint committee last month. The April amendment reflects the actual award the state has made in this project, which is now $450,000, an increase of $200,000 as previously estimated. So again, no issues there for money. The next several projects are all essentially state wards for MCPS facilities, but the CIP is managed by DGS, so essentially DGS is cutting checks to MCPS, who is actually in fact managing and implementing the improvements. The first of these is the state aid for MCPS playground CIP. This is an ongoing project that's receiving its, I believe, third round of state funding for FY26. The award is 1.6 million and this will construct a renovated playgrounds at MCPS schools. The next project is a new project, the Sherwood High School softball field CIP. The state has awarded $6,000,000 in FY26 to fund improvements at the softball field a Sherwood High School. And the final project is the Watkins Middle High School Concession Stan CIP, also a new project, reflecting a state award of $100,000 in FY26. That's it for CIP amendments. The packet does detail the open analysis. The summary of that is that essentially DGS is doing great job with their racial equity programming. There's a number of strengths identified for the department as well as some opportunities but really staff has no questions at this time. Great. All right. Any other questions from colleagues? All right. So I think the only outstanding thing we have on the budget is looking at the request for the FTE. Other than that? Great. Perfect. Alright, thank you everyone and we will now move on to the office of the county attorney. Okay, Mr. Mio, whenever you're ready. Here are you. Or the Office of the County Attorney's FY 2016 operating budget, the County Executive is recommending an increase of $175,983 or 1.7% increase from the FY25 approved level. The increase is primarily due to a staffing enhancement, adding one full-time position to support grants management. There's also about half a million dollars in reductions for one-time costs that were funded in FY25, namely a HIPAA audit, which is the funding is no longer needed in $26.4. Other than that, there's about $5.7000 in an increase for compensation adjustments, which again is offset by that $5.4000 reduction. So essentially, it's really just adding a one full time position. There is also a minor cost increase of $36,000 for the legal files case management software and there are about it's a $4,000 decrease in non-descriptionary operating cost adjustments mostly print and mail and motor pull charges. Great, great. Mr. Mark Rob's anything. Good morning. Thank you for the privilege of coming before you on behalf of the Office of County Attorney and all of our staff. We thank you for your continued support. If you have any questions regarding our budget ask I can explain that. The grants I've just added that we used we took all of the grants that we used to have which was a handful that were then disseminated by our vendors those funds and now we've taken them all them all in house. And we're looking at about 500 grant agreements a year now. So as of December, we were at a little over 250. So by the end of the fiscal year, we'll be at 500 as our estimate or more. So we're distributing the money now in more agreements, but smaller amounts, not these large block grants, if you will. So it's really added a major component to the office's stress in trying to process those because it's in our Finance and Procurement Division and we handle 2,000 contracts and amendments a year just in that division alone. So when you add the other 500 for grants management from the that's been created through the new office, it's necessitated the ask for that additional FTE in my office. And that's gone from zero to 500. That's the only thing that's been created. Yeah, I mean, before it was a handful that we were handling because they were, you know, five or six agreements that were with vendors then that would distribute those monies in subcontracts. And now we're doing with through the office of grants management, Rafael Murphy asked specifically to have a dedicated lawyer for grants management because it's gone from zero to 500 a year. So, and I don't see that changing anytime certain. So, that, and to the extent that somehow that grants were to lower, we would absorb for sure using all of our contracts lawyers to work on. We've been using them now and we're past an FTE, where I don't want to pay overtime. So, and I don't want to lose my high ranking, the county under county stat, the county attorney's office has been the highest ranked principal department for years, and I don't want to lose my response time. But Raphael Murphy and I did meet and we met with OMB, and we felt that need because of office of grants management creation that we've got this additional expenditure and effort that has to go on. So I'm asking for that one FTE for a lawyer to be placed in our finance and procurement division to handle exclusively grants and grant agreements. They'll also work on grant applications, it goes both directions, right, distribution but also seeking grants through the grants office. That's another piece of the business that's not necessarily reflected in the paperwork here. Great and the the cost that's reflected here that's for a full year. Yes. Yes. Just always making sure because sometimes we get positions that come in. Oh I'm glad that Councilmember Friedson came back because I don't have anything hidden in my budget that you haven't seen and beyond appropriation. So, you know, we're the sword and shield for the can and we're completely transparent with our budget. And we're all personnel. I would add that 36,000 for legal files is kind of an existential threat to the office. So we had pro-law as our work management tool. Pro-law was sold by Thompson Reuters, the entity that took it over, didn't even have our contact information. We actually tried to do a scope of work changed to modify some of the software and we couldn't get in touch with them for months. So I'm and they promised us a cloud-based so that we could access any device and unbeknownst probably to the council. Courts now moved all digital. So for instance the workers' comp division, everybody's got an Apple tablet and it's got a SIM card and so they can access their files but we can't access our work management system while we're in court or before the commission because the program has to be accessed through a VPN and a server so it's not cloud-based. So I'm trying to improve our work management tool, but I'm also worried about how long the software will continue to be service for the existing system. So we have the ask in there for that 36,000 to transition slowly to legal files. And then you wouldn't be dependent on the VPN anymore. That would be the theory, that's right. We'd get off of it. Well, we're weaning ourselves from pro law. I mean, it touches everything we do. From all of our reports, quarterly reports, that we have to produce, our annual report to council on settlements, everything is buried in that program. So we're transitioning slowly, I think it's like 10 licenses by the end of the calendar year, and then, you know, laws, everything's working right. Because we're already paying for pro-law, so the additional money is to help us with trends. It's like 10 licenses by the end of the calendar year. And then, you know, as long as everything's working right. Because we're already paying for pro-laws. So the additional money is to help us with transition into the license for the new software. No, we just had tabs before us yesterday. You're talking about the VPN. That's why I asked the question. I'm not a fan of the, I mean, virtual private networks does it do have some protections. but nowadays, depending on which vendor you're working with, the cloud-based systems are probably just as good, and with encryption and all that, so I'm not really worried about it. It also frees my lawyers up to be completely mobile. We all have laptops, certain lawyers that are in court and at commission regularly have Apple tablets. So it's, you know, we've gone completely digital. I've transformed the office pretty much. I was fortunate before COVID, I made sure everybody had a laptop and then COVID hit and we were able to not miss it because we weren't tied to tabletops. So. Great. Well, I think, you know, going back to the position for the grants management, as we all have heard, you know, facilitating and making our process to get our grants out and get all of that out. And a better way is something that I think this committee has been championing for a long time. And so I'm supportive of this budget. Any questions or anything? No. No. All right. We're good to go. All right. Mr. Mia, we can say government operations fiscal policy committee recommendation is to take the county executives recommended budget for the county attorney's office. Thank you. Thank you. All right, next debt service. Yeah, but the next couple of items whenever you're ready. Good morning. For debt service, the county executive recommends a decrease of 7.25 million or 1.51 percent from the FY25 approved operating budget. The debt service budget item reflects obligations on the part of the county to pay debt incurred for past and upcoming FY26 spending decisions. I'm happy to go through some of the highlights from the staff report and then answer any questions or turn it over to our colleagues for additional comments. Moving on to staff two of the report. An FY26 tax-supported debt service expenditures represent 6.7% of the total recommended FY26 tax-supported budget. The general fund supports 80.9% of those recommended FY26 expenditures. Some notes on total debt outstanding on page 3 of the packet. The recommended budget estimates the county's total debt outstanding to be roughly 3.49 billion in FY26. The county's overall picture of total outstanding debt has changed somewhat in recent years due to the council's decision to reduce the spending affordability guidelines for the capital budget. And accordingly, various debt capacity indicators continue to display modest improvement in the out years. Some indicators remain somewhat greater than the policy level through the end of this period. And that's reflected at circle 14 in your packet. Table 3 at the bottom of page 3 details the total debt outstanding by bond category. And I'll note that the top three debt categories, which are public schools, general county government and roads and storm drains together comprise 82% of total outstanding debt. the table on page 2 details debt service expenditures by category change from FY26 recommended to FY31 projected. On the committee can see in the first row and the fifth row of this table the public schools debt service expenditures are projected to decrease by 7% and mass transit is projected to decrease over this period by 15.6%. Some notes regarding interest costs as reflected in the bond summary statistics, the county issued $725 million in Geo bonds, which includes $280 million in Bonds and $445 million in bonds to refund prior GeoBonds series. The FY26 debt service budget assumes a 5% average coupon interest rate for future GeoBonds issuances. You can see at the table the true interest cost for recent series on FY 25 has been somewhat lower. The Federal Reserve Board has repeatedly decreased interest rates over the past fiscal year, but rates remain relatively high. The unpredictable federal macroeconomic environment may result in further interest rate changes. Interest rates were to lower. that would impact the debt service budget by decreasing cost to borrow for Geo-Bonds and Bands and increasing revenue from the bonds premiums. Some final notes regarding the other expenditure items in this budget. Long-term lease expenditures are increased by 1.02 million or 34.4% from FY25 to FY26 due to an increase in the lease costs for fire and rescue equipment. For short term lease expenditures, those increased by 2.77 million from FY25 to FY26 driven by an increase in the radio with life cycle replacement short term least and expenditures on other long term debt increase by two points. FY26 driven by an increase in the radio lifecycle replacement short term least and expenditures on other long term debt increased by 2.98 million or 6.8% from FY25 to FY26 primarily driven by increases in expenditures on non-tax supported and HIFuns for property acquisition and preservation as well as production. So with that happy to answer any questions. Great. Fine. Fine. Sir Mb. Have any? Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine? Great. Fine answer and be having any comments on the debt service. No, calling so many questions. I think we should pay your debts. I think we should pay your debts. All right. We are good to go with the County Executive's recommendation. Thank you. Next we have our packet for the next three items is Department of Finance, our Risk Management NDA and State Property Taxes NDA. Never be ready. Thank you. Thank you. As the council president noted, this staff report comprises three items. The county executive recommends for the Department of Finance in increase of $5,784,433 or 4.38% from the FY25 approved operating budget. The executive further recommends a decrease of $155,000 from the FY25 approved operating budget for the risk management NDA and the executive as of the initial budget, middle recommended no change for state property tax services, NDA, although the executive's recent amendment mentions a change in cost sharing and so it's possible that those numbers will be updated in the future to reflect changes at the state regarding cost sharing with STAT. Regarding the Department of Finance of that 5.78 million, the executors recommended increase includes $166,000 in items that Council staff has identified as construing programmatic and staffing enhancements. This is $25,000 for a particular component of the timekeeping service contract to expand an SMS scheduling service to additional public safety departments, as well as two FTEs that would be funded out of the self-insurance fund to support the Office of the County's Attorney's Work with the self-insurance fund. Moving on to page three of the staff report, just to note briefly, the OBET evaluation for the Department of Finance. Notes that the Department of Finance demonstrates a commitment to advancing racial equity and social justice in Montgomery County. And has provided some additional strengths and opportunities analysis there. And then moving on to page four, I'll go through these items. Some of the discussion items are represent continuation of existing staffing and service levels and are provided for the committee's information. This first item at the bottom of page four, the $120,000 increase for the UK Finance Contract with the UKG Timekeeping Service represents an 11% increase from the approved FY25 budget. This increase encompasses inflation. It also encompasses the addition of non-production software environments for public safety department scheduling systems, as well as the expanded use of the Twilio scheduling service for public safety scheduling. Some more information about that. The Twilio service is already in use by the police department, and it allows participating public safety departments to contact employees via SMS messaging, to fill open shifts in the event of unplanned absences for posted overtime. Right now, DOCR uses a system that is reliant on paper sign-up sheets and non-automated phone calls, andS uses a more costly system. So the executive's recommendation for this overall $120,000 line item includes within it that $25,000 increase to expand this text message service to DOCR as well as to FRS. Moving on to page 5 at the top of page 5, just a note that the $74,000 increase for the tax sale advertisement supports the Treasury Division's legally required advertisement of the annual tax sale and the increase costs incumbent in advertising in the Washington Post. There is a decrease of $236,000 in pooled contractual costs for ongoing financial systems applications. Some of the contracts within this line item are renewed every two years and so this line item tends to increase one year and then decrease the next year. So Council staff anticipates that this item would increase next year as some of those contracts are renewed. Moving on to number two in the packet. Now I'll apologize for the typo. This should read number two, proposed budget changes for committee review, self insurance fund, not the general fund. There is a $3.3 million item that reflects projected increases in claims expenses in FY26, is determined by the county's actuary, a $545,000 return of contribution which reflects greater than expected investment income generated by the self insurance fund. That necessitates a return of contribution to departments and participating agencies that pay into the self insurance fund which is reflected as a cost on the self insurance funds and $504,000 as an increase for the commercial insurance premiums, which is 79% less than the increase recommended by the broker and approved by the council in FY25. And then item number 2.4 details, the two FTEs that the county executive recommends are funded out of the self-insurance fund to support the work that OCA does with the self-insurance fund. Since the Maryland Workers Compensation Commission converted all notifications from electronic to paper, excuse me, to electronic from paper in 2023, administrative duties have increased substantially, which thus far has entailed overtime costs. And so finance in OCA has discussed funding these two additional positions for OCA to be able to deal with the work that has been entailed by these additional workloads. Finally, at the top of page six of your packet is a brief description of the two NDAs. As mentioned, the executive recommends a 0.6% decrease to the risk management fund NDA, which supports the county's general fund contribution to the self-insurance fund. And then that state property tax services NDA, which the executive had previously recommended no change, and there may be some updates to that moving forward. So with that, the three line items or two full line items in one component of that larger timekeeping contractor broken out for the committee's consideration at the bottom of page 6, and happy to answer any other questions. Director Kovu, do you have anything you want to open? Good morning. Mike Kovu, Department of Finance Director. Thank you for having us today. I just say that in addition to what Logan said, the Department of Finance sort of facilitates all the work that county employees provide, all the services that are provided. And we typically come in with a lean budget. I think this is a lean budget even though you see some puts and takes in it. Some of the puts and takes are different from previous years on the tax sale advertisement. We used to advertise in the Sentinel, which was very low cost. And now we advertise in a major market newspaper because it's the only option we have. And it is much, much more expensive to the county. But we've been carrying that cost for years. We've been paying it out of savings that we generate every year. This year we actually put it in the budget so that it was clear that this was out there, that it was a relatively significant cost and we wanted you to be aware of it. We have mentioned it in past packets too, but we've mentioned that we're also going to pay for it through savings. The other items that we're talking about, the toilio, that's a benefit to both public safety employees and public safety management. We're not going to force them to adopt it if they don't want to. They're going to want to adopt this. And it's very low cost for what it is. And on the county attorney's offices, two positions, we totally agree with that. It's fair. And as you're aware, the county attorney's office provides a lot of resources to the, especially the workers compensation program. And they have been an excellent partner throughout the many years that we've been doing this. And with that, I'm going to say I do have some people from the department with us. Jay-Anthi Hari Prasad is with risk management. She's the sort of the budget coordinator for risk management. Kimberly Gayarmer is the risk management chief. Jed Milard is our administrative services chief. Abdul, of course, is from OMB and some of our other division chiefs and other staff are here too. If you have any questions about any of this. Great. This is good. I just think I have one question because usually it just goes counterintuitive that when we move from paper to electronic that it actually has increased because usually it's the inverse, right? When we think about it actually being better for us. So I'm just curious. Could you explain that to us? It's my understanding and John Markovs, we asked him to stay because he is the leader of the OCA team that when the Workers' Compensation Commission, during COVID, moved slowly towards electronic communication and it was painful for them and for the attorneys who were handling the hearings that there have been additional responsibilities added to defense which is what we always are on the workers compensation side. We're defending the county to set hearings not set hearings. I'm sorry, but to you know make sure that staffing is available for hearings and that witnesses are available, county managers and so on are available for hearings. So we're supporting the defense and I believe and John can weigh in in case I'm indicating this incorrectly, but it's just getting used to the new processes, getting used to filing things electronically, which with the workload and the documents that are required in the comp hearings, is just a lot of new arrangements for to perform it electronically. You can go up, John. Yeah, come back. We have a seat for you. Okay, sorry. John Markovs, the county attorney. So what happened is the Workers Compensation Commission by creating everything digital pushed all of the clerical work down onto the claimants and the respondents. So all of the files had to be digitally put together now. Used to be just get a piece of paper, drop it in a file, take the file with the inner box to the Workers' Comcommission. It's not like that anymore. All of the notices are, there's no paper. It's all electronic. But what that's done, just like Mdec with the district court and the circuit court in our state system, The clerk's office has shed all of the responsibilities and put them on the parties to deal with all of the electronics. So everything... in the circuit court in our state system, the clerk's office has shed all of the responsibilities and put them on the parties to deal with all of the electronics. So every time there's a notice generated, it's an email that comes in. It has to be immediately taken, put into that work management system. It has to be, in some cases, has to be printed, depends on what it is, about a notice it is, or whether it's a medical report for use at a hearing. So it is exponentially created more work for the claimants and the respondents and less work for commission and courthouse staff. So it is. It's counterintuitive and we never saw it coming. When we went to MDEC we saw the increase on the circuit court and state filings and we're like, oh gosh, we've got to deal with that and figure out how to handle all that digitally. It's even worse than the workers comp realm. The other thing that I would add is that we've been limping for the last few years for sure having the two people in my office doing workers comp that are actually covered by the budget that you just reviewed, it's outside the SIF. So I have people that are doing SIF work that are not being covered by SIF, which means they're not doing the general council work. They're not working on legislation for the council. They're not working on general council work. They're working on SIF, but yet not being paid by SIF. So this is an accounting and a work allocation associated with risk management's workers' comp claims. So I need the secretary and the assistant that frees up the other secretary and assistant that are doing way too much SIF work to the expense of not doing the work there otherwise, but budgeted for. And this is ongoing, so it's not just like catching up. That's correct, this would be ongoing. And our budget, you just, you, you, you, because sometimes counsel, I think they, they, they have to remember, my budget is kind of bifurcated. It's not an even split, but the lion's share budget you just reviewed, but there is, my self-insurance fund, my litigation division and my workers comp division, or seven divisions, who the divisions are in the SIF and are funded by SIF, which Kimberly Gay armor and my colleague and I we work with every year dealing with you know Whether there be compensation whether there be additional people added things like that So you you get the SIF budget through finance and you get my operating budget through me I'm glad this was brought up because I also had a similar question It's a little confid mean, I understand what you're saying. They basically said it's electronic, but it's now your job to deal with all of the administrative work as opposed to the clerk doing the clerical work, which I thought was the function of the clerk, but apparently not. Is this an opportunity for tabs for AI? I mean, I would think this is clerical in nature. It's taking documents and inputting the document information into other places to create new documents. It's basically like a number of inputs from multiple documents and having it into a new document or a file of documents, which to me would seem a limited level of artificial intelligence, like my level of intelligence artificially could handle that type of task as any. I think that's a future possibility. You know, it would be a trust but verify. But the other component that the Secretary and Legalist and DOES actually packaged the digital files up for the lawyer to take to the Workers' Comp Commission. The Workers' Comp lawyers do about 2,000 hearings a year. We do no less than probably four jury trials a month, which are worker comp appeals. And all of those files are not digital. All the notices, the medical, the ME reports, deposition transcripts, the videos of the deposition, all that has to be handled. So yeah, I think at some point there might be an AI tool that we could apply for the inbox, applying the notices from the workers' comp commission, but you gotta make sure that the right notice goes into the right file by case number and things like that. But we're not there yet. I mean, that's something that Tubbs, I know, has been exploring. I'm working with them actually on a chat version for inside the county attorney's office to create form files and research banks. So I'm happy to talk with them about seeing if there's a way to streamline court notices coming in or commission notices. I would suggest I mean there are possibilities that a computer program could make a mistake of putting the wrong file in the wrong place but someone who will put the wrong file the wrong place today I guarantee it as I have know, 40 packets that we have to deal with in three different committee sessions today. Humans are certainly capable of that and more so I just think that ought to be something for you to take a look at. I have another question of another item but I'll you'll back on this. No, I think we're good on this. So yeah, I just wanted to understand the return of contribution, the 2.2, and just understand this was we received greater than expected income generated by the CF in 24. And now we're redistributing that money back to the apartments. I'm just trying to understand what this means and why and how it's reflected. Sorry, I can start with that, but I can't give you the technical. The main thing is that our investment manager, who invests the working capital, one of the department's personnel, has done a bang up job of earning lots of money for the county over the last couple of years especially. And the SIF has a fund balance that is invested and the interest earnings on that are a revenue that comes in and that has to be shared. And this is essentially the way of sharing it. And hopefully I didn't put you that too much. Yeah, I just, you can understand my confusion, presumably, if we got greater than expected interest from the CF, that would be a net benefit. Now, I understand there's puts and takes. But why doesn't that money just go in the end of year accounting to the general fund in the way of reserves? I'm just confusing to me why $545,000 would be, like why does the department get returned that money? Wasn't it get returned as that department's share to the general funds to reserves. I just don't understand. I mean to me this would be a close-out accounting issue and not a detriment to the sift and the benefit of a department and a line item that is not in the department's budget. So the first point of clarification is that the 545,000 that you're seeing as a return of contribution is the change from last year. It's an additional 545,000 being returned to all of the participants in the self insurance fund. The total being returned for FY 26, I believe is 6.9 million, which is- 6.9 is the total amount of interest. That is the total amount. 545, 983 is the above projected because we got more interest rates. We're better and we have a really good, you know, talented person helping us. You did a bang up job, I think, as the... And then the reason that it's not going just back to the general fund is that there are 14 participating agencies within the self-insurance fund. There's the county government. There's the tax-supported part, which is the risk management NDA, the general fund portion. And then the rest is other non-tax-supported county government funds, like Fire Fund. Then there's MCPS, HOC, Park and Planning Commission. All of the other member agencies, there are some municipalities that participate in the program. So it's not an apples to apples return to just the general fund because not all of that money that was invested came from general funds. Okay. Is the 545.983 is that just outside agencies outside of county government? Is that the reason? That is the total of all the entire return of contribution. So the general fund portion is the amount you see in the NDA, the risk management NDA. So it's a total of 6.9 million being returned. We kept contributions flat, so like the rates are staying flat, and then we're giving funds back to each person. I just asked, because the context of the prior conversations that we had, about $46 million in the self-insurance fund because of added expenses is some portion of this offsetting that. I'm just trying to understand. So the other item that feels like there's just takes and no puts, you know, is the trouble that I'm having here. One would think that you have puts and takes. So I'm just trying to understand the accounting because it doesn't feel like money is leaving and coming in in equal measure, which is creating a 46 substantial sustainability challenge from a fiscal standpoint. Now, this is just one example of it, but it just caught my attention specifically because we just talked about a massive increase in the self-insurance fund that we're offsetting basically through the general fund. So the other increases that you're seeing in the self-insrinsed fund, like the 3.3 million for claims expenses, that's an increase in the total expenses for the fund. However, we're not asking all of the participants to pay anymore. Those increases are being covered by this excess investment income. So rates have stayed flat for all participants over the past couple of years because of this excess Because we've been making so much money off of the investments So we're providing more services costs are still going up But they haven't actually that hasn't gone down to the departments They're not having to pay more the county government's not having to pay more MCPS is not having to contribute any except in this budget where 46 million more. Yeah. Well, that's, I believe that's the health insurance fund. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Got it. So, all right. So, so what you're saying is, okay, now I understand. So you're saying that we are paying this out to cover the increased costs. Yeah. See, all of the increased costs are being covered. This is the appropriation to pay the cost. There will be a offset. Got it. Okay. Got it. Thank you. You get the accounts for our accounts? All right. Anything else on this? Oh, yeah. Did I add just one thing? I should have mentioned this at the beginning, because Logan brought it up. The State Property Tax Services, the split between the counties and the State Department of Assessments and Taxation was changed by the General Assembly. Today we pay 50% of the cost of Estate. Tomorrow, July 1st, we're going to paying 90%. So I believe that's coming over to you in the form of budget amendment if it hasn't come over already. So there was nothing we could do about it. We've all the counties fought that but we are paying 90% of the costs of Estad now. So yeah, so I think in terms of the Department of Finance, Budget and Risk Management, I'm seeing the committee is approving the County Executive's recommendation, and we have to hold on the State Property Text Services NDA, and that can either come back to us at Go or go to full council depending on when we receive the amendments. So, good. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the information and all the work. That is our last few items for government operations and we are adjourned. Thank you very much.