Board of Supervisors — 2022-08-30

Good

morning. It's nine o'clock and I'd like to call this August 30th, 2022 meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors to order and Madam Clerk when you're handing off my computer could you call the roll please?

So moved. Second.

And any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Adopted unanimously.

Great thank you.

And now our CEO report, CEO Miyasato.

Good morning Chair and Board Members. Today we just have a quick update. We wanted to let you know what was happening with the excessive heat warning that was issued by the National Weather Service so today I have J.D. Saucedo from OEM who's going to give you a little update and also let the public know that information is all up on our website. Thank You JD

Good morning, Chair of the Board and Supervisors. And thank you CEO Miyasato. My name is J.D. Saucedo and I'm an Emergency Manager with the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management. I'm here to provide information on a heat wave that's forecast for this week and summarize actions that the Office of Emergency Management or OEM has taken so far. The National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat warning for much of Santa Barbara County Including the Santa Barbara South Coast, coastal mountains and foothills, the San Ynez Valley, interior mountains and the Quiama Valley.

This excessive heat warning is in effect starting tomorrow August 31st at 11 a.m., and goes through September 5th or this Monday at 8 p.m.. The County Office of Emergency Management is working with all partner agencies and local jurisdictions to ensure they are informed of the hazard and understand what actions they are taking. The Office of Emergency Management has coordinated with the County Department of Social Services, Public Health Department, Community Services Department, the Agricultural Commissioner's office, and the Independent Living Resource Center to ensure that their respective partners are aware of the upcoming heat wave.

Their partners include medical facilities and providers, homeless shelters and outreach teams, access disability and functional needs community members, senior service providers, and the agricultural community. Finally, the Office of Emergency Management has created a webpage at www.readysbc.org. Again, that's www.readysbc .org Where the public can get the latest information on this heat wave and view safety tips to avoid heat-related injuries.

This web page will be maintained throughout the heat wave, and will include a listing of heat related services offered throughout the county. All information on this webpage is provided in both English and Spanish. OEM will also continue to provide updates on our Twitter and Facebook accounts. That information and content will also be provided in both English and Spanish.

That's all I have. Thank you for your time. However, I'm happy to field any questions if there are

I don't see any other lights, but what do we know about winds? Do we expect heavy winds or just blistering heat?

Chair of the Board. The current wind situation as far as with the National Weather Service has articulated to us is that we are expecting sundowner winds especially on Wednesday that could drive up heat on the coastal plain as well in the immediate coast But there haven't been any extreme wind conditions that have been explained to us. The wind sundowner focus, as the most recent forecast has indicated is between Point Conception all the way to San Marcos Pass so it's focused more on the west of Goleta area not so much the Montecito area.

So we haven't heard anything from the utilities about a PSPS announcement or anything like that. What percentage of our population in the county is set up for ReadySBC.org?

That's an amazing question and actually I wouldn't mind pointing over to my colleague, Ynairis Muniz. She oversees our alert and warning and she probably has that number for us.

Chair Hartman, approximately 14% of the county is signed up for ReadySBC alerts. We do have a breakdown by region and I can provide that at a later time.

Is that 40 or 14? 14. And

just to piggyback on that if members of the public are interested in signing up who have not signed up yet if they go to www.ReadySBC.org that is where they can sign up to receive emergency alerts and they can also check their accounts as well.

So this is a public service announcement encouraging people to sign up. There are different kinds of alerts, but they get more information and it's really important for people to sign up.

Yes we have a phrase that if we can't reach you, we can't alert you.

Okay thank you and still seeing no other lights so thank you very much for giving us this heads-up. Thank you Chair. And that's the conclusion of your report CEO Misato? and Madam Clerk.

Chair Hartman and members of the board, I do have one quick announcement this morning. I would just 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 still 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 2. 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 and 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 removed from mute, you will hear a notification that your line has been unmuted. If you are using a touch tone 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 5 6 8 2 2 4 0 that concludes my announcements.

Thank you Madam Clerk turning to our administrative agenda I have that board members have pulled item A5, A15 and A17 are there any other items that board members would like to see pulled? And any members of the public madam clerk would like to see items pulled?

Chair Hartman and members of the board we have no request to speak on the administrative agenda from the public

All right, would you read A5 into the record please?

Chair Hartman and members of the board. Administrative item number five is from the Community Services Department. It is to consider recommendations regarding the County Inclusionary Housing Ordinance 2022 update an annual adjustment of affordable housing in lieu fees and inclusionary housing requirements.

Supervisor Nelson

Yes, thank you Chair Hartman. I have asked for this item to be polled and I don't actually have any questions of staff but I just kind of have a greater point to make about the inclusionary housing program. You know, obviously housing is a statewide problem and definitely in Santa Barbara County. And as we go into our housing element update you know I'm looking at all the different pieces not only zoning but what is the cost to get something developed? And you know inclusionary area housing is a cost. You know and I think it's really important for us as we move forward into this process to be weighing out all the different pieces of it. You know it says streamlining the process It's inclusionary housing fees, it's developer impact fees. All that goes into the cost and in part in California and Santa Barbara County, it is really expensive to build and construct and because of that, that also helps to drive house prices higher where a developer probably needs to make a greater return on their investment to be able Initial outlay and risk.

And so I just wanted to highlight that this item isn't asking for our approval of the inclusion element That will be coming forth in the housing element update at this point is just Bring raising these fees by ordinance. This isn't actually an action of the board to raise the housing element fees those were Presupposed many years ago, and this is just an opportunity for this item to be highlighted.

And so I have no problem moving forward with it but I do want just to, for us as a board, I know I am, as I read through these things thinking about how do we address this housing issue? And this is a program that's been around for a lot of years. It has helped contribute to building some low and very low income housing. But at what cost ultimately? Has it hurt us in our total housing supply? And would that have been better if we would not have had those fees in place? And I think those are things that I'm wrestling with as a decision maker moving forward. And just wanted to highlight that for a moment, as we move into the housing element next year. Thank you.

Thank you. And Supervisor Williams.

Well, I think it's good to ask these questions and I think my sense is inclusionary has been a very beneficial tool. You wonder whether, you know typically the inclusionary is what 120% to 160% of AMI. You wonder whether you would want a higher percentage but target for 160 to 200% of AMI since that is at least in the South County our area of greatest deficit.

Or in terms of at least some projects. So I'd love to look at it from a data-driven perspective in the future.

Some great comments, Madam Clerk A15.

Chair Hartman and members of the Board, Administrative Item No. 15 is from the Public Health Department. It is to consider recommendations regarding an agreement with Town & Country Inn for non-congregate isolation sheltering.

Supervisor Nielsen?

Yes, thank you, Chair Hartman. This is another item that caught my eye in part because this is the housing we're doing Those people with COVID that need to be isolated. And as we're moving from a pandemic to endemic, that we're looking for things that are more sustaining. I saw the budget allocation for 22-23 is actually higher than 21-22 and as we were trying to ramp things down that caught my eye as something of concern so I reached out to staff and And my overall point is I think we need to be looking at these different expenditures with ARPA dollars and figuring out how we can either ramp those down or making those sustainable. I know we eventually have to recapture some of those dollars, make sure they get spent prior to losing them. And this is one of those areas where I want to make sure that public health and the county as a whole is looking These expenditures saying, hey does this still make sense?

It did potentially a year ago as we need to move to more sustained strategy and where can we recapture those dollars and make sure that they're deployed in a place most effective for the people of our county.

And if I might piggyback on your question for Mr. Nielsen, it says infectious disease so my question really had to do have we had was this something we instituted only with COVID and we've learned and we might want to keep it for other infectious diseases? And so that's my question

So Chair Hartman, I'll answer your question first just to make sure I don't forget it. Yes we do employ this with other infectious diseases but more on a one-off type of situation where if we have somebody that needs to be isolated and doesn't have the capacity to do so appropriately. Paige Batson from my office filled me in yesterday on that component of isolation related to other infectious diseases.

Yes, we use that model but not in this sort of structured plan way. Supervisor Nelson through the chair so my executive staff brought this issue to me for discussion about a week or 10 days ago to ask that we discuss changing the service that we've been providing during COVID changing the model and so we have had discussion we're looking into requirements of all parties involved This basically is providing a service to COVID-positive people that are being discharged either from the emergency room or inpatient in the hospital and they're still COVID positive and they're not able to go to a homeless shelter for isolation because they have not previously been in any particular homeless shelter or those shelters. Don't have the capacity at that moment to take that but my staff feel agree with you that we should be looking at moving on from this and so We're trying to do so plan fully and thoughtfully, and we have another meeting scheduled within the next week And then after making decisions will be engaging our partners related to that transition because these monies can be used for other other things

Thank you Mr. Nielsen and I guess questions for the CEO, I know at some point in the future we will be kind of coming back to the board with various ARPA expenditures is there what's a sort of timeline on

that? That's correct Chair Nelson and I'm looking at the long-range calendar and when we said we were going to be doing that but we will be coming back to your board looking at Nancy October or November this fall

September 20th.

So we're coming in September for that and we are getting ready to have those numbers prepared for you. Thank you.

And so that's all you need to know from Mr. Nielsen?

Those are my questions, thank you.

Chair Hartman and members of the board, administrative item number 17 is from the Sheriff Coroner's Office. It is to consider recommendations regarding a contract extension for satellite tracking of people LLC stop.

Supervisor Hart.

Yeah, I just have some questions about the satellite tracking the people in the alternative sentencing program wanted to get a kind of sense of the number of folks that are participating in the program how many folks are doing ankle monitoring versus the sheriff's work alternative program?

Members of the Board, Chair, good morning. I'm Lieutenant Salmada with Sheriff's Office. As you already know for many years we've been running two distinguished programs. Alternative Census Bureau which is electronic monitoring and Sheriff's work alternative program. As of today, the total numbers on both programs is 72 inmates. We have 72 offenders currently in the program. Did you say 17 or 72? 72. Out of those 72, 65 are on electronic monitoring and only 7 are on sheriff's work programs.

And then generally speaking in the course of a year, how many folks violate the provisions of the programs? Is it just a handful? Does anybody?

Normally it varies. It varies from month to month and it varies on the season of the year but in general we run up to two or three even four or five funders who violate the rules of the program during their term.

So in the ankle monitor thing, it's somebody who cuts off the ankle monitor in the alternative work program. They don't participate in the program and then they get rearrested and put in jail?

Exactly. If they do violate the rules of the program, they get rolled up from the program being brought back to the facility where we incarcerated them with arrest.

And then this particular agreement is going ahead for four years for the $900,000 and so it's about two hundred twenty-five thousand dollars a year and I saw in the staff report that about one hundred seventy thousand dollars had not been used in the previous agreement. It wasn't clear to me whether that was in the last two year period As you already

know, the Board of Supervisors entered into an agreement with Stop Satellite Tracking of People in 2016. At that time it was the funds were supposed to be $900,000 not to exceed $900,000 and for so far we still have a budget up to approximately $200,000 left on the

Okay so that was a similar term, four years and $900,000. So it's about a quarter of the expenditures, little bit less that weren't used and that's because people aren't taking advantage of the program? What's what's the reason for the

cost? The reason is that you know as during the past few years so quite a few things have you know including pandemic the number of offenders on the program has declined The cancellation of E4 as well too is playing a role in the number of offenders. As we speak, we are actually at record numbers low as far as inmates who are already sentenced and during the time in county jail. Therefore that affects the numbers for those who go to the program. As you know, we have to vet every single person who goes into the program to make sure they do not carry on with the same kind of behaviors before they got incarcerated.

So the number has declined over the years.

Okay, and then we previously the board had a discussion with consultant that was working at alternatives for you know reducing the number of folks in the jail long term by doing a variety of different programs that better match The needs of those individual offenders, let's get services to people rather than necessarily incarcerating them. This is one of the key parts of that, the Alternative Sensing Program as a whole.

So I think the interest of the board and I hope the Sheriff too is in increasing participation in these programs. They're pretty successful with the small number of people that violate and so my hope would be in this next four year contract that we don't end up with money on the table, that we get folks who are qualified, that are safe to participate in these programs You know the benefit them in the community through the system And so is there are there ways to speed up the application process to simplify that you know? Yeah, obviously you want to be careful. You want to make sure you're getting the right information from folks But you know I've been told that there's a delay That's pretty significant in terms of when somebody expresses interest in being in this program and the actual Authorization to make that happen.

You know, I'd hope that we're trying to bend the systems to make them work more efficiently so we can get more people doing these programs because they save money and they protect the community from a public safety standpoint as well.

As you already know, starting July 1st, we started cooperation with the probation department who will be taking over the monitoring aspect of the electronic monitoring With that happening, it's actually been two months since we started the cooperation. That will give some free time to our staff to pay more, spend more time in the facility trying to recruit, to hand out applications and trying to interview people and do time before they... This is just a expedited process and to recruit more people to go participate in the program.

But again, so far it's been based on voluntary basis only. So those individuals who would like to spend their time in electronic monitoring they will apply and they'll go through the screening process.

Well that's really encouraging to hear about the Division of Labor with probation and the fact that will free up more of your staff resources to focus in on encouraging people to consider this and process their applications quickly and timely and get them into the program. I think it's a good program that works well so thank you for

that.

Supervisor Nielsen?

Yes, thank you Chair Hartman and thank you Supervisor Hartman for those questions. I had some similar questions on this item. I'm a little concerned about the numbers going down so much in this program. It seems to be something that we should be trying to move towards as a county, and I agree. And it's obviously a huge cost avoidance spending $3 a day versus how many hundreds of dollars a day to incarcerate somebody makes a lot of sense from a fiscal point of view.

But you know, I'm hearing alternative sentencing. Where were we at with pretrial and electronic monitoring? Is that the same program? Because I know we're making huge investments. Chief Heitman's here too, because maybe I don't know if it's appropriate for her to speak to it. But are we making this technology available on pretrial as well so that some of our those that have been arrested can be out and be monitored during that time? So instead of being in jail as we start to wrestle with some of these things?

Supervisor Nelson, we currently are focused only on the individuals who are already sentenced and they're serving time. We are not focusing on the pretrials at this time.

If you don't mind I'd love to hear from Chief Hartman here for a minute about that technology and I'm sorry to just jump you with that but it seems relevant

Supervisor Nelson through the Chair, you're correct. We are focusing on the pretrial as well. It's a little bit of a different dynamic in that the alternative sentencing decisions about releasing on GPS are within the Sheriff's discretion. On the pretrial side it's within the court's discretion so the pretrial staff prepare an assessment bring it before the court as part of their arraignment and the court determines if they're going to proceed with release on pretrial. We use electronic monitoring specifically to overcome community safety concerns with particular types of clients, such as those that are being brought before the court on domestic violence offenses.

GPS can be used very effectively to ensure that they stay away from any potential victims. So it is one of the tools that the court uses and that we regularly recommend We do have quite a few pre-trial clients that are on GPS. However, it's not required

for all pre-trial clients. Okay so that's not probably in the 70 number that the Sheriff's Department is talking about at this point? There's additional numbers out there of people that are on electronic surveillance or GPS surveillance that have been arrested and are waiting trial that are going through courts and your department?

That's correct.

Okay great thank you that's helpful.

Supervisor Williams

I just want to say that though, I very much support betting. I mean, I support the discretion and the thoughtfulness in these types of programs that I hope both departments bring to it but I want to speak my agreement with Supervisor Hart that this is a vital and key strategy for the sustainability of our public safety departments. To me, the question of ensuring our ability to arrest and detain the people who really belong in jail hinges upon our ability to have the discretion for other sentencing possibilities for those who might have better results not in jail.

And so I just want to encourage both departments to dig in deep on this as a strategy that ensures both accountability and fiscal stability.

Supervisor Hart.

There's been a lot of discussion from board members and I think a universal agreement that this is an important program, and we want to see it be successful and continue to protect the community and give folks more options to get their life back on track so it would be great to have maybe a quarterly report that just helps us understand the progress Increasing numbers, you know the issues that you have They come back to the board with that as an item would be very helpful to us I think so if you'd commit to that. That would be great Thank you

All right Like I see no more questions then and thank you very much for sharing that So I'll now entertain a motion to approve the balance of the administrative agenda

so moved second

And all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Administrative agenda is adopted. Madam Clerk, would you read item number 18

into the record please? Chair Hartman and members of the board, administrative item number 18 is sponsored by Supervisor Hartman. It is to adopt a resolution proclaiming the month of September 2022 as National Preparedness Month in Santa Barbara County and joining us in person today to receive this resolution we have Yanaris Unions and Stacy Silva from OEM And if you can join us at the podium, I'll go ahead and read the resolution into the record Whereas National Preparedness Month provides an opportunity for residents to join citizens across the United States in preparing their homes, businesses and communities for any type of emergency.

And whereas the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced the 2022 National Preparedness Month theme of a lasting legacy. The life you've built is worth protecting. Prepare for disasters to create a lasting legacy for you and your family. And whereas planning now is the best way to improve community recovery from disasters. When individuals take responsibility for preparing, excuse me, for preparing their families and their communities, the chance of survival and return to normalcy following a disaster is greatly increased.

And whereas the County Office of Emergency Management and partners are tasked with promoting and supporting emergency preparedness, educating individuals on local hazards and how to prepare for them. And whereas the Office of Emergency Management is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion throughout all aspects of emergency response including public education, preparedness resources and emergency information.

And whereas Santa Barbara County is home to several community-based preparedness and response teams comprised of volunteers who have selflessly undergone hours of training to help our communities be more resilient. And whereas this month the County Office of Emergency Management urges all residents to plan for disasters by participating in neighborhood preparedness activities, registering their contact information at www.readysbc.org to receive local alerts purchasing or refreshing their emergency kits with essential items and whereas while we cannot always know when the next disaster emergency will confront us, we must remain ready together. We can ensure that we have the information and resources needed to safeguard our communities from a crisis or disaster Now therefore, be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors does hereby proclaim the month of September 2022 is National Preparedness Month in Santa Barbara County and calls on all government agencies private organizations and the people and businesses of Santa Barbara County to develop their own emergency preparedness plan and work together toward creating a stronger and more resilient community passed and adopted today.

Thank you Chair Hartman and Board for recognizing September as National Preparedness Month. I'm Stacey Silva, an Emergency Manager for Santa Barbara County and we wanted to take a minute to highlight a few items of preparedness for you and those members of our public that are watching. Our ability to respond to disasters is significantly aided by personal and community preparedness efforts taking steps even though small steps to prepare yourself your family and your community can make a huge difference in times of disaster. The Office of Emergency Management wanted to take a minute to highlight some of our preparedness resources available on our website at readysbc.org This website is a comprehensive resource for disaster preparedness as well as a reliable source of information during a disaster All materials on the website are available in English and Spanish First of all, I want to take a minute to highlight the orange banner.

Sign up for ReadySBC alerts. Clicking on that will walk you through the process to ensure that you're registered for those alerts. As JD said earlier, if we can't reach you, we cannot alert you. So that's a very important step. From that page, the blue icon there says prepare and if you click on that link, we wanted to highlight a couple of areas. Do you want to click on that link for me?

Thank you. First of all, there's a section there for making a plan in this section. There are free customizable plan and communication templates to assist you as you prepare we want you to focus on the six P's of planning people and pets Papers such as birth certificates and other important documents, prescriptions, pictures, personal computers and tablets. And of course plastics those credit cards and ensuring you have a little bit of cash as well.

ReadySBC.org also contains resources for community members with disabilities access and functional needs and includes local community partners that can assist with your planning efforts. We also want you to familiarize yourself with the terminology that you may hear during a disaster. Being aware of emergency terms and planning for what actions you will need to take at each stage will make a stressful situation, a little less stressful.

There's animal preparedness as well for both household pets and livestock including tips on making a kit, identification techniques and how to get assistance during an emergency. And of course this is a great month to build or refresh your kit and so to highlight how you can create a disaster kit in an inexpensive way and using items that you have lying around your home I will turn it over to my fellow Emergency Manager Ynairis Moniz

Lower for me. Good morning, Chair Hartman and the board. My name is Yanaris Moniz. I'm an emergency manager with Office of Emergency Management. And our office strives to help the community understand how to prepare. We often talk about preparing a kit but often we hear that folks just don't know where to start or that the cost is prohibitive. So to illustrate the point that we can actually start preparing just by gathering things we have at home, I brought my first emergency kit that I developed years ago before I even was an emergency manager. I grabbed this yellow backpack that I would use for day hikes, and I just started looking around my house to see what I can put in it. I put a flashlight, I put some supplies from my first aid kit, a charger, some clothes, and that was the start of it.

And it's not a one-and-done deal. It takes time. So it's a process over months and years, and over years this thing has become quite stuffed. But what we want people to understand is that it's important to just begin. And that can mean grabbing a backpack, maybe an old gym bag, even a reusable grocery bag and just having that be the place where you begin to put those items but also letting folks in your home Whether that's family members, roommates. This is the place where they can find some of those items and how they can contribute to those items.

As folks gather those items, it's important to pay special attention to unique items that will be needed during an emergency. So as an example for myself I wear glasses my spouse is hard-of-hearing and wears hearing aids so I have my old eyeglasses in here we have batteries for his hearing aid We have prescription medications in here. So it's important to just look around your home, look at what your family needs and start that process. The other thing I want to highlight is documents so that's the one thing I will take out from my backpack.

During our outreach events, OEM distributes this handy dandy ReadySBC.org document holder. So just start grabbing things like insurance policies, prescriptions, bank statements and start collecting those again in one place. The most important message is just have what you have, start with what you got and get it all in one backpack, one bag and begin the process. Thank you again.

Thank you. And does that conclude your presentation? Well, Ms. Silva and Ms. Munoz, that was extremely helpful. I think about the six Ps and that makes kind of a diffuse task more focused. To start with something is very helpful too. I think we can't overstress that public safety is a shared responsibility Government can't do it all, and so you have to start in your own household and then working with your neighbors.

The more ties across neighbors looking out for each other if someone is not so mobile, if somebody needs help with pets, that makes for a more resilient neighborhood. So we're all in this together. We just heard that we're in extreme heat warning and heavy winds, so this is the time to get ready. Thank you so much. And so turning to general public comment, Madam Clerk.

Chair Hartman and members of the board yes we have one request to speak from the public on general public comment today and we are going to remain in Santa Barbara for Gretchen Murray. Gretchen?

Madam Chair, Board of Supervisors. I appreciate you having the time for me to speak today. I have one quick slide here. I wanted to bring to your attention and I don't know the timeliness on this that the CDC have revised their guidelines on COVID and this is something that the Department of Public Health in Santa Barbara County May need to bring back to the board to make a resolution on but they have relaxed so many of the different restrictions.

The main reason I'm here speaking is there are still places in the county where they require vaccinations and you cannot get in And that includes Santa Barbara City College, the enrollment there has dropped considerably because people do not necessarily wish to be vaxxed or they have had the two shots and nothing beyond that. And so I'm hoping that the board can speak to public health and bring back to the county that they now follow the new CDC guidelines.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. CEO Miyasato?

Thank you for that comment. So just as a reminder, we can ask public health to bring something back or send some information out but the state has different guidelines than CDC so I want to emphasize the State Department of Public Health has different guidelines than CDC and we're following the state's guidelines.

Is there any way to speak to the state? I mean from here from a single person I'm a long ways away I would really like, is there a way to make a resolution even to go to the state to reconsider?

We can follow up with you and Terri Nisich back there works for the Public Health Department. She can talk about what different options we have. Thank you. Okay thank you.

And that concludes general public comment on today's agenda.

Thank You Madam Clerk would you read departmental item number one into the record please

Chair Hartman and members of the board, departmental item number one is from the Human Resources Department. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding elected department head salaries.

Good morning. Chair Hartman and members of the board. I'm the county's human resources director, and my name is Maria Elena de Guevara. My purpose before you this morning is twofold. First, I'm here to frame the listed topic of elected department wages as well as the topic of parity for attorney department head positions. Second, I am here to provide several options for the boards considerations on These two topics.

Next slide. I have just five slides for you this morning to cover this agenda. Thank you. And then my staff and I are available to answer any questions and provide additional information that may be helpful to the board's discussion this morning. Next slide. For the public, uh, and the board, um, starting with a brief look back on the board actions impacting elected department head wages So let's get started.

In December of 2016, a new wage structure was established for unrepresented executive and management employees. This new wage structure used the concept of a compensation pool and it was codified by a resolution as the Management Classification Salary Plan This plan did not include elected department heads. However, at the same time but by separate resolution two things happened specifically for elected department heads.

A new wage structure was established for the elected department heads, namely that for future years The comp pool increases for appointed department heads shall apply to elected department heads as a flat percent increase. That was their new wage structure in future years, and two that salary surveys would be conducted in the second four years of each term.

So as you can see, a very specific resolution was determined at that time in 2016 for elected department heads that established their wage structure. In March of 2018, a single resolution governing benefits for all non-represented employees including elected was brought forward and it impacted all non-represented employees. But it was very specific to the unit cash roll up, and it didn't really impact wage structure formula. It was very specific to the unit cash up.

A few months later A resolution, once again very specific to the elected department heads came through to clean up language that had been made obsolete because of the March resolution. And here in the December 26th wage structure language was restated verbatim That the comp pool increases for appointed department heads shall apply to the elected department has as a flat percent increase.

Staff. Has since been guided by this. Resolution for providing increases for elected department heads. Next slide, please. As you may recall, in the fall of 2021 County HR presented a three phase project plan to revise the management class salary plan as part of an ongoing effort to address existing recruiting and operational challenges. To simplify and streamline implementing, before we implement Workday.

And to eliminate conflicts between governing documents such as the county ordinance resolutions and the management class salary plan. An action item under this project was to change the wage structure for executive managers as an interim step. This action item was accomplished in December of 2021 through resolution, and it eliminated the comp pool wage structure for executives and management. And it replaced it with a general wage increase and eligibility for an additional performance-based increase.

Which was two point five and then an additional two point five for that additional performance based increase. In June of 2022, county H.R. drafted a resolution. That would increase wages for the elected department has by 2.5. But you may recall that. That resolution was pulled at the request of the elected department heads So this brings us to our very first discussion point.

That the resolution that currently governs the wage structure for elected department heads is not applicable for us right now because it ties increases to a construct, the comp pool that no longer exists. It was Replaced and removed in December of 2021. So that's our challenge, however I did have the opportunity to meet a few times with my colleagues. The elected department heads and I appreciate their collaboration to work with me and to identify a few options that we can bring to you.