Good afternoon everyone and welcome to this government operations and fiscal policy committee meeting. We have a number of items on our agenda this evening and first I want to say thank you to everyone who is here. I know we had to reschedule this and you were all prepared to come a little while ago but we really appreciate your flexibility and I think it's a little bit more pleasant here. And it was a couple of weeks ago. We're going to start off this afternoon with the FY26 operating budget and amendments to the FY25 to 30 capital improvements. And the first item we have is our technology and enterprise business solution, our Tebs department and Dr. Turegas, I'm going to kick it over to you, but I know we have Dr. Roper has a presentation. She'd like to walk us through. Right, I'll just make a few remarks. What you have in front of you is the $72 million request by the executive for Tebs, the technology enterprise business solutions budget. You will not be looking at the entire entirety of it. About $8.5 million is a public safety component of Tebs. And since the joint committees of GEO and public safety will be taking that on a couple of weeks from now. You will not be looking at that $8.5 million component. So in total, you'll be looking not at $72 million, but at $64 million this afternoon. I've laid out in my staff report kind of three major components. One is I thought I'd identify some major trends that I see as your staff IT director IT Support person in the technology realm secondly, they'll say IT guru Yeah Secondly, there were a couple of issues in last year's budget discussions that really engage you deeply. And I thought I would ask Tebs to address those and they have done so in writing. You may want to ask them additional questions, but we've looked at Web 2.0. You may remember we looked at artificial intelligence. In fact, the presentation will cover some of that artificial intelligence and also some aspects of connectivity to the broader community using broadband. And then we go step by step in terms of the increases, the ads and the enhancements to the budget that the executive has laid out. So that would be the process I've laid out. With that, I yield the floor, maybe perhaps to my friend, Gail Roper, the director. Good afternoon. So we promised to do a presentation today and get it done in six to eight minutes. So, Gail was going to put his alarm on and we're going to get it done in six day events. That's what we do. So we're going to start out really just talking about AI. The question was to give some insight on where we are in relation to AI for Montgomery County. The thing I wanted to emphasize the most is that we're doing AI in a way that gives us a level of responsibility. That is very important that Montgomery County Center AI around being accountable, each of us being accountable for what we're doing with the data that the county serves. Center Non Service Delivery, we really want to use AI to improve processes and to bring about efficiencies. And you'll see, we've done quite a bit of that so far. We've had partnerships across the region. We had the governor's office to come over and meet with us on our AI strategy and to talk about what we're doing as we move forward with the deployment of AI. And we've also been benchmarking other jurisdictions had a conversation a week ago with the city of Indianapolis and how they're working with AI and AI deployment. And then we're also looking at our resources, our vacancies. And we're really having to look at hiring a different type of skill set as we move forward with modern technologies, and that'll be part of our strategy as we move forward. We did create what we call an AI Center of Excellence. What we're doing with the AI Center of Excellence is we're meeting with each other department heads to come in and talk about AI, what are the issues and barriers to them being more productive and doing the work within their departments? And we are sitting with them discussing how we feel AI can benefit them. And them telling us how they feel AI can help to move their organizations forward. So our mission overall is to come up with a portfolio of AI initiatives that have a direct impact on how we do business within Montgomery County to enhance our governance and to have efficiencies across the organization. AI can be very detrimental if it's not used properly. So we have a plan that Ms. Taki will talk about where we are actually doing in-person and online training for individuals as they come in to help them understand what AI is and also what AI is not. I think we want to take it. Sure. Good afternoon. Sheena Taki, change management under Director director ropers leadership. So if I can just expand a bit more on on Gail's comments, let's talk about our progress so far. We have our Central Excellence, it's chaired by director roper. We have benchmarked with many organizations including State of Maryland, City of Taipei, many many jurisdictions to learn from them and share best practices. Internally within our Central Excellence, we have engaged with many departments, including the County Executive's Office, Environmental Protection, Alcohol Beverage Services, Promoting Services and others so that we can first understand how they do business and then dig a little deeper into their operational challenges, process challenges. In other words, really understand their business lines before we even get into any kinds of technology-based solutions and establishing those partnerships. We have our AI guidelines and action plans which are publicly available and we are conducting product analysis within our organization and again benchmarking with others to understand how they're leveraging technology and as Director Robo mentioned we also have conducted our AI literacy training for our county employees and that is currently underway. And you may remember that we have come to you in the past to talk to you about one of our key studies, which was Monti, our MC311 chatbot. And so we had spoken to you about our 1.0 version and really excited to talk to you about our 2.0 version, which is now leveraging generative AI. So as you may recall during COVID, we quickly instituted our 1.0 version of this chatbot on the 311 website in order to just rapidly help our residents have another channel to obtain information in our services. In the two-point version, we now support 100-plus languages. We have two-way dynamic conversations, and we're able to leverage all of the 311 county knowledge. So we went from, you know, about 20 conversations to over 3,000 potential conversations. We are very pleased with Monty's performance, but we can always do better. So our data is showing us that we have about 20,000 plus conversations in 2025 with this trap bot. We have resident feedback channels built into the technology. And so we are on a daily basis reviewing the feedback that we're getting from our residents. And we are making as many changes as we can, as rapidly as we can, based on the feedback that we're receiving. This is just a quick snapshot of some of the dashboard data that we capture. And it helps us to tell ourselves the story of how the technology is doing. These kinds of dashboard reporting metrics are what we hope to replicate among the other tools that we implement because we have to rely on our data to show us how we can improve. Some accolades, Monti has received is anywhere from the NACO awards to Gartner's I in Innovation, also our Public Technology Institute. So we're pleased. We're pleased to be able to work with our partners and share what we've learned. As we move forward, we are working on a few AI implementations within the county currently. We have a Grammarly license that is available to all county employees that will help us in our spelling, our grammar, emails, you know, word documents, etc. And then we're currently launching a few co-pilot, Microsoft co-pilot tools, which we're excited about because it will reside within our tenant thereby keeping our data safe and secure as we still have some AI chat opportunities and productivity tools that will be embedded within our applications to make us that much more efficient in the work that we're already doing. Just one last note in terms of the AI literacy program, something I wanted to point out here was we have had 811 attendees across our organization that has attended our classes. And we're seeing that based on the survey tools that we offer to our attendees, that we have been helping to educate our population on what AI is, what is the best way and most secure way to use these AI tools, how do we keep our information safe, and how do we then prime ourselves for these abundance of tools that will start to come into the pipeline? Thank you. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Takie and Director Roper very much for that presentation. Dr. Terri Guesso, would you, should we start with any questions on the AI and then go back through the packet to the different areas? Yes, you may want to look at the packet on page 8 where our text was able to provide answers to questions I raised in terms of where we are with AI. AI. Right now I to say something that hasn't been said yet, which is that the County Council staff is a very enthusiastic participant in the pilot AI program that types as rolled out some 22 of your staff and central staff are participating. So we're looking forward to seeing what AI can do to improve the workings of the council staff as we face increasing workload and lots of things to review and read and abstract and so on. So stay tuned to see our performance. I think the licenses have just been turned on for the council staff. So we haven't received full training yet. So it's something that will happen in the next three to five months. Great. Thank you. And I'll just say thank you. I know this work from what you told us last year and how important as we're seeing really the explosion of AI and AI tools to make sure that we are doing it appropriately. Director Roba, as you said, it can be a very dangerous tool and we need to make sure that we are protecting the confidential information that we have from our residents and using this tool wisely. So I appreciate that update. Dr. do you have something else to say that we have not hired consultants. We have done the majority of this work within our organization in a very careful way. Sometimes you go fast, but we want to go right with AI to make certain that we help people to understand how to use it for the betterment of their jobs. Great. I'll see from my colleagues. Do you have any questions on the AI work the department's doing? If not, maybe we'll go back to the packet. Director, Dr. Turegas and we'll walk through the different components and the budget implications and maybe stop at each point so that we can ask questions. Very good. So if you'd go to page 10 of the staff report, there's some seven or eight items with increases or enhancements. In each one of them has the amount for you to consider, and then notes that were provided by Tebs so I suggest we just go down each one. The first one being I boss enterprise additional cloud storage. This is additional licensing costs. They're not mandatory, they're not included in the contract but highly recommended to improve a sensitive to secure sensitive enhance the security teams that will detect and respond to incidents. I don't know if Director O'Rope or one of her staff wants to emphasize anything else about this I boss item. Just that the technology allows us to oversee how our data is being used across the entire county. So basically we can see when people are picking up county data, putting it into a check GPT platform. And we want to make sure that we're monitoring what kind of data is being put out there. I've also has many, many valuable tools for us, but I think that's the main one that we're focused on right now because of the explosion of AI. Council member Katz? So is this a one time expense or is this yearly? It's an ongoing. It's ongoing. Yes. OK. Thank you. Obviously, obviously in this day and age, we need to be as careful as we can possibly be, that it didn't say whether it was ongoing. Thank you. I just wanted to add that one of the things that we've had to do as it relates to AI to protect us is that we have like a private cloud so this is cloud storage that nothing related to county data and information goes out there to the public so part of what we're procuring here is storage for that. I'm not seeing any objections to this so we'll recommend this moving forward. Thank you. The next item is VP and Replacement Virtual Private Network is what you use if you're in hotel room trying to tie back to your office here in Montgomery County. And it provides for secure transmission and to end encoding. We are at almost end of life with the existing VPN. So, tabs wants to explore new options. The $440,000 item is to begin that process and to perhaps transition over. But I've asked Director O'Roper and her staff to look into that to see whether there's some additional, perhaps, delays that we can make on this item or whether it all begins starting July 1, has to begin on July 1. Because right now we already have a VPN, we don't have the new VPN, but it's not clear how the transition would take over. So my recommendation is to perhaps look at the side and look carefully and hear what Directorate types has to say. We're in agreement to do that, to look at it, and to be more precise in terms of when that migration will happen. It's not a problem. So in terms for our purposes today, should we add this item to the reconciliation? Will you get back to us in terms of is the whole $440,000 needed in FY26? Are there changes that can be done moving forward? We will get back with you. All right. So then let's add this to the reconciliation and then and we can amend it moving forward. All right. And the next item is also related to the VPN and that's cloud hosting. So it's an additional service that we need to offer high availability and to protect against insiders attacks around the VPN hosting site. It is, my understanding is it's also an ongoing cost as well. So. So this is the item that we told you that we'd come back with. This is the licensing and hosting costs for the Web 2.0 project. So here it is. Thank you. Actually, maybe if we could just take a pause here and just talk about the Web 2.0 at this juncture because I think last year we had allocated $300,000 in FYI 25 and then if that was correct and then moving forward in FYI 26, I believe you have 1.4 million needed to continue and I know that's not not part of the chart, the allegations we're looking at here. But if we could get more information on what are we looking at moving into FY26 for the web? Yeah, just to clarify, Director Robert, on page five of the staff report. You've answered that the estimated completion date for the entire project is around late fall 2025, winter of 26. So and the total budget is 1.4 million since it's already included in the budget that has no increases. The council can't really see that. So the question is, will you need the full 1.4? Did you go ahead and see that? Yeah, I think what we talked about last year was the 300,000 FY25. You were going to go out for an RFP. Look at what needed to be done. And I guess the question we have is, what is included in the 1.4 million and are there anything that cost savings that we may look at moving forward now that you have more information for FY26? So my recollection was the 300,000 was for the CRM solution to do study on the CRM solution. Yeah, it was actually 400,000. That is the one point four is specifically already funded for Web 2.0. That's the cost for developing the whole Web site that you all approved last year. And then what was said was last year is that we had to bring back the ongoing costs of hosting and that was that and we just discussed the VPN cloud hosting. So we will get back but that project is moving along. We are probably maybe second quarter of the Web 2.0 project. The CRM project we have done the research on that internally and haven't really made any decisions yet. OK, if we could just look at what else we have left for FY26 and that budget, that would be great. Anyone else any questions on the web 2.0? OK, Dr. Trey, yes we can continue. OK, and if I can't say, since we're back on the staff report, if you flip back to page 3, I just wanted to mention the progressive work that Teps has been doing on the operating equity budget tool. Many departments have promised a lot of procedures internal to their department. What TEPPS has done, I've abstracted some from their full report, is develop tools and will develop tools to help departments other than TEPPS look at the impact of their budgetary allocations on the community. So it's things like geographic analysis so we can see if permitting services or police or fire had certain allocations will be able to look at it through an equity lens and Tebs is I think pioneering the use of tools specifically to provide that equity lens on the community, not only departments themselves, just wanted to highlight that. Thank you, thank you very much. And thank you for the work. The last five lines, Veronis, Equinix, Microsoft, GIS, Esri, and Pectometry, Eagle View, Imagery, they're all contract increases. And again, remember that the task of this committee is to look at increases, enhancements, and so on. so they're all contract increases and again remember that the task of this committee is to look at increases enhancements and so on So they're all contractually Obligated increase and you see some additional ones in the non-departmental accounts that you'll review Next coming up the older adults tech services is a CPI increase It's a small amount of money, but it is a CPI increase not a contract. It's within the contract but it's a CPI increase. It's a small amount of money, but it is a CPI increase, not a contract. It's within the contract, but it's a CPI increase. So that completes, if you will, the increases and adds of tabs overall, a budget. You do have following the staff report, the full pages from the budget. You have an organizational picture of the entire tebs and that urge you to look at it and your staff can use it as a way to find out who's in contact when tebs assistance is required. And the final thing is towards the end of the staff report, there's some pages which detail the more than $5 million that have been collected. If you are, I'm sorry, $40 million have been collected from federal and state grants to improve connectivity to our residents since 2023. I think the cable office and the, I'm sorry, office of broadband programs has done job of getting external monies to help our own residents be hooked on to the very important broadband services. And this is, there are no decisions to be made here. This is just a recognition of the fact that they're looking to external sources to bring that connectivity to our county residents. And you also have some description of where those places are. More will be said at the cable when we review the cable plan. Perfect. Can I just turn it across? Yes, that we're carefully monitoring what's going on at the federal level to see how we're impacted so we can get out and run of some of these programs as budget cuts happen. Appreciate that and appreciate all the great work you all have been doing on that. So I think unless anyone else has any other questions, we added the VPN for the moment to the reconciliation until we get more information on whether or not that price can be reduced or entrenched. And then just more information on the web 2.0 and what has been budgeted in the 1.4 million moving forward. And I think everything else is looks good. And again, thank you for all your work on assisting other departments move forward on their racial equity and social justice. Great to see Mante moving forward and really helping our residents and keeping in mind as we're doing the AI, all the things that we need to make sure that we are using it well in this county and also safely for our residents. So I think unless you all have anything else, we can move on to the next item. Just to clarify, then, the 64183 712 is a full budget of 10s. 63, I'm sorry, if you subtract the 8 million 519 for the public safety item, that brings you down to 63,743,712 and you're taking off 440 on the reconciliation list. I think, right, what we said is we would like tips to have the opportunity to come back to us. Look at that 440 a little bit more closely understanding. There's probably some of that you need moving forward but whether or not that whole 440 is needed as we're phasing that out and then again looking at the 1.4 million and what is left on the work to do on the web 2.0. So I'm not sure we're quite there on doing adding and subtracting yet because I would like to give the department the opportunity to come back to us with that information. But I think those are the only two outstanding things for the overall TEPS budget. Great. Terrific. Then the next item is the device client management, NDA. And I'll turn it back over to you. Dr. Kurt, I guess. Right, so the device client management, NDA, and I'll turn it back over to you, Dr. Kirk, to carry this. Right, so the device client management takes care of licenses and hardware costs for the entire county or most departments of the county. There is a recommended increase from 16.1 million to 18.1 million dollars, so it's a $2 million increase. So I suggested that we look carefully at those items that are being increased to understand the reality of the need. And so if you go to page 4 and 5, you'll see the four items that make up the $2 million increase. And I suggest that we carefully look at that. Procedurally, I also want to make sure that the committee understands that more and more, we no longer download software to our computers. Everything becomes a license on the cloud and we have like 365 365 days a year or Permission to use software. It's not our software. It's already also software But we pay licensing fees and that's a that's a tough not to swallow because we it comes every year And we have to own up to the fact that all our employees use it so we can't hide some of employees So it really multiplies the cost fast and that that's something that Tebs has always got to be careful to balance those costs. So on the bottom page four, you see the first one is the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, which is a price increase. It was negotiated in multi-year level, three years, I believe, with Microsoft. And the way to get through the negotiations was make it a little bit simpler to swallow in the first couple of years, and then back load some of the costs on the third year. So those are a price increase that we already agreed to. And they cover the enterprise agreement. I don't know if Gail Jung is define what an enterprise agreement does just quickly. So it's the licensing for Microsoft products for the entire county. Okay. We can move on to the next one. The second one is you've heard it already before in the presentation that was made the co-pilot 365 licenses. Co-pilot is the AI brand for Microsoft product. And as you remember, Ted's wanted to start a pilot last year and they came and asked the budget process for some money to do the pilot. Unfortunately, the priorities were just not there. So the council is not able to fund that required new programs. So, Tebs went inside their own budget and were able to fund the pilot that is now starting to run. But now it's time to actually look forward to buying more and more licenses to deploy past the pilot. The pilot is what 300 I think licenses now or I'm sorry. Phase one of the pilot which is already in effect is 308 thousand and that's what 300 licenses. 200 and then phase two is the remaining 126. So what you see there, the 434, $1,000 is to fund the last leg of phase one and phase two of the AI deployment program. Phase two has a new item which has not been approved before by the county council. And it's possible that we could consider this phase two additional deployment as something that can be pushed out of perhaps being trunced in smaller pieces if the committee and then the four council so desired. But this is again, most of it is in the contract itself, but the $12,000 is a new item which the executive is requesting for fiscal 26. And what is the new item? So there is the continuing cost of phase one of co-pilot, which is baked into the enterprise agreement So that is an ongoing cost from FY 25 That was headed part way through and then there is the additional licenses for phase two of co-pilot That's the item costus is referring to as one where council has a decision to make because it isn't already part of the enter price Agreement and that's 112 126,000. Okay, sorry. 126,000. 126,000. Okay. Go ahead, Council Member. That's. In the packet, it says 1126,000. The computer cost when it was typing. Well, that means it's more helpful to us. So it's good to talk to you. Thank you. So the additions, just so we understand, the additional 126, which hasn't been committed yet, would be to continue this and to increase the pilot. So we would have more licenses for more people to be able to use the Co-pilot 365. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. The the 434,000 consists of the 308,000 for phase one and the 126,000 for phase two. Yeah. Great. Okay. Any questions on that or? Well, number. Yeah, the question is reckless or reduction. Right. I guess the question for the team, I know we got some of an update on this, but what were the downsides of not moving forward with the additional phase two and the $126,000. The major challenge would be to have some people have it on their desktop and others not. So it really is a productivity tool. I think that going forward we'll have lots of reasons why it is a smart investment. I also think that some of the departments would not be able to solve some of the challenges that they have on their desk today. Some of the departments would not be able to deploy AI. So what we tried to do is to really be intentional about who needs it and who doesn't. There's more work to be done, but I do think that if we could fund it, it would be better for the organization as a whole. Great. And other 300 licenses we have now, how many are there? Those committed to people to desktops, I guess. 60, 60 are committed to individuals today. Okay. We won't deploy licenses until training has been completed and individuals are certified. So we don't want to put it in their hands before they know how to use it. So that's part of the reason it's only 60 now. Great. And I know you said this in your presentation. When are the training? I know you do. They are ongoing trainings. But yes. So we currently have overall AI literacy training that's available to the entire organization. And as we deploy co-pilot, we are going to have those targeted trainings. So we'll have the co-pilot for 365 training available to the pilot users and then there will be another co-pilot that will be launching for the entire organization that's we were calling it a light version of the 365 and we will have training available for that tool as well. We're slated for those trainings to occur by the end of this month. Okay. So I'm going to say I'm going to suggest that the 126 be put on the reconciliation. It's a great work. We're not, you know, it's a top budget and the work that's going on is terrific. But given that we have 300 and only 60 have been committed. You know, let's put this on the reconciliation and revisit it at full council. Is that an agreement? I'm kind of with it the other way too, but I'm kind of with it. Yeah, Council Member Freizen. Yeah, I agree with that. I'm in the context of adding lots of positions and fiscal dynamics that we have. I think we're going to have to make some tough choices. I think it's prudent to do that. Who's making the decision of where these get deployed? Is that tabs, is that the departments, is that the CAO? And is there a plan like do we know exactly when the 300, where they're going, when they're going there, who's getting trained, when they're getting trained, what the time is? Yeah, so there's a established training strategy. I want to say also that some of the use of AI will be to lower costs and duplication across the organization. As an example, when we meet with alcohol beverage services, and we talk about the fact that they're running a warehouse. Some of the tools, some of the AI tools that would help them better manage, better market, better know who their customer base is, better know what their inventory looks like when we're reading with the sustainability folks. They're talking about being able to understand better how recycling happens, those kinds of things. And then also I don't want to separate the use of AI and make it, make you believe that it's just a desktop tool because that's not the way that we're looking at it. That's why we developed this AI center of excellence so that we can understand how you use AI so we can come back to you and say we've been able to lower costs, we've been able to help departments be more efficient in the work that they're doing. Now, as far as deciding who gets them, who gets a license and who does not, we're looking right now at the pilot, we are looking at departments that have come through the AI Center of Excellence and talked about how they feel they can benefit the organization in terms of productivity. So it's a very, it's being decided based on a very intentional way to make sure that we're not putting in the hands of individuals that are not going to use those licenses. Key to it though, was to make sure that they have been trained first, that we have a portfolio of projects that will benefit these organizations, and that we are strategic about how it gets rolled out. So if I could tell you today, we're going to give it to 200 people. We don't know that yet. We do not know that yet. But we are looking at efficiencies and productivity across the organization and how we utilize per department, which gets fairly complex. Could you share, I mean, really, I have this the reclusive, it sounds like, but could you share with us as we make final budget decisions, at least for the 300 that we are funding of exactly what the schedule is. When that money was approved, when the decisions were made, of who was going to be part of that pilot for the original phase one, when they were trained or when they are getting trained and when is it gonna be deployed? Absolutely. So that timeline matters to us from a funding standpoint. And I appreciate what you're saying in terms of the theoretical deployment of AI and that's your job and your role and you're doing a great job and you've won some recognition as a result of that. So congratulations and thank you. The challenge that we have is the stewards of funding here and the challenge I think that many taxpayers have right now is that there is an obvious question of to what end because it's not clear of what the savings actually result in. Because all we've seen is more positions and a growing county budget and more tax increases. So if we're trying to make the argument to our residents that we are being innovative and we're deploying artificial intelligence and we're making our public employees more productive and providing better services with constrained resources. all evidence to the contrary because we are not doing that. We're expanding and growing in other ways. So we have to figure out a way to communicate that in a much clearer way. And it hasn't been communicated to us. And certainly collectively, the council, along with the executive, has not been able to communicate that to the public. So we're gonna have to figure that part out. You're doing your part, but we have to work with the departments and work with the, you know, across the enterprise to make that case in a much clearer way and to actually prove that the artificial intelligence that we're using and the technology that we're deploying and leveraging is actually working. I think the example, the good example that we have been able to do that is the Jonas Frischer Sponor program. I think we've really made the case to the public in a very transparent manner. I think that started and the leadership of my two colleagues here, I want to acknowledge before that was even deployed going out in the community and having those conversations explaining how that technology was going to work and then having a website that shows it and now I think if folks can see it, they can feel it. They appreciate it and that's why they're comfortable investing in it. I'm not sure we're doing that within the confines of county departments even if there's great work that is happening and the technology is being utilized and so so I think we really need to focus on that. And then it has to actually result in cost savings. The taxpayers have to get a benefit from this, or else it's hard to ask them to invest in it. So I appreciate that. This is a broader comment on this as we make these decisions. I do think that you sharing that additional information with us would help. And we're going to have to make some tough decisions and hopefully you can share with us as much information as possible. I would like to ask that you look at the Monte data that we shared with you today in the presentation and how it is responding to residents and we have seen an improvement in terms of time for residents to wait on calls and information and those kinds. That's a good example of AI and how it benefits because the Monte solution solution of course does not include a human. It is totally an AI generated solution. Yeah, I appreciate that. I just this is a good example. So that is not call savings. That is an improvement of a service, which is different. It's good. It's important. And I think it's something that we should be sharing. I did review that. But that is different. Like if we were to say, okay, we can reduce the vacancies, for instance, that we have in 311 because of the deployment of Monte. And so moving forward, we are not going to fund X number of positions in 311 because we have leveraged AI and Monty to handle 50% of the calls, which are pretty mundane calls that we don't need. We can have AI do that and provide the information to residents in a timely manner through a chatbot. That would be a cost savings. But if we're just deploying AI and we're having another option for residents to get information, that's an improvement of a service, but it's not cost savings, because there's no budgetary impact that is benefited from that. And alternatively, if we're adding positions to 3-1-1, at the same time that we're leveraging this AI, which is really what we're doing across the enterprise, we're adding a dramatic number position, you know, over 100 positions every year on average of the last seven years, know, one percent or more every single year, then it's hard for residents to take seriously if we are to tell them that we're leveraging artificial intelligence in order to reduce costs because it's just not true. So I just think we need to be careful in how we frame this and I also think we need to be much more intentional in how we're communicating it to the public. I think the work that is happening is really good, and the innovation is excellent. But I think across the enterprise, we're not really following through of what is happening in each individual aspect, including in the good work that you and your team are doing. Thank you. Before I turn to Council Member Katz, I just want to follow up on this. Actually, I was thinking going back to the tabs packet on page 5, the response time. I really appreciate that on 3-1-1 and given the points Council Member Freets and Race. I actually think this may be a good office of legislative oversight, not one of their full-blown research projects, but maybe a smaller one that we could engage them on to look at as you all are doing this pilot looking at MC311 and the question that council member Freason was looking at which is are there cost savings in this work. One we may be improving services which, which is always our goal, but are we also seeing cost savings? And so, love to follow up with all of you after this, but doing that type of smaller research report with OOLO over the next couple of months may help inform. We're going with Monte, with co-pilot with 311 as you are looking and given that we have 60 out of 300 licenses taking that time to see okay how are we rolling this out and what the impact is before we jump into purchasing the other 350 might be a good way to proceed. I'll turn it over to Council Member Katz. Thank you. Actually, I have a little bit more of a twist to what you're saying. I can't believe that if we are doing a better service for 311 or whatever, that that, though it might not be in dollar savings, it certainly would be to the public a something that we should be doing. I know for years not so much recently thank goodness, but for years people said they didn't have a good experience when they called 319. And that was something that we knew we made certain that that got to be a better situation. So it's as far as much as I want to save money, I also want to have that better experience. How long is the training for someone? The overall, we call it 101, AI literacy training is about an hour and a half per session. We've had I think over maybe 40 sessions so far and with virtual and in person We're slating the co-pilot training to be much shorter than that knowing that people have busy schedules So we're hoping for some immersion training sessions that will be you know less than an hour and then Even looking for some on-demand online training so people can take that more of their leisure and when they have time. Good, thank you. Great. Okay, Dr. Tregus. Back to page five. The next item is Windows 10 Extended Service. It's a play on words here. Our computers are made by now be all upgraded to Windows 11. But some of the 10,000 plus users of computers in the kind of government, some of them still have Windows 10. So this is a transition item to help us go from Windows 10 to Windows 11. As I said, Windows 11 is now being implemented across the enterprise. Tabs felt it necessary to put some money to retain the services for Windows 10 from Microsoft who have said we no longer wanna support Windows 10. So this is like an extra. It is, it could be reduced, but I think the wise strategies to assume that not everybody will go on Windows 11 overnight. Director Robert, you may want to talk a little bit about the timing, how many have been converted and the need for the site and think. So about 50% have been converted. It is a race. I want to talk a little bit about the timing, how many have been converted, and the need for the site and think. So about 50% have been converted. It is a race, to be honest. I think there is probably going to be a potential savings here as we get this done. But it has to be done because the prior software is not supported. So I do think there's a potential savings here. Well, as we're going through the budget, if you're looking at that and there's a potential reduction given how quickly we can get people, please let us know. And we'll add that by the moment. I think we'll just leave that given the need. but as we're doing some technical changes in everything, as soon as you know, please let us know. And there's any incentive we can give people so we can really let us know. Dr. Terrius, I would you do it. I'll say no. I'm sorry. I was just kind of looking at this. I'm still on Windows 10 and have been trying to get converted for a couple of weeks. So it does take some time for some users. Was that a confession? I think it was. Before we publicly shamed him. The last item on this non-departmental account is Microsoft Enterprise Agreement additional SQL Server licenses, $113,300. The best I could surmise from this item is that we're growing as an enterprise, so we need more server licenses. I wasn't able to get a precise number, and perhaps, again, director Roper may want to comment on whether there's some possible reductions there. My understanding of this item, and sometimes I don't get so deep in the weeds, but my understanding of this item is that we are not in compliance. And is that correct? That's correct. And Microsoft is now building us to be in compliance. And this is the amount. So we have no choice. Yeah, no control. Yeah. Great. I did have one question before moving on, closing out this budget on page two, the PC laptop replacement. I just noted that we had the same amount for FY25 as FY26 and if there's anything, it's just a very specific amount in terms of the PC laptop replacement and where that is going and if there's any. I don't see our chief of one face forward here to answer this question. So I'll have to get back to you. Okay. Great. Yeah. So let me, if possible, I can tell you that we, these numbers may be the same because we don't do replacements all at one time. We take them in groups. So I think this might be the tranches associated with each fiscal year. That's our phrase. Yeah. I mean, my understanding of device replacement like this is as a choice. And yeah, there it's a choice that there are costs, you know, and technology impacts, but we set a schedule. And you know, there's a, there could be a three year replacement schedule or four year replacement schedule or five year replacement schedule or over the case may be. And one of the ways in which budget savings have been found over the years is to extend out the replacement schedule. What we have done in recent years is to shrink the replacement schedule which costs more money. And the question becomes what impacts would we have from all the other costs that we're doing? And is it Pennywise and Pound Foolish? I mean, there is a push and pull here to make those decisions, but it may be something that we have to take a look at. And it becomes an obvious choice. And it may be in order to avoid a draconian action later, where we don't have to reduce services, and we don't necessarily want to impact people, where we have to make a much more drastic decision later. And so one of the things to think about and to look at is there an opportunity to make a modest change to the cycle here that wouldn't have a major service impact? And is that something that we should consider? We might not have the person to answer that question here today unless you want to. Yes, I'd like to. What I have found in particularly in the less maybe five years is that these machines don't last. And then if you start to invest in parts and emergency replacements which impacts shipping costs, there's just maybe a what, five to seven year life cycle on these PC. So I get, I understand what you're saying. I just think that you may reduce cost up front and then have to pay more to maintain older machines. That's certainly been the cycle for. So what's our cycle now? It's a five year replacement cycle. We've been out here at seven before. Yes, and we've been working over the past several years to get it down to a five year replacement cycle, which is industry standards. Okay. Can we get some analysis of the savings from replacement costs and you know shipping and all the things that you're talking about from when we went from seven years to five years, because I'm assuming that the net result wasn't, we had hundreds of employees who are walking around without the laptop that they were provided. I'm assuming when someone's laptop is broken, it gets fixed and we pay for it. And if their cost overruns, we figure it out at the end of the year. So if the point here is we're putting up the money to go from seven years to five years, it went to seven years during the Great Recession, we moved it back to five years. There's a significant impact. We've invested millions of dollars in order to make that change. We should be seeing some level of savings. If we're not, then I think we think the strategy, maybe we calibrate it, we go to six years instead of back to seven, but not quite at five. I just think it's something that we ought to take a look at. So I just want to build on what Council President is saying here. Can we look at, I mean, I understand theoretically of what you're saying. I understand generally industry standard, but there's got to be some actual cost that we can look at to help us make this decision vis-a-vis other decisions that we're going to have to make in the context of the budget. Is that something that could be shared with us before the full council takes up this item? Hi. I would say that in the almost two months that I am starting to develop a list of areas that we're going to want to look into to actually be able to identify those areas where we can be more efficient and we can identify those savings. And our PC replacement, our help desk replacement, all of those areas, is something that we want to take a look at to be sure that we are operating efficiently as possible. So I've been taking a look at a number of our contracts starting to take a look at a number of our contracts to figure out whether or not there are some areas we could actually save. Also taking a look at our positioning to see whether or not there are areas that we would be able to reduce if AI is actually implemented. So taking note of what you're mentioning as far as making sure that we do the proper analysis, to be able to come back to you with a strategy for here are some areas, larger areas that we would be able to actually show some reductions or savings because of operational efficiencies. So do we I appreciate that on a broader scale I think the question here specific I just want to make sure so we are on the same page of expectations is the information on the laptop replacement and the cost savings and the cost differences between, when we were on the seven year cycle and now that we're on the five year cycle, is that information that could be provided to the council, like in a matter of days? If we will, think you can provide that? Yes, we will provide your data. Okay. And then could you also share what the cost differences would be on a five year cycle, a six year cycle, and a-year cycle, I think would be helpful. If we could, yes. Yes. Okay, I mean, the second part is the easy part, the first part that I asked for was probably a little bit more complicated, but I appreciate that. Thank you. Great. Hi. So, yes, cast. Just to also remind Mr. Freightson that right now, the replacement of computers is done by an external entity. We have what's called a desktop management system and we hire someone to... in that right now the replacement of computers is done by an external entity. We have what's called a desktop management system, and we hire someone to do that. So you see that as a second line, DCMC service contract. The third line, which is PC laptop, is the actual hardware cost, but there is also a certain element of funded DCN. Is it owned? So this is the DCM seat service contract help desk. That's when I get my laptop replaced as a county employee, the person who walks over and make sure that my outlook is set up and my word is on it and my remote access is handled properly. Yes sir. Anything associated with your laptop, even when you're having problems with your laptop or any kind of PC related questions go to the IT help desk. And that's a procurement service? Yes. So then is the amount we have for the replacements part of that contract we have with the DCM seed service, or is that separate line? This is like the Geeks squad. Right. You gotta buy your equipment at Best Buy, and then you get the Geeks squad to do it, or the genius bar, whatever, you have to buy your equipment. So one item is the equipment and one item is the contract. The contract. Yes. Is that a multi-year contract? Yes. So that's big. It doesn't really matter what. It's not, is it an hourly rate? Or is it a set service? It's a negotiated contract. Well, I understand. Yeah, I assume any contract I never understood the concept of an negotiated contract. I'm not sure what a non negotiated Could be I'd be something I don't think someone should sign, but I asked the question because by virtue of going from a different cycle, that changes the number of people whose equipment is going to change, which changes the amount of hours presumably that you're going to be contracting for these services. It's literally a human being who shows up to speak to another human being with a piece of equipment. And they say, is your old equipment? Thank you. Your new equipment is here. It comes with a box. You know, they set it up. They make sure it works. They have you log in in front of them to make sure you know how to get into it and then they move on. If there is a 20% reduction, for instance, or a 10% reduction in the number of people whose equipment is changing because of the life cycle, if it's an hourly contract, then there would be a 10% to 20% reduction presumably in the amount of hours that would be required. That's the question that we're both asking. So there's more to this line item than just the replacement of laptops. It's also the support of laptops. So I think the analysis would have to be to compare, like I said earlier, the longer you keep a laptop, the more supporting it needs. So what we would need to do is to do an analysis on if the maintenance and support goes up. And we reduce costs by what's the difference between reducing costs of the time that we keep a laptop, the lifecycle and the number and the amount of support that we need. So when there's good news here, this makes the second part of what I was asked for earlier a little bit more complicated. But it makes the first part of what I was asking for a little bit earlier a lot less complicated. Because presumably, you should be able to look at this exact contract from a few years ago and look at it when we went to seven years the maintenance costs on this exact contract should have gone up and then you add on you know additional equipment you know last minute you know add on you know emergency type of situations but that shouldn't make that calculation a bit easier to figure out. But I would include in the seven year, six year, five year analysis, whether there's a change to this contract, the whole contract is just a piece of the help desk. People need help on their laptop for a lot more reasons than somebody showing up to replace their laptop every five years. But if it gives you any confidence, it is Karen knows on my list of items that she just got here. It's on my list of items to be looked at for efficiencies. Like she noted, we've got several areas and this is this is definitely one of them we can prioritize your questions and You know move towards this sooner than we had originally thought we would but absolutely We'll absolutely look at this and see if we can get done perspective Okay, thank you. Yeah, all right. Well, I we appreciate Having us dig into this for the DCM NDA. I think there's I wrote down one we're going to put on the reconciliation list, the 126 on the additional licenses. And then we just had the questions that we reviewed. And we really do appreciate Ms. Randolph, the fact that you are, we just, you're two months in. And the list was long and as Director Roper knows when she took over, she had a huge task in looking at the TAV's department. And there's a lot of work to be done over the last couple of years. The department has done a great deal of work to move us forward and look at consolidating licensing, working with the departments and everything. And so as my grandmother used to say, good work is only rewarded by more work. And so you can see by the excellent work this department has done ahead of time, we're just doing this tight budget, trying to push us even further. Thank you so much. We appreciate that. Dr. Tarega, so we good to move on to item three. Yes indeed. All right, the telecommunications NDA. Pass it back to you. Just to provide some context for the last four years or so, this budget was identical in size, 5 million 086126, exactly. Last year the committee took a look and decided to reduce it by 4 million dollars because the telecommunications budget was intended to move us off PBX's machines that we own on premises and go to the cloud with cloud telephony The the promise last year was that yes, indeed will sustain somehow this cut of a million dollars and We'll be well on our way to to transitioning This year I I saw the same number again 4.086126 and I said well it's exactly identical to last year's. Can we look some more? And we got into a discussion which to me at least tells me that we have to be a little careful in public discussion. There are some contractual issues here and there is some ongoing negotiation with existing vendors. Right now, for example, the Council staff use a PBX and a Veda technology and we were able to do various digital tasks using that platform. Tebs is proposing to migrate using the G5 licenses that we have from Microsoft and leveraging those licenses to a Microsoft product, but they're right down in the middle of discussions. So the best I can say is with a constraint of not being able to speak or not being able to share with me detailed information. It's a little bit of a question in my mind whether that 4.086-126 has some magic to it because it was exactly the same as last year whether it could be reduced some, whether it could be reduced some, and then reviewed. But I looked to my friends at TIPS for some discussion there. So certainly this has been significantly complex project to move from these legacy PBX systems that had a pretty high failing rate to the cloud. We're in the midst of that effort. The technology has changed middle in the middle of this project and that we found that with the licensing that we had with Microsoft that we were able to move to the Microsoft to left me. What we have gone and we did go deep on this one several nights. We talked about this one and we have identified, I believe, about 500,000 that we could cut from this budget pending all things go well. And I think they will. I think we're far enough along. The most interesting thing about this project, it's probably been a two and a half, three year project and the technology has completely changed. So our initial thoughts about moving into one of the vendors clouds totally changed based on the fact that we were already licensed for Microsoft Teams and had an opportunity to used that already existing license and not have to pay anymore. So this tremendous cost savings over the next few years as it relates to the licensing required. Do you want to talk a little bit about the licensing cost? Sure, since we upgraded to the Microsoft G5 license for other reasons, cybersecurity and compliance, team's telephone was included with that upgrade at no additional incremental cost. So several months ago, going back to earlier this calendar year, we really started to look at team's telephone. Meanwhile, Microsoft has been adding capabilities to team's Telephone features and capabilities that didn't exist going back a year or two and longer. And it is now very comparable to other cloud-based telephone solutions and actually better in terms of features and capabilities. And their service level agreement is better than the option we were pursuing previously in terms of availability. We went from three nines to four nines, which doesn't sound like a lot, 99.9% versus 99.99%. But it's a difference between having several hours of potential outage a year to lessen an hour of potential outage per year. So the significant cost savings right now our plan is to migrate approximately 7,000 county users to Microsoft Teams telephone during the remainder of this calendar year. So between now and the end of December, that will include almost all county users with the exception of public safety. So please fire rescue public safety emergency communication center and call centers like 311 and the crisis call center things of that nature. Then we'll look at a phase two when we complete this migration next fiscal year. What can we do to move some of those users off of the older PBX technology, which will be significantly downsized, onto newer technology that will provide the same features and functionality they need through the call centers and public safety users. Great. Good. So what I heard a director OPER is that we could put $500,000 on the reconciliation lifts that you all are comfortable with that. Yes. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Yes. All right. What was the name? Yes. Alright, so then we are done with the telecommunications NDA. And I know you all are probably going to stick around for the cable television communications plan. But I think you're off the hot seat, right, for the moment. And then we're going to move on to the cable TV and communications plan. And thank you all for being here. Or I don't know if we're switching some folks and I think scale is still on, but I think Karen gets together. Early switch seats with Derek. Great. Dr. Turya, that was her back to you. So in brief, you see that the cable plan that the executive is proposed contains a 14% decrease from the fiscal 25 approved operating budget. You have the details of the recommended budget in front of you. There are two areas that I'd like to focus the attention of the committee. One is structural, organizational. We had an OLO report more than a year ago looking at how do county residents consume information, what have they looked to. And at the same time, we looked at revenues and how they're plunging from cable fees and how we have to reorganize. The bottom line of last year's budget, if I can summarize your decision, was stop looking so much at funding individual organizations and begin to fund actual tasks of communicating to our residents. Irrespective of who does them. The kind of executive has come back, again, more or less with an organizational funding strategy, much at reduced rates. There are several organizations that are included in the executive's plan, and we can go through these. So that's one decision, this organization, there's a promise of recentralization effort, but no details have been provided. And the timing of consolidation that this committee asked for last year is a bit up in the air, but it should be sometime this year or next year, in other words, in the fiscal 27 discussions. The other point that I'd suggest that this committee spend some time on is a cable fund balance. And that's a different discussion. So perhaps we ought to look at the organizational questions first. And Shaman and I will be able to discuss the fund balance to our hearts content. And perhaps some of the organizations represented on this day include organizations that are directly funded on the fiscal year 26 recommended budget by the cable fund, but at lower rates. Great, who would like to start us off? All right, Derek Kinney, Community Gator Manager, help find oversight of the Como organization. A couple of the outcomes from this fiscal year's plan is in agreement with Council and saying that Como's seven-discbular organization is trying to be provide services is not working well. Even working well in terms of coming together is one organization to provide services. So one of the things in the strategic plan and I think Jasmine will share a little bit more about it later is that we're gonna dissolve Koma, which is the ad hoc organization of the seven different cable channels. Now that's getting ready to the ad hoc organization. Now that's seven different organizations to be clear. But there's also an awareness and a shared awareness and agreement that in FY28 we're looking at a consolidated structure. Now what that will be, we don't know yet because we want to make sure the process is inclusive of the key stakeholders and decision makers at the different organizations that we are able to help move into the consolidated structure. And so if you look at this strategic plan, it's a bit basic, but it takes us through to where we need to be, where an informed conversation with decision makers, helping to determine not only how do we get from here to there, but how does that impact the employees of the organizations, how those organizations respond, physically, how will they respond from a HR standpoint, what do they recommend in terms of what they would continue to need in terms of services from the organization that will be created. So I think we did a decent job of hopefully embracing where you were guiding us to go. But then also being having a thoughtful process to move forward into FY26, FY27, and ultimately to FY28 where we understand the funds available in the Cable Fund will be considerably less support the fund. The fund will be able to support the fund. The fund will be able to support the fund. The fund will be able to support the fund. The fund will be able to support the fund. The fund will be able to support the fund. The in terms of communication support or whatever, that we're able to put it inside of some type of structure, a scope of work, or something that we are able to, not only state clearly what we want, in terms of outcomes from the organization and work from the organization, but also have a way to enforce, more or less provide direct management of one organization to ensure today comply and provide things of that nature. So that's pretty much where we are now. We're looking, we were looking at FY26 to start the conversations, but in meetings with key people earlier, as early as this present month, it may seem that we need to fast track that a bit and start talking to people almost right away. So that we can know what they want, how much they want to invest or or if they want to invest at all of their, are if they're tied into their cable channel or station. So we need to know these things and give them a chance to provide their feedback because we don't want to just rip the guts out of, and it's institution that's been really serving the county and the residents very well for almost 40 years. So that's where we are now. We're looking forward to continuing to work together. We've done a great job, I might say, in terms of Como. Meaning we as being part of Como, a connect with Governor of Alliance, and executing some of the plan of FY25 strategic budget, which involved a lot of cost savings, but a whole lot of collaboration. And as I see it, this is good practice for whatever the one organization might be ultimately in the future might be made of some of the same wonderful parts that we have today. So working together with Synergy now as seven distributed organizations coming together to collaborate through one ad hoc organization, so to speak, lays the foundation for maybe a future where we can all work together to achieve the goals and objectives of the county. Okay, thank you. So why did you wanna add anything or? Sure, I think Derek kinda stole my thunder, but I'll do my best. So Jasmine White from Montgomery Community Media, but here today representing the Connect with Gumree Alliance as the co-chair without my counterpart Barry Hudson, who's no longer here. So I'll do my best to answer any questions you have about progress that we've made from the FY25 strategic plan and ideas that we have moving forward for the FY26 strategic plan. One thing that I want to share is I do believe that the organizations that are working together have done a tremendous amount of work after the OLO report to get an understanding of what the needs are and looking at analysis and having meetings and trying to find the best way to be fair and equitable and collaborative as we look to what this needs to be in the future. And so it's not easy, but I think it's possible. And I believe that we still have the opportunity to become a transformative innovative organization that can serve the county. And I think that working with Derek and Tebs has really been inspiring because Derek has a lot of great ideas and looking at what other folks are doing across the country to give us some ideas of what we can do in this county. So looking forward to helping answer some questions. Okay, appreciate that and appreciate when you all are here. I think in the fall and October and we dug deeper into the work that you were doing. And I know we received the FY26 strategic plan. And today is a budget meeting, and we're not able to dig deep into those plans. So I hope that once we're done with the budget in early summer, we're able to have you back to talk more about Mr. Kenny. As you said, really accelerating and moving us forward. I think Ms. White, as you have laid out time and time again, this is a changing environment we're in and it's been accelerated even more so. So as we're looking for how best to serve our residents and make sure that they are informed is more important than ever right now. And how we do that in a way that is sustainable into the future. And so I think there are a lot of pieces that we need to look at and I appreciate the work that's being done by all the organizations. And I know individually each organization is as we all are probably taking a deep look on their own budgets, individually right now, and what their future sold. And that was probably very different than it was when we all met back in the fall. And so giving time to people time to come together and do that individually as well as collectively is gonna be very important. And so I don't know if my colleagues said any, yes, Council Member Katz. I just have the one question. On the cable fund itself, because we're getting it from what used to be a franchise fee, I don't know that there's any of those left anymore, but those dollars, that amount of money, is it designated for something? Do you have to use it for designated areas? So it depends. There are three different tranches of funding. There are the franchise fees. There are the restricted peg operating grants, and there are the restricted peg capital grants. So the franchise fees can be used for essentially anything. The operating grants can be used for anything operating relating to the PEG channels or the institutional network. And the PEG capital grants can really only be used for a very limited number of projects that have to do with the institutional network or with the cable channels. So I guess when you're giving us all this information that would be helpful to me to know what you could be spending to someone and what you can't. Sure, and we can certainly get into that discussion as we talk through the fund balance and where the funding is going. Correct, and I'm going to say the bad word that cable is part of the reason why some of the funds are being allocated is because cable, we're getting funds to operate and provide educational and infirmative programming to the residents of Montgomery County. And right now, I might say that it may be one of the only places you can know that you're getting the truth from Montgomery County, fromm. all the way through at 25 hours a day. The information that's on those channels are from us, by us, for the residents of the county. It's not lost in the midst of all the other things trying to get your attention in social media and it's also, I will say, a valued asset and a resource, even as it diminishes in terms of the amount of viewers or subscribers, it still represents a vehicle that we can use to reach a little less than half of the county. So in terms of reach, it's still valuable. In terms of the potency, in terms of video production, it It provides us as a resource is very valuable. I'm not sure how many people have actually done some procurement for private video production services, but it can get very pricey very quickly. And we're talking about providing programming 24 hours a day for these channels. as well, beyond that, I want to commend our members because it's not said enough that beyond operating the cable channels, they also provide services to the organizations but have a profound reach through social media. And I believe you combine the reach of all the comal members members combined is probably the largest in dind...like well one of the largest media organizations in the county and that's maybe close to being as large as the Moko show. So they do a great job with Gorts with Cable but also a great job in branching out and providing multi-media information to residents where they are, one is Blue Sky, X, Facebook, etc. We have great reach, very effective, modern technology, modern techniques, and really engaging a lot with diverse audiences and with youth. So, but it all holds back the cable though, the funds to help run the cable operations. Thank you. Okay, so with that, why don't we transition to questions on the fund? Right. Perhaps the best way to start is to look at the table on page three and also the table on the top of page four. This shows the actual money that is spent from the cable fund itself. You'll see that on page three of the staff report, the executive proposes to transfer 1.3 million to Montgomery College, 1.3 million to Montgomery County Public Schools, 50,000 to Park and Planning, and a whopping 6.5 million to the general fund. Now back to what my friend, Chambers, mentioned and what Councilmember Kats asked, it's not clear what kind of money this is if it comes from the one, the second or the third, but it's money. So we're transferring that and if you look at the overall fund story which is on Circle 7 the very last page of your packet that's where you really see the reality. We get we expect to get about 17 and a half million dollars from the franchise fees and some antenna tower fees and so on. All of the 17,000 it becomes becomes 10, very quickly, because of the three transfers I just mentioned to you. All right? And again, this is not saying anything about what color money that is. Then if you go to the top of page four, that's the actual budget submission of the county executive. We don't have much information about the transfers. I mentioned MCPS MC and General Fund Transfer. We do have some information on the other three connecting the gallery alliance is 818,000 MCM is 2.5 million and the pass through 2.3 million is money we really hold for municipalities that we got to go right back and give it to them. There's no judgment being made here. We're not buying services. We're just holding the money as a convenience for the municipalities and for the cable industry that doesn't want to build individual small jurisdictions. So you see in the three transfers, MCMCPS and Park and Planning and general fund. And then the two actual funded programs, Como and MCM, that's where the money goes. And again, it's not clear where the money is. Now, if you go back to the last page, circle 7, right in the middle, it's this fiscal year 26 recommended, and'm sorry the letters are very tiny. You see what happens to the money. It's transferred, it's paid to programs in the very bottom. It's as year-end fund balance. And the year-end fund balance is 1.4. So you don't have to squint. You can go back to ease up on your eyes and my eyes on page five of my staff report, item F, fund balance policies. And you see that in physical 25, you, the council approved the fund balance of 1.1 million, which was about 10% of resources. And you'll be seeing lots of other fund balances for other funds. This is a very peculiar fund, an unusual fund, let's say. Now, the truth is that in fiscal 25, things changed while fiscal 25 was ongoing. So you approved the $1.1 million fund balance. But in fact, OMB expects that the fund balance will be at $2.9 million by the end of this fiscal year. So let me just finish. So $2.9 million and the executive now recommends $1.55 million as the new fund balance target for 2026 fiscal. Right. So, O'Lumby's position here is that at this point, the operating side of the fund balance is fully exhausted. There's no room available for any additional transfers to the General Fund. The 2.9 million in FY25, 1.5 in FY26, those are restricted Pag Capital funds which can only be used on very specific projects. There are maybe three projects that have historically received these kinds of Pag grants. And currently only two of them do. One of them was Fibernet, and we made the conscious decision to move away from using any of these restricted grants on that to free us up to use Fibernet for other purposes. But what you're seeing in the fun bounce can really only be used for these peg restricted purposes. Did we always transfer cable now we started a general fund? At sometime before I started working on the cable fund we did. We're not going to move the way. We moved away from that and then last year we changed how we did this and we shifted all of the departments that were previously funded directly in the cable fund over to the general fund and at the time we transferred enough money to cover their costs for FY25. Now we don't have the funding available to fully cover their costs and the general fund anymore. So that's now a general fund problem for a council PIO, PIO, Tebs, a little bit of DOT, OCA, those became general fund problems to work out. See, part of the difficulty here is that that's what we did. And I understand that it happened, but to say that we're not getting as much money from the cable, from the franchises and then say, but any excess, any additional, even though you need this money, we're going to transfer it to someplace else to me becomes a problem. And that's understood. It's, this is a challenging fund across the board in part because it is so complicated and we have made so many changes to the way we've approached it over just the past few years because it is so complicated. We've had problems with this I think every single year that I've dealt with this budget. I'm sorry, was there another question that you wanted? I wasn't a question, it was a statement observation. Yeah. So I guess the question I guess I'm not sure we clarified anything in this. In terms of the recommendation we have from staff is to look at the potential of moving more money to the general fund. But what what OMB is saying is that there are no operating eligible dollars, I'd say. In terms of looking at the color of money, there's no additional franchise fees. There aren't any additional operating grants that could be used to cover general fund obligations. Dr. Triggas, yeah. It's a difficult question for me to answer. I understand. But if you look at the transfers that are expected to be made, there are transfers of 1.3 million, 1.3 million, 50,000, and 6.4 million million. All those transfers I would ask go and be the kind of straight money or they restrict it anyway. If they're not restricted, could they become restricted and leave behind money that's unrestricted that could then be transferred over to general funds? Again, I find it a little bit difficult to accept the fact that $2.9 million is all restricted funds when we've had no indication of that in years past. The restriction of funds is something that is kind of, I know about it because sometimes we would buy capital funds from Tacoma Park at 2 for 1 sale. So there were ways to convert those restrictions into more operating budgets. It went the wrong way. We took the capital and we gave Tacoma Park half the money in operating. So I'm just wondering whether there isn't more ways that only we can look at this in a more creative way. The council can make decisions on fund balance transfers as you see fit and the implementation of that becomes then a real challenge. I understand that. But I don't see any particular things that point me to the fact that there cannot be any money transferred to the general fund other than the ones that are shown on this budget, to the dollar. It's kind of difficult for me to appreciate the fact that OMB couldn't find some ways to convert that money into operating money that you would need to put back into the general fund. Because I see here a change from 1.1 to 2.9 million, that means that we had a million and a half of unexpected monies to come in. All of this money is explained by OMB, is restricted money? Where did it come from? How did that work? So again to me it's a challenge. I would urge the committee to continue to think about ways to use that fun balance in a more creative way. So we just can show on your mic. Sorry. Those dollars are primarily coming from FY 24. If you look at, actually, let me look at the fiscal plan and see if I can figure out where it would show up there. They're coming from funds that at the time we were expecting to spend at Fibernet, they were budgeted for in the cable fund in Fibernet and it was my first year working on this fund. It's a complicated fund and we moved them in the general fund for Fibernet in that year, but we didn't adjust the cable fund. So that was my error a couple of years ago and we're seeing that reflected now in the actuals for what we spent the money on for Fibernet. Well, what we didn't spend the money on. So we can say confidently those funds are restricted. They can only be used for these very specific projects if you want to have a conversation with Montgomery College or MCPS about whether they would be willing to take a larger share of restricted capital funds. I mean, that's a discussion that the policy makers can have. But the dollars as they stand cannot be transferred to the general fund. I can say that with absolute certainty, we've talked to county attorney about potential uses for it. We've been looking at other potential projects that could be eligible for these funds. They're not many right now. It's really just a very restrictive source of funds that we have available, unfortunately. Yeah, Council Member Freeson. Okay, I've been sitting back trying to understand what is going on here and follow the bounce of all. So the first this is used to me and maybe I missed something earlier. The error that you mentioned of you essentially accrediting funding in one end but not accounting for it coming from another. I mean that's essentially what you're talking about. In Fibernet is in FY24 we started to make transitions in Fibernet so we would use fewer cable fund dollars to free it up. We did that in the CIP and what I discovered is that we did not account for that in the cable fund. We didn't account for that. Right, so you did what I'm just described. Unless I'm missing something, you added funding somewhere and you didn't remove it from the place from whence it came and so that's an accounting problem because you've essentially double counted money and you didn't realize that until after so that money didn't really exist that's that's what you were referring to earlier when you said the color of money or some reference like that I think a costus referred to the color of money but yes those funds are from what we had set aside for Fibernet in the cable fund that were never spent for that because in the CIP we gave them general funding to cover it. Okay, was that one was that error found? When did you realize that? After the transmission of the budget? Was that shared with council staff? I don't believe so. Is there a reason why I wasn't shared with council staff in preparation for today's meeting? We've been in the process of trying to account for where all the funding went. Have you completed that process? I'm still in the process of working on that right now. So we're having a budget meeting and you're still in the process of figuring out where all the money in the budget is? I can say with certainty that what we have left is all restricted funding Beyond that. We're still trying to figure out exactly how to... It's restricted in one way. I just wanna make sure I'm understanding. They're paying capital grants. So in the funding that comes through from the cable providers, we have the franchise fees. We have the Pag grants and the Pag grants are split up between operating and capital based on where they're coming from. The federal law for the Pag grants says that we can collect an additional 3% in cable revenue from the cable providers above the 5% allowed by the franchise fees. So the federal law says that we can only use it for specific purposes, for those Pag purposes or for institutional network purposes. So why don't we designate a line item in the budget that reflects that? We haven't traditionally, but we certainly can. Is there a reason why you haven't written it? Because it seems like it's a lot more complicated than it needs to be. If there restricted funds, you would have been able to identify the problem if they were designated specifically for what they actually are with the restrictions that actually exist and you would have a much easier accounting. That has certainly become obvious. That's something we're working to do now. Okay. I'm going to request that before this comes to full council that we have a letter from OMB and the county's attorney office figuring out where this money was spent and how much is in the fund and what is allocated. And we would like that as soon as possible because this is a conversation. Honestly, we've been having the last few weeks. I mean, we were supposed to have this committee session a while ago, a couple of weeks ago, and these were questions that Dr. Tareg is, myself, others on this committee have been raising. And so I guess I'm a little surprised to be given this answer today when OMB has been talking to our staff, have been talking to other folks and this has not come up in probably about a month of conversation. And so I am requesting a formal letter from OMB and the county attorney's office telling us the accounting of these funds and what is left there and what is restricted and what is not restricted. All right. Thank you. And I'm not sure we can make a decision on this until we have that information. So I think in terms of our cable television communications plan we will need to wait until we receive that information. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kenney, for your work on this. And we will have you back again when we're not doing budget to talk more about how we can support you in your efforts moving forward. Our last item is the Interagency Technology Policy Coordination Committee, NDA, and Dr. Triggas, I'll turn this over to you again. Thank you. This is a very small item. $3,000 barely makes it to recognition. On the other hand, conceptually behind it is a structural interagency technology policy coordination committee and on the last page of the packet. You have the last vestiges of the ITPCC committee. It has two parts, a principal's committee of the heads of all the agencies and Montgomery County government. And the CIO subcommittee headed up by CIOs of each of the agencies. notion back in the 90s was that agencies and kind of government could collaborate and reduce costs of information technology deployment. For example, bring it to today's standards. What are we doing in AI? Can we share licenses? Can we share training and so on and so forth? That happens on a bilateral basis. I'm sure Dr. Rober will tell you that she's a constant communication with her counterparts, CIOs. On the other hand, I'm not sure that conversation is going on at the principal's level to look at strategic investments in technology that can be shared across agencies and departments of the county. So therefore this item is $3,000. I'm glad it's here because it forces a question every year to the Geo Committee last year. You discussed it, thought that perhaps you didn't want to eliminate this time around making a bold suggestion that you perhaps shift this item to the county executive's office because it really belongs at the policy level, not at the technology level. And perhaps we can then explore in fiscal 25, what are the impediments to having a discussion between agencies on technology investments? They're going to continue to increase, they're going to continue to change. And in my way of thinking, if you ask your IT advisor, it's a great thing to have. But it needs support from the top, and that hasn't been forthcoming. Director Roper, did you have any thoughts on this? No, I don't. Okay, great. I think it's a good recommendation. I know Director Roper is in constant contact with not just our agencies here in Montgomery County, I know, but talking to other folks, you know, at the state level and other things, the great work that Tebs is doing and you're doing, I know, has a broad reach here. And I do think this needs to be at the policy level and particularly the conversations we were just having before about the cable fund and everything else I think would be beneficial. So I think we have an agreement here on that. Terrific. All right, that was our last item for today. So our government operations fiscal policy committee is adjourned. And again, I just want to really thank our Teb's department for all your work and your collaboration. I'm working through this very, very tough budget this year. So thank you very much. Thank you both.