Board of Supervisors — 2022-06-14

Good morning.

I call to order the June 14, 2022 budget hearing for Santa Barbara County Fiscal Year 2022-23 operating plan. Madam Clerk will you please read the roll? Supervisor

Williams?

Here.

Supervisor Hart?

Here.

Supervisor Nelson? Here Supervisor Lavinino? Here and Chair Hartman?

CEO Miyasato, do we have a report from you today?

No CEO's report today.

And Madam Clerk, do you have announcements for us today?

Chair Hartman and members of the board I do have a couple quick announcements this morning. I would like to note for the record that we posted an addendum to today's budget hearing agenda on Friday June 10th adding a closed session agenda to todays meeting. The closed session agenda has been posted online posted on the outside administration Building Bulletin Board made available to in the back of the room and made available to the board.

Additionally, I would like to note that persons may address the board at the conclusion of each functional group presentation. If you're signing up to provide verbal public comment through Zoom please note which functional group you would like to speak on in your online registration. General public comment for items not on today's agenda will be at the conclusion of today's budget hearing. Please see page two of the agenda for our current methods of public participation.

Lastly, I would like to remind the public who are participating in our meeting today of the board's updated methods of public participation. For the Board of Supervisors' methods of public participation and to provide public comment on general public comment or an item on the board's agenda, please see page two of the agenda. Members of the public can attend meetings in person both in the Santa Barbara Board Hearing Room Chambers as well as the Santa Maria Board Hearing Room Chambers.

Please note the board is following all local and state guidelines and are no longer requiring face coverings indoors. If you attend the board meeting in person, you will no longer be required to wear a face covering but please be advised that the public health department is strongly encouraging all county staff and members of the public to mask and socially distance themselves in crowded areas.

I would also like to remind the public that if you require any special accommodations, please contact the clerk of the board to make that request preferably on the Friday prior to the board meeting. Individuals that would like to provide verbal public comment virtually may do so via Zoom by registering in advance via the link available on page two. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing important information about joining the virtual meeting. Once the chair has announced the item you want to comment on, please join the meeting with the information provided in the registration confirmation email.

You will be placed on mute until it is your turn to speak. The clerk will call you by name And when we're moved from mute, you will hear a notification that your line has been unmuted. If you are using a touchtone phone, you may need to press star six to unmute yourself. Each person may address the board for up to three minutes and this is at the discretion of the chair.

If you have any questions please contact the clerk of the board's office at area code 805-568-2240 again that's 805 568 That concludes my announcements for today.

Thank you, well that brings us to the business of the day, the budget hearing agenda for the fiscal year 2022-23 operating plan and just as a reminder to anybody wanting to make public comment we will have public comment after each of the five functional groups so I will now turn it over to our CEO Miyasato.

Thank You Chair Hartman good morning everyone good morning board members good morning department Department directors, your executives, department staff and our community. So we are here today to present to you the recommended budget for your adoption. Today I'm going to give a brief overview if you get the next slide. A brief overview and then Assistant CEO and Budget Director Nancy Anderson will go into more detail And then Paul Clemente, our budget division chief will talk about what's in each functional group as just a high-level overview. We'll have time for board deliberation and then ask the board to take recommended actions. And before we begin today I do want to say thank you again To all our department directors, your fiscal officers and executive teams for putting this budget together and working with our office.

And mostly I do want to thank the budget research team, Richard Morgantini, Nicole Parmalee, Wes Welch, Reese Elsted, Stephen Yee, Dana Grossi, Ted Tabor, Sarah Gill, all led by our Budget Division Chief Paul Clemente and Assistant CEO Budget Director Nancy Anderson. As well as the Auditor's Financial Reporting Division, Joel Boyer, Stephen Herrera, Joel Flores, Tyler Walker, Jeff Arthur, Nick Knocker. All led by Division Chief Juan Izquierdo and Assistant Auditor Controller Ed Price and Auditor Controller Betsy Schaefer.

And with that we can begin. So as you know, our theme this year looking at our budget is Reset, Reimagine and Reconnect. Reset is how the county works and how we will be working to optimize all the new technologies, all the new ways of working that we've practiced during the pandemic and how we can increase our capacity and efficiency anchoring in our renewed values and behaviors.

How we can reimagine a more inclusive and equitable future for our community That safeguards our health, safety and prosperity. And addresses issues like climate change and disaster resilience. And lastly reconnecting. It's good to see all our departments here today in the board chambers it's been a while. And it's with that feeling of reconnecting with our residents, our community members, our clients and our customers in both new ways and the traditional ways to maintain and grow partnerships and collaborations also that we form during the pandemic.

Still we have an eye towards the future and future threats. There is inflation on the rise as we know, as departments discussed at the workshops some departments are experiencing 20% vacancy rates so recruiting and retention have become more difficult in this last year. We continue to face high levels of deferred maintenance that we are chipping away at and more legislative mandates We've seen that historic allocations of federal and state funding, including ARPA funds have greatly helped our situation.

Unfortunately many of these are one time in nature and we will have to address ongoing needs as we enter the second and third year of this funding. The state's revenue are positive and it's been able allowed us to make investments in mental health particularly homelessness and housing And despite a decline in cannabis revenue, other major discretionary revenues have been stable and are projected to grow next year.

So the recommended budget reflects the county's fiscal stability in that this is our fourth year without service level reductions. And we've achieved these by prioritizing your key projects, careful planning and your continued eye towards fiscal responsibility Revenue growth and operational efficiencies have allowed departments to absorb increasing costs because they have faced increased costs in labor, liability insurance and other needs.

We talked about unprecedented state and federal funding have been assisting with pandemic recovery. The recommended budget continues your policy on identifying and mitigating fiscal risk and maintaining prudent reserves and as it's shown on the slide we are able to Fully fund it and reach our rainy day fund or our strategic reserve at 8% of the general fund operating budget of $40.6 million per the board's policy.

The budget also continues to include programming and services that focuses on your priorities, a fair and efficient criminal justice system addressing climate change, infrastructure improvements and maintenance, community amenities Increasing opportunities for recreation and open space, preserving and enhancing the safety net. Equity and inclusion efforts all bolstered by stable finances, prudent reserves, and technology for efficient and effective processes and services to help us adapt.

Specific county challenges I've mentioned some already have been legislative and regulatory changes that have Impacting departmental funding, workload and service delivery systems. And those just keep on coming. Increasing operating costs for road maintenance and projects in advance construction costs for major bridge projects continue to impact the Public Works Department.

We've talked about recruiting and retention issues. And there's uncertainty related to city contract negotiations for the Sheriff Corner and other rising public safety costs. Pension and liability insurance costs are expected to increase which is affecting departments across the board. But the county continues to make progress toward achieving key priorities and fulfilling its commitments.

I've spoken about some of those there, but I also want to talk about specific projects because at this time of year we're providing you a $1.4 billion budget and a lot that gets discussed is what we're not doing. And I want to emphasize all that we are doing. We are advancing your priorities We've, with co-response teams with the Sheriff of Mental Health. We're continuing to fund that beyond the grants that we've received for three teams and we're doing that with ARPA funding. You want a long range planning projects expedited and we are adding more funding to the Long Range Planning Division planning. And increasing staff for the assisted outreach treatment program through Be Well.

But parks and open space projects continue, repaving a Royal Borough beach parking, designing a multi-use trail at Gaviota Marine Terminal, improving Kachuma Lake Fireside Amphitheater, looking at a multi-use trail south of Orcutt opening the restaurant at Goleta Beach, countywide parks and recreation master plan progress And all of these CIPs, you've been funding this or in this budget you've directed us to fund these projects with general fund and cannabis revenue.

Priority CIPs were the Santa Maria Public Defender Office reconfiguration, Santa Barbara Courthouse exterior lighting upgrades, North County Communications shop retrofit, New Koyama Sheriff Substation, ADA restroom upgrades including Rincon Beach Park, Betty Arabia campus weatherization and window replacement, Orkut Library acquisition, Modoc Multi Trail phase two, Mission Canyon sewer extension. Refugio right of way improvements. We're continuing to work on proposed COP finance projects and this has taken us some time but we have to get them to a ready state in order to issue debt Because we are limited on the time to spend the debt. And that's continuing to work on the public safety radio replacement program, a new headquarters for probation, main jail renovation, Cochuma Lake infrastructure upgrades, regional fire communication center and Fire Station 27 rebuild.

In addition to all of that, federal ARPA funding totaling $32.1 million has allowed us to make progress on projects including more road maintenance, project clean water, IV community center improvements, hearing room improvements including closed captioning HVAC improvements and ventilation improvements, public safety radio network, broadband strategic plan study. Also the Santa Barbara Courthouse boiler system main gel elevator replacement engineering building window and roof replacement San Antonio Creek Bridge and Orcutt ball field lighting.

So I want us to take a pause because I've been here eight years almost nine and I don't think we've ever seen that many CIPs on this list that were general fund or special fund ARPA funded So congratulations to us and thank you to our residents and the federal government providing that funding for us to do that. So looking beyond Renew22, we've been, Renew 22 has positioned the county to be innovative, responsive, and resilient. We're continuing with InnovateSBC to train our employees for process improvements in innovation. We're continuing the KPMG departmental reviews to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement. We are digitizing more services and implementing digital technology We're expanding e-learning and training opportunities, and obtaining more employee feedback for greater employee engagement.

And so for 22-23 the county will be looking at a reset of countywide strategic initiatives in the alignment of department goals, objectives, and performance measures. This will be a time like I said to reset how we do our work, reimagine our future, and reconnect with our residents, community members, clients, and customers. We're very proud of this budget And Ms. Anderson will provide more detail, thank you.

Good morning Chair Hartman and members of the Board. We'll just bring up our new slides in just a moment. We do have an agenda for today and it should be Coming up right here. So we'll provide a brief recommended budget overview, go into the post-workshop CEO recommended budget expansions, talk about the summary of ARPA allocations that were final allocation was made on April 14th Talk about some final budget adjustments that happen after we've prepared the recommended budget. We're going to touch on cannabis tax revenue and then Paul Clemente will go through the functional groups overview, and then we'll go into board deliberation.

So we always start with this chart on the time frame of preparing the recommended budget. It takes about six months for us to get through this process all the way until today, June 14th. We start in December with a budget development report to your board and a five-year forecast. In April, we hold the budget workshops and get additional direction from your board.

Of course, the governor releases his May revise budget proposal in mid-May that was done on May 13th this year. And then we release the recommended budget for public review on May 27th. So now we're here today on June 14th with the budget hearings and we will go over this overview. Much consideration goes into arriving at the CEO recommended budget. A hard look at resources, anticipated expenses, prior commitments and critical unmet needs are required for fiscal year 22-23 we are projecting that major discretionary revenue will remain stable With some growth and that cannabis tax revenue will be volatile and therefore limited to one-time expenses. As in past years, labor IT charges and liability costs continue to escalate and had to be addressed in department budgets.

Commitments to investments and deferred maintenance capital projects information technology infrastructure and funding plan for the northern branch jail operations have all been incorporated. Each year we also look to minimize service level reductions in departments identified needs in order to mitigate high liability risks, meet mandates and address critical organizational needs. At budget workshops in April departments presented expansion requests for fiscal year 22-23 some of which have been included as CEO recommended expansions these expansions total 6.8 million and address statutory requirements board priorities and other department operational needs And finally, as we develop the budget, we have to consider emerging issues that create short-term or long-term demands on resources and how we will deal with the issues to ensure continued fiscal stability.

Our office has emphasized a five year forecast process that continually updates as decisions are made and obligations are incurred. The total operating budget for the County of Santa Barbara for fiscal year 22-23 is $1.41 billion and supports a workforce of 4,460 FTE or employees. This is an increase of $60 million or 111 FTE from last fiscal year. This chart shows total operating revenues by categories. Nearly 39% of revenues received by the county are from federal and state sources, and includes $27.3 million in allocated ARPA funds. The next largest category is taxes at 28%, which includes property taxes, sales taxes, transient occupancy tax, and cannabis tax revenues. The third-largest source is charges for services at 25%.

This chart shows operating revenues by fund. The County General Fund, which funds most of the county operations receives or collects $509 million or 36% of the budget. Of the 509 million about 340 million is considered discretionary general revenue that the Board of Supervisors has some limited flexibility on spending. Discretionary revenues of $340 million is a slight increase of 3.9% from last fiscal year. While growth in property taxes, sales taxes and TOT remain strong they are offset by reduction in cannabis tax revenue Here's a further breakdown of discretionary general revenues. Of the $340.6 million for fiscal year 22-23, 265 million or 78% is from property taxes. Cannabis tax total $16.3 million or 4.8% of the total for fiscal year 22- 23.

This is a decrease of $2.8 million from the 21-22 adopted budget of $19.1 million. Reflecting the continued volatility in the market, but also some optimism that the pace of permitting and business coming online will increase in fiscal year 22-23. Our office will continue to watch this revenue stream closely in the coming year. Sales tax and TOT total $14.2 million and 15.2 million respectively.

Other discretionary revenues shown as $22.3 million for 2022-23 includes franchise taxes Franchise fees rather, interest income state federal payments and the county cost allocation services. This chart shows the operating expenditures by category. Salary and benefits continue to be the largest expense for the county at 53% of the budget. Recommended salary and benefit costs of $730.5 million in 22-23, an increase of $29.9 million or 4.3%. Represent the combined impacts of the addition of 111 FTE employees and projected increases in labor costs primarily salaries.

Each year, the Santa Barbara County Employees Retirement System or SB CSRS Board sets employer contribution rates based on an actuarial valuation. This chart shows the county's retirement contributions, net of employees negotiated share of costs since fiscal year 2018-19. The county's net retirement contribution increases only slightly by $800,000 or 0.5% from fiscal year 21-22 adopted budget do significantly lead to investment returns slightly more than 25% in the pension fund at June 30th 2021.

The county's retirement contribution totals $175.3 million in 22-23, however employee costs sharing offsets this growth by $7.6 million to net to the $167. 6 million on the slide.

I don't want to leave that slide without you know, I mean, I think this is kind of the testament to good fiscal planning that the county has been engaged in the fact In a couple years' time that we absorbed a $23 million rise in expense without affecting operations is quite an accomplishment. So I just don't think that this should pass by without that notation.

Thank you, Supervisor. Of note the 15 million increase from 2021 to 21-22 Is primarily related to losses incurred from 1920, where the investment rate of return was .78%, which is significantly less than the 7% assumed. This chart shows the general fund contribution by functional group. Public safety continues to receive the largest contribution of 156.7 million, or 46% of the allocation. The second-largest allocation is to the policy and executive function at 93.4 million, or 27%, of which a significant portion is related to general county programs that covers the NBJ funding plan at 19.3 million, 18% funding policy at 11.6 million, and other policy commitments in reserve increases.

This chart shows the staffing levels over five years by functional area. The recommended budget includes a workforce of 4,460 full-time equivalents which is an increase of 111 FTE from the 21-22 adopted budget. Staffing additions are largely attributable to new revenue sources such as grants or state funding particularly in behavioral wellness and DSS and efforts to improve operations and service delivery or meet new and emerging needs. The increase in FTEs is the net result of increases largely in social services at 27 FTE and behavioral wellness at 36 FTE. Now we're going to go into the budget expansions recommended by the CEO, and these were mostly board-directed at workshops or emerging issues.

CO recommended expansions are those that have been added to the recommended budget since April workshops based on directions we heard at the meeting or other issues that were determined to rise to the need of inclusion. The first item on this list is the Community Service Department, Zero Emissions Transportation Specialist. This is one FTE for one-time funding of $165,000. Under General County Programs, the Waterfront Infrastructure Feasibility Study of $100,000 and North County Youth Services at $200,000, this is a two year project for the north county.

General services, EV infrastructure of 400,000. This total project is about 1.5 million so this is the cost that are going to be needed in 22-23. Human resources and management compensation study increase of 115,000 Planning and development, long-range planning consultant for year one. This is a three-year pilot for one time funding of $562,500. Sheriff Corner, human trafficking detective, won FTE at $288,300.

For the Treasurer Tax Collector, one Veteran Services Representative, 109,700. We did want to note that we did work with the Treasurer Tax Collector Department. They were able to restore three positions within their department, one of which was another Veteran Services Representative, which gets them to five Veterans Representatives of the six that they were, that the commission was seeking.

Transient Occupancy Tax Compliance position, one FTE at $208,700. ORCUT under the Capital Improvement Program priorities we heard ORCUT library acquisition of $500,000. MODOC multimodal trail phase two, $500,000 Mission Canyon sewer extension, $500 thousand and the Refugio right-of-way at $400,000 The items continue to list is about 2.3 million of priority projects that your board heard at the workshops starting with Santa Maria public defender office reconfiguration, then the Santa Barbara courthouse exterior lighting upgrades North County Communications shop retrofit, new Qayouma Sheriff substation reconfiguration. The ADA restroom upgrade at Recon Beach Park and BetterAvia campus building weatherization window replacement.

The final item was a reserve or set aside of the remaining balance of one-time funds available from the workshops. That's $419,200 and we're holding it in emerging issues. Staff does recommend that this balance be held and used in fiscal year 23-24 towards year two of the long range planning consultant or the EV infrastructure cost balance of 1.1 million needed in fiscal year 23- 24.

So that totals the CO recommended expansions, 5 FTE and $606,700 of ongoing and $6,236,700 of one-time funding. Your board at workshops also approved the final allocation of the ARPA funds. This included about 5.9 million in general fund backfill projects, including criminal justice data and discovery activity positions, three data analysts and two LOPs over a three-year period.

Criminal Justice Data Dashboard, co-response teams for three years, this is the sheriff's portion. Court backlog prior to budgeted costs, and these are from prior years so we're just reimbursing The county essentially and earmark remaining general fund for the two years, two and three years of all the items listed above. So we do allocate this back to your board for each year of those budget cycles.

Also included on the list were project clean water mandate projects for $743,600. The Ivy Community Center sewer replacement and other improvements. The hearing room improvements in closed captioning. The Deputy District Attorney court backlog position, these are two for 312,000. $800, and the same for the public defender for court backlog. I did want to note that the departments worked on a joint strategic plan submitted as BIF number one that supports the use of these positions.

Earmark remaining on those for over two years is that 1.2 million so we will support the funding for that. Under the health and human services plan, we have organization technology projects, community well-being, housing and homeless projects and disaster resiliency totaling $10,756,896. In addition, your board approved the Public Safety Radio Network allocation of discretionary revenue of $17.6 million and a remaining balance of $444,600 to HVACs or other projects.

We do anticipate that minor changes in estimates for projects up and down will result in updates and occasional modifications needed from your ward throughout the year And we will provide those updates as necessary. That totals for the allocation that was done on April 14th, 4 FTE at $38.3 million. Now we'd like to go into some of the final budget adjustments.

So final budget adjustments or FBAs occur after the recommended budget is developed, therefore they are shown separately in an ad to the recommended budget once approved. Many adjustments carry forward activity from prior year, department use of fund balances for one-time items, or other minor corrections or changes previously directed by the board. We did want to note a few of the adjustments. Adjustment number three for CSD is an addition of one accountant for grant management with state HHAP funding. You may recall that the department had an expansion request for accountants to help in this area. Adjustment number six for the CO is a release of 293,700 from data and discovery set aside for two data analyst positions to assist with criminal justice needs.

And this is using ARPA funding for this specifically to assist a district attorney and public defender. Adjustment 10 and 24. For the D.A. and P.D., this is a release of $243,600 from data discovery set-aside funds for two legal office professionals for data discovery efforts using ARPA funds. Adjustment number 17 is the Santa Maria levee trail study, a release of 1.5 million from litigation settlement directed by the board on May 17th.

Adjustment number 21 is for human resources, a release of $270,000 from prior year one-time DEI funds for our limited term DEI coordinator position. And adjustment number 22 planning department release of $348,100 in one time contingency funds for a consultant related to housing element project. Now we're gonna recap some of the cannabis tax revenue information In December of 2021, your board approved an updated policy related to cannabis. As you're aware, the cannabis tax revenue is trending lower than anticipated for the current fiscal year.

Based on that we propose that there are no new ongoing expenditures beyond those approved in 21-22 for non-cannabis related costs. Ongoing expenditures are allowed to support cannabis program or labor negotiated increases if necessary, and the remaining cannabis revenues could be used towards one-time expenditures. And we do continue to support a prudent reserve equivalent of 25% of annual revenue that'll be maintained for revenue stabilization.

Here are the cannabis tax revenues for the past five years. We were projecting and receiving growth up through 2020-21, and then as you're aware we're seeing a decline in 2021-22. Primarily based on the market collections for cannabis in our area. The total estimated revenue for fiscal year 22-23 recommended budget is $16.3 million, this is $2.8 million less than the $19 million that was budgeted for the current fiscal year.

The next two slides will show the total collections coming into the Cannabis Fund and then how that's being allocated. We have $16.3 million in revenue estimate for fiscal year 22-23, we have a prior year fund balance carryover 9.7 million for a total of 25.9 million dollars. Recommended uses include the enforcement costs, administrative costs And one-time commitments from prior year on this slide, including the Parks, Trails, Open Space and Parks Grant matches approved in 21-22 of 5.5 million.

For this slide, the items in orange were added since workshops. These are one-time CEO recommended expansions that allocate the $3.1 million available that was identified at workshops. So this includes the CSD Transportation Specialist at $165,000 one time, Capital Projects and Capital Set Asides at $2.6 million. The two-year North County Youth Services activity at 200,000 and the waterfront feasibility study one time at 100,000.

We also have the prudent reserves holding at 3.1 million and set asides from prior year at 3 point 4 million. This slide shows the prior year ongoing commitments, including the 18% maintenance funding, IHSS MOU increase, the positions that were approved in the previous year, cannabis and education library funding and translation services. So this totals a $25.9 million available with the remaining balance of zero.

That concludes the prepared slides that we have for the budget overview, Chair Hartman. And we are happy to take any questions related to the overview so far or we can proceed with the functional groups.

So my colleagues on the board, any questions? Supervisor Nelson.

Yes. Thank you, Chairman. The cannabis Estimation of revenue for next year. Can you go back to the slide 19? 29. So what was the methodology that went into our actual 10.8 this year looking into next year for that 15.2? Yeah,

thank you Supervisor Nelson I think we're gonna have Steve and Yves prepared to go into the detail of the cannabis tax revenue estimate.

Thank you.

Supervisor Nelson through the chair. So our cannabis tax revenue forecast for next year, essentially we're looking at prior year payments from the legal non-conforming operators and those operators who have stepped through our processes and paid taxes. Much of the historical data already includes price compression that we're seeing throughout the state There's some conditions where operators are falling off because of either enforcement actions or our June 30th deadline for the legal nonconforming operators in the inland area that didn't make the eligibility list. So we've excluded those operators and what they paid historically.

There's also the operators, again the legal nonconforming operators where they need to essentially be permitted and licensed by October 31st. We're assuming that some of those operators won't be able to make those deadlines and get licensed by the 31st so we've backed some of that out. Those are all negative conditions but there is some reason for optimism going forward.

We've licensed quite a few operators over the last, this current fiscal year, last fiscal year so those folks are gonna be entering the market generating sales et cetera. So that was really the methodology that we used to forecast for next year.

Okay thank you.

Supervisor Lavinino?

Thank you and what's our timeline on Where are we sitting on the retail side? I see we've included a little bit, but where are we?

Supervisor Lavagnino through the chair. Thank you for that question. So all of the cannabis retail operators, the six operators they're working with our planning and development department on obtaining issued land use permits. And so the 1.1 million that we've forecasted for next year, that assumes that those six operators are gonna be obtaining the final issued permits business licenses through us at various times throughout the year Just using information that we've received from planning and development. So we made assumptions in terms of timing, that's the major assumption it's difficult to predict but that's our best estimate at this point that all six would be commencing operations next fiscal year and generating revenue.

And Mr. Yee, we've also invested in a system to deal with the failure of the state's track and trace to actually be utilized by the county. Could you expand? Are we making any assumptions on better tax collections given that?

Chair Hartman, thank you for that question. So we have been working with NCS, that's our consultant and using the CCA data, the California Cannabis Authority data so now we're able to via that data, we're able to see the individual operators product that's first of all plants that are in the ground Transfers that are happening, external transfers and pricing information now we're able to see that.

Unfortunately our pricing information currently it only goes back to about January of this year but we're working really closely with the consultant on analysis and pricing index. I know the board expressed interest in obtaining that data and they said they could help us with that so we've engaged in conversations with them. to obtain that information.

And so do we expect that will yield more tax or we're not sure yet till we have a chance to really analyze that data?

At this point, it's a little preliminary so we don't quite yet know. As part of our contract with the consultant though they have promised to do a three year look back and so we're gonna be looking back at operators that have reported zero gross receipts in prior quarters and will be looking at the data in the platform to see if that's true and then we'll be working with the Treasurer Tax Collector's Office I just want to say that it's

really encouraging the increased

granularity new revenue from that granularity, but I'm sure that it will yield better compliance unless of course everybody's being perfectly honest right now. So you know, I think that granularity is pretty important and encouraging.

Any other questions? All right, I think we're ready to have Mr. Clemente take us to the first functional group

Thank you Chair Hartman, members of the board. Good morning. Our first functional group is Health and Human Services which comprises Behavioral Wellness, Child Support Services, First Five, Public Health and Social Services. We've included these update slides for each of the Functional Group summaries that have any major updates from the departments since budget workshops. For Health and Human Services we have no major updates.

And here, just recapping the summary that this group receives 8% of the county's total general fund contribution at $26 million. They have total operating expenditures of 482 million and just over 40% of the county's total FTE at 1,835. That concludes this functional group summary and I'll stop here for board questions and public comment.

So do any board members have any questions? I see no lights whatsoever. So, I guess the department heads will not be presenting. So, Supervisor Lavanino? Okay.

I thought we were going to do individual department heads but if we're not all right then I do have a question so maybe not so much a question as an ask. So one of the things that I've been proud of is that we have had no service level reductions over the last four years. But if this budget does go forward as we are right now, there will be a significant service level reduction for one particular program and that is the Growing Grounds Farm that's on Foster Road right by our mental health facility. Growing Grounds is run by Transitions Mental Health Association It's kind of first off, let me just briefly talk about the program. It's taking folks that are suffering mental illness. A lot of them in our programs.

They're then moving over into employment working at the farm. I think we've heard from them in the past that it's a great program. We've had people come and speak. I told them this year that we probably didn't need to do that. I've had Director Navarro out. Walked the facility, was really excited about it and I think she can come and talk about it a little bit. But the problem was in timing Mr. Morrow sees this as something that could be or should be actually budgeted in with MHSA in the future however because of the timing and the transition in that department weren't able to get that built into the budget And so they're asking for $350,000. I've paired that back to asking for a one-time contribution of 200,000 from the county and have them make up the rest of it either in grants whatever with the hope that and the commitment from the department that in the future it would be built into the MHSA budget so that we don't have to go through this every year where we're trying to scrape together one year I appreciate Daniel Nielsen actually took it under Workforce Development Board.

So it's always kind of been a battle of where we find the money to continue to fund this program and I just want to make sure, and if Tony if you could come forward in just for a second, make sure that I'm not speaking out of line.

Good morning Chair Hartman and Board, how are you? This is a great good morning so far. Just wanted to say that I really enjoyed going out to Growing Grounds and in fact in my previous agency we too had a therapeutic community garden and was fully funded under MHSA. I know that Growing Grounds has a wonderful vibrant program that is funded by MHSA in San Luis Obispo County and I really look forward to them joining our three-year annual plan process in the fall to begin discussions on how we might incorporate their program ongoing into our PEI plan under MHSA. It fits very well and we've already had preliminary discussions, and I know some of my staff already from Foster Road bring their clients over and do their own type of mini groups and collaborations with Growing Ground so we look forward to formalizing that moving forward.

And Supervisor Williams has a question

Well, you know it's not a it's not really question. It's it's that we I I'm somewhat familiar with with their work and I think it's great but normally this would be handled either through a contract for services with the county or written request to us and we have none and just sort of that kind of lack process doesn't necessarily in my view reflect badly on them, but it would reflect.

Badly or at least have ramifications if we are going to entertain that and I think that what you what we have to think about a little bit hard is whether partial funding for this group for this year is worth opening up the Pandora's box because I guarantee you there are people that I've turned away, that Greg's turned away and others have turned away that wanted to do the same thing.

And they will be back next year and they will be back in mass. And we remember most of us remember the bad old days and the knives in the jugular that produced over limited amounts of money. So I'm just kind of wondering whether funding this very worthwhile effort is worth returning to that system, because whether we intend to return to it or not doing this will return us to that system because they're going to be back.

And I would just like to interject, this is another question for Director Navarro. The bridge house outside Lompoc has greenhouses they recently got a grant to help bring those back but it's a similar kind of thing. This is more for homeless rather than mental illness but nonetheless cultivating the soil and incorporating that into the training so What would be the process in your department for deciding who would be entitled for the MHSA program?

As you know, the MHSA process is a community collaborative process. This is our three-year plan that starts in September and we bring together all community partners stakeholders as many as we can from all regions of the county and all different sectors And it's a community stakeholder process, so groups bring forward their presentations on how they believe the funds under especially in this group prevention early intervention would best serve county residents.

And if there was a group of residents that came forward with therapeutic community garden that came together collectively That doesn't need to be individual, it can be a collective that they come together and say across the county we'd like to develop such and such a project. So again how that's done is we go to the stakeholders, the stakeholders decide with the amount of funding that we have what kinds of projects they would like to fund. And we do know that prevention early intervention is a primary focus for us this next year as Some additional funds to invest.

And so over this three year planning process, that is what stakeholders have come to us and already said they're gonna be coming in the fall with their asks. So it's a collective process. It's not a guarantee of course but it is definitely based in the community will.

And if the money... So you're starting in September but that won't be for until next year's budget? That's right. If it

starts fiscal year 23-24.

Supervisor Nelson.

Yes, thanks chairman I wanted to respond to supervisor Williams comments because I totally agree we used to nickname this final day of budget hearings the candy store because everybody came in and Wanted additional funds for their pet projects or community needs Where I see this as something different is this is actually a service level reduction This program already exists within our system Of care and so if it doesn't get funded if it's if it goes away over the next year There will be a drop in service level. And so that's where I see this being slightly different than what going back to the way things were before.

I think it is a distinction, but I think it matters because I'm with you. I don't want to go back to having lines of nonprofits and other organizations that come and line up here and don't go through the front door. They come in at the last minute and ask for funds. I think we've done a really good job with this budget building it. This is, I don't know if this was an oversight or all the history on it but it was made aware to me most recently that it was left out and so I think it might be something we should at least be looking at.

Chair Hartman? Yes. So I just want to clarify do you not believe It's a worthy program, but it's not like it was cut from our budget. I just want to be clear. It wasn't in our budget to begin with. I'm looking at Mr. Nielsen and I think they funded it one year. I don't know if we continued to fund it, but our budget director is not so. I just want to be clear. It's not that it was in the budget and it was cut. The program itself doesn't have funding, so it is a reduction for them, but it hasn't been on our budget, it's not like we're cutting it this year. So I wanted to clarify that.