Good morning everyone thank you all so much for joining us this Monday February 5th for our work session of the Durham County Board of Commissioners I will get us started with our public charge the Board of Commissioners asks its members and citizens to conduct themselves in a respectful ious manner both with the board and fellow citizens at any time should any member of the board or any citizen fail to observe this public charge the chair will ask the offending person to leave the meeting until that individual regains personal control should decorum fail to be restored the chair will recess the meeting until such time that a genuine commitment to the public charge is observed as a courtesy to others please turn off cell phones during the meeting and I just have two quick announcements before we get started for folks to know that our February 12th meeting 13th meeting has been cancelled due to Commissioners attending the no conference in DC so we will no longer have that meeting but we will.
Still have our second regular session meeting later in the month and then for folks to just be aware there has been an adjustment to the agenda for item 24-55 arpa up update is just going to be moved up to before lunch so folks who would like to participate and listen into that conversation we will have that before that portion with that I will now move us into citizen comments we have four individuals signed up for citizen comments and so to address I would like to ask folks to come line up over on this right side where our clerk Monica is we will start with Heidi Joe hetland Christy CLM and George Robertson then Roberson and Amanda Wallace and each of you will have two minutes each and please we ask that all speakers are refrain from addressing issues related to Personnel matters and naming any staff or making any direct comments related to staff thank you good morning my name is Heidi Joe hetland I'm a resident of Durham and I am a physical.
Therapist in Durham Public Schools I am one of 1300 classified workers who have been affected by the recent salary issues and with this sudden unexplained change in salary schedules I have dropped from Step 33 to step one under the salary plan I'm not eligible for a raise for approximately 18 years at that time I will be in my 70s with this plan to therapists with less experience earn more than I do and if I were to remain with DPS with each year the passes increasing numbers of less experienced staff will be paid higher wages than me I and many others in the same position would be foolish to continue working for DPS I ask of you where else in Durham County would an employer be allowed to change the salary and qualifying years of experience in their staff overnight to do so without warning discussion or policy I've come here today to plead for all assistance intervention and investigation that was is within the power and resources of Durham County.
Commissioners to prevent a mass Exodus of qualified employees who are the backbone of durh public school students who receive federally mandated special education services will be disproportionately affected by the major staff turnover that is on the horizon which will include instructional assistance personal care assistance nurses and occupational and physical therapists DPS has been underfunded and under staffed for years and now the salary Saga is on display in the media daily no one is going to want to apply to work in DPS the resignations have already started and if they continue and escalate DPS will have dire staffing issues like they have never seen and quite frankly from which they may never recover now more than 3 weeks later we the affected employees parents and Durham taxpayers do not have any answers on who is involved in the stacle and how it came to be DPS is having their own attorney rather than a neutral outside firm investigate this matter given these unknowns how can DPS is Board of Education superintendent head of human.
Resources or the finance department possibly be given the task of developing and deciding upon a solution to this crisis a crisis that some unknown person or persons among them has contributed or created was that my time yes thank you. Heidi good morning my name is chrisy clim I'm also a physical therapist with derome Public Schools I'm one of those colleagues Heidi Joe just spoke about she's been a licensed therapist 24 years longer than I have but in just a handful of years I'm going to pass her and pay that's obviously going to impact our current salaries but that's also going to impact our retirement germ schools pay schedules have been lower than Market rates for years the way DPS has been able to get qualified people and somewhat being comparable to surrounding counties is by to honor private sector years of experience when we were hired those were the years that DPS said we needed to to be offered the positions and those are the years that made us agree to take the.
Positions knowing that wages and DPA were lower than wake orange Chapel Hill now overnight those years are being removed once DPS finally decides to pay a market rate wage if DPS Board of Education picks either of the current salary options that are on the table to fix this one of them being do nothing continue the pay with the inequitable raises and the years being removed there's going to be more walkouts there's going to be more days of protest and that's not about just employees in the the pay that's about the students the morale in schools is lower than I've ever experienced in any of my workplaces employees are M mentally emotionally and physically fatigued at this point employees are going through their own trauma response to this I mean you walk into any building right now and the life gets sucked out of you Durham schools needs more money to fix this current crisis they need more money going forward Bo to make it a market wage that's going to get employees to.
Stay morale is not going to be fixed overnight employees do not trust what we're told right now and like Heidi Joe said people are leaving weekly thank you for your time thank you Christie Good morning George Robinson I'm here to talk about white collar crimes when there was a committed back in 2020 commissioner Jacob you asked me how did I know about what I knew three weeks prior to the last election in 2020 I was approached by one of my colleagues who was inquiring about who was I going to campaign for when I alerted to who I was she said I shouldn't because some things were going to come down told me about a lawsuit I said are you sure he saides I said ' I don't care I'm going with who I believe in Miss Carter and commissioner Wendy Jacobs now that lie cost this County $375,000 behind a kilical lie an attempt to keep power it's unacceptable for me I am the chief executive officer of organization D Incorporated our retained.
Attorney is rep retired representative and North Carolina veteran administrative director Larry de Hall I am D's number one political pundit probably North Carolina biggest one of the things I'm looking at we're looking at is white color crimes that people get away with on the city council and in Board of County Commissioners and I'm here today to let you know when I stand with you commissioner Carter there was a racist you telling him to do his job get money for those people for those children in public schools it's nothing racist about do your job and you work for the pleasure of the commissioner it's nothing racist about that at all but it was hyped up and I understand why a lot of you voted to passing on the reason why Miss Burns said no to the proposal thank you Mr Rob call is three policies policies for call for three thank you County thank you Mr Roberson I would be seeing the.
Darkness before my two minute start isn't the rule three minutes did y'all change it we have usually it can be between two and three minutes and because we have a sixh hour agenda we are going with two minutes today to accommodate the rest of the agenda oh okay ready right so it's the fifth day into black history month and black children are still being sold for profit by way of the family policing system you may not have heard of the family policing system and you may call this system the child welfare system but the child welfare system exercises the most terrifying power the power to forcibly remove children from their homes and permanently separate them from their families Durham County is the second slowest county in North Carolina to reunify families which shows that right here in this County with the money approved by this government body families are being torn apart with no hopes of ever being back together never having a chance to make memories or pass down their culture that is the.
Definition of genocide based on your answers to the People's Alliance questionnaires most of you are aware of the problem here in Durham but are doing nothing to uproot it from the very Foundation of our community if you understood this system's history you would immediately defund and abolish it not continue to dump billions of dollars into the modern-day Auction Block whose whose headquarters is at 414 East Main Street Dr Charles Nelson a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School concluded that the harm of involuntarily separating children from their parents is so over overwhelming that if people paid attention at all to the science they would never do it even brief separations change a child's brain chemistry in a way that cannot be undone the most popular argument against abolition is that well what will happen to the children who that are being abused you commissioner burn spoke to this in your questionnaire and your answering you said I think the sentiments at times for many people in the public of majority is absent of the.
Real context of the level of mutilations sexual assault broken bones and Drug uses that our staff sees on a daily basis as somebody who has been in this system for 10 years and worked in the system that's not the truth it's not rooted in any facts 97% of children who are found to be substantiated is for neglect and that is based on poverty not has it has nothing to do what the idea than you wety or even these Commissioners believe right and so how do we organize how do we move forward we organize minutes are over commission we organize in the community because this government body will never protect our families thank you so much for your comments that that concludes the individuals who have signed up for our citizen comments we haven't received any comments virtually thank you everyone who has shown up and provided your comments the Commissioners hear them and we do take them sincerely to heart and we want to thank also all the individuals who have.
Been emailing us we are also reading those and we can't respond to each of those individually but know that our board and our staff have received them and have been reading them and are working with our colleagues at the school board as best as we can with that I will move us into our.
Consent agenda agenda and pass the mic over to our manager thank you so much Madam chair we will begin with consent agenda item 23665 approval of easement agreement legal description and dedication plat with city of Durham for a required sidewalk easement necessary for the 300 East Main Street mixed use development project item 24 Wendy Jacobs I just had a quick question does that mean that there is going to be a covered buff shelter there which I don't think there is now so there is going to be that is awesome good morning good morning Commissioners thanks for your question yes there is going to be a new bus shelter placed up on Liberty Street to support the affordable housing project and this is just standard requirement the site plan requirement that required excuse me that we got this EAS met granted before the completion of the project fantastic yes ma'am okay item 24005 budget ordinance amendment number 24 BCC 0075 Public Health to recognize $20,000 from the North Carolina Department of.
Health and Human Services Division of Public Health to support the regional tobacco free collaborative 2427 authorize the increase of the owner's construction contingency for the semar contract to lechase construction by $1 14,197 to a total Construction contract not to exceed amount of 21 m6886 for the 300 East Main Street structured Park working deck commissioner Wendy Jacobs I just have a general question Perry since this is a semar construction manager at risk obviously we enter into to these contracts so that we don't have to pay more money down the road but I understand there are circumstances that come up could you just explain a little bit about how this was determined you know what extra costs we would pay versus how much that they would absorb certainly so again good morning Commissioners when we bring our semar contracts or any other General Construction contract to the board we also bring the base bid amount plus contingencies and so with this one we fell a little bit short on the contingency obviously trying to bring.
The project within budget the money is available within the overall Capital project budget but we didn't authorize the contractor up to said amount and so with this one this one is a little unique typically we have enough funding in the change order approvals not to bring each and every one of these back to you and that's the normal process but this one as you know with the parking deck 90% of the construction cost is in the concrete and you know Associated materials and equipment and this one the concrete contractor is fesler Bowman and so with this one you may recall not to get too in Weeds but the county constructed a portion of the concrete Podium that is to support the affordable housing development and there was actually a 10-week delay in the startup of the concrete Podium due to coordination with neighboring Concepts who is the affordable housing designer and little our designer and so with that 10-week delay fesler Bowman had already mobilized equipment they had rental equipment with sun belting and things.
Like that and so this 10 week delay caused them to have cost sporn associated with the rental equipment General conditions having their staff on site and so it it's it's Justified that that be they be paid for this due to that delay again this is A4,000 that they're being that they're asking the county to to increase the contract by so we can get this closed out thank you for that explanation yes. Ma'am item 2430 approval to enter into a contract with corvil Enterprise comp Inc administrator claims services for an amount not to exceed $30,000 annually using existing risk management funds and I will say we were asked to provide a summary of the three bids that were received and so we have given each of the Commissioners that summary item 2434 approval of a contract with Shi International Corp in the amount of 280,000 28,2 4 $17 for licenses and services for the Enterprise agreement with Microsoft for the Durham County Sheriff's Office 24004 budget ordinance amendment number 24 BCC.
0073 to recognize $15,000 from the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and consumer services Farmland preservation division to the soil and water conservation department for the revision of the Durham County Farmland protection plan commissioner Wendy Jacobs I just want to say yay and congratulations to all of you for getting this Grant and doing this I mean 15 years since we last in did this I remember and yeah so thank you so much congratulations.
Can commissioner hon can you move the mic closer to you thank you enough I got I got a little bit of horse here my question was I saw it International the Shi for the Microsoft licenses for the Durham County Sheriff's Office that so there was nothing local that could be used used interational company that I'll I'll ask the someone from the Sheriff's Office to come up and respond to that but the question is was there anyone else available is there any other company available to provide this service the name of the company is Shi International courp I don't know where their headquarters but that's the name yeah I thought that was just the name that's that's my question could you answer that for me no as far as our licenses go and the county has that's that's who the that's the company that we both have been dealing with so is there someone else no we don't know no okay it's always interesting to to see who we're dealing with whether.
Someone local or within North Carolina or we doal it with the national International companies so that was my that was where my my question came from this company is is us-based they are they deal on an international scale is there someone locally no they are part of the the the the North Carolina contract for services so that's the reason that the County is&t uses them as well we follow suit behind them and use them as well okay thank you thank you very much just looking from online it looks like they're headquartered in New Jersey but they have offices in North Carolina as well and Charlotte and Durham okay thank you all item 2442 budget ordinance amendment number 24b CCC 0079 recognizing $179,600 from the US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice assistance BGA to the Durham County Sheriff's Office for the 2023 State Criminal Alien assistance program I just wanted to make a quick comment because this came up during agenda prep manager soell raised that there was a comment made when we'.
Previous L discussed this item about the naming of it and if there could be an adjustment to the naming I think it was commissioner Carter who had raised that due to it being a federal Grant they decide the naming of it and it's not something that we can adjust the terminology of alien even though we as a board recognize that that is not appropriate terminology to be using but it's not something that we can adjust commissioner Wendy Jacobs yeah I would it's yeah the the language is confusing and also it seems when I read what it's being used for it doesn't seem to even be directly connected necessarily to undocumented detainees but if you could clarify if somebody from the office of the sheriff could clarify what the funding is is going to be used for that would be.
Helpful good morning bringing up also Kesha Gaither our finance manager at Durham County Sheriff's Office this is a grant authorized by US Congress and the items that our finance team and our jail staff determined was based upon the factors that US Congress has spelled out in federal legislation is something that is available to everything from localities all the way through Upstate prison systems and we use it based upon different categories that it can be used for based upon an analysis an assessment done by the federal government of what funding is available to us if you have questions about specific things good morning So based off a formula that the federal government has laid out any funds used to house undocumented detainees can be used for specific uses in the correctional facility so those list of items that are listed in the grant fall up under those Grant parameters listed by the federal government but maybe I'm I don't know if I'm misinterpreting it sounds like they're being used for General purpos.
Purposes not specifically just for the number of undocumented detainees and I guess I also have a follow question is how many undocumented detainees do we have on an annual basis I can get those numbers for you okay as far as the uses it is The Stance of the federal government that any funds that were used to house undocumented detainees could have been used somewhere else within the the correctional facility so those funds that we use to care for those undocumented detainees we get those back and through that formula and we can use it for different other purposes okay thank you okay item 2444 approval of contract with Med LLC in the amount of 37,5 for soul Source purchase of EOD 10e bomb suit and helmet for the Durham County Sheriff's Office Vice chair Burns I just you know hey y'all I I guess it's beat up on the brass today so I'm a jump in too quick question is I'm thinking about the first tour that I had with commissional alarm and I'm.
Wondering have we been able this is auxiliary have we been able to recruit a woman yet hey how you doing major Cody are you coming up here to take this hit I mean I knew what international meant I knew what the B I knew what the scap Grant was but I remember one of the issues we had with recruiting women we didn't have a helmet or a suit that could fit a woman much like NASA so you know can't hold y'all to a much higher standard than NASA but I am so who who is it gonna fit so good morning everyone good morning Commissioners County Manager so yes commissioner Burns we have a emale on the team our team's very specific it's one of 14 teams across the state sanctioned by the FBI and so we're we always actively recruit for females and and other candidates on our special teams so this one in in particular is a little bit smaller than our other Tech so this suit that.
Comes off of a Homeland Security Grant will help provide that equipment to that individual that's all I needed to know because you didn't say that but I remember that it's been like a process to make sure everybody has what they need and we train this indiv so thank you thank you commissioner they didn't say that commissioner Wendy Jacobs yeah I I just have a followup since I mean yeah reading about these suits obviously it's really important that people have this protection since you all are really providing Mutual Aid to many counties and have this expertise do we get any other funding either from the state related to this since we're we're helping out other counties with this service I think that's a yes and no answer right so when we reach out for other resources across the state obviously is contributory and there's a collaboration there I think that when we loan our resources out it's pretty much based on the same the Department of Homeland Security Grant is through what they call domestic preparedness.
Region 4 so it's a it's a grant that is funneled through the federal government to the state to us to provide things like this bomb suit so they're paying pretty much 98% of this the cost of this particular item so we do we do have some some funding sources that we can tap into to help support the teams we also tap into the jagran as well to to help fund some of those things as well great thank you yes ma'am okay thank you so much M Cody and I will ask if someone else on this next item from the Sheriff's Office can also come up and give us some explanation on this one but 2445 budget ordinance amendment number 24 BCC 00000074 appropriating $110,000 in general fund committed fund balance to increase inmate welfare expenditure Authority for the Sheriff's Office and so we did have a question about how these funds would be used if there is a specific use for which we are asking to increase the inmate welfare expenditure.
Authority And to clarify that was U my question that came up during agenda prep I was just wondering the definition of welfare of like can These funds be used for like Mental Health Resources or other services like that or is there a specific definition that they make us it's statutory and contractual there's a North Carolina General statute that I can't quote off the top of my head right now that spells out inmate welfare and how that funding is used is something that is across the industry Nationwide state prisons have them local jails have them you have them throughout the nation so it is authorized through State legislation our internal policy at the sheriff's office allows the funding to be used for the health benefit education and Welfare of our detainees as well as to augment programs there are certain things of course that the county must provide to run a jail but it allows for us if we want to enhance those Services beyond what we are regulatory required what regulations.
Requir that we do our policy is based off of state law as well as looking at what industry practices are there is contractual in the sense of is that the funding comes from Telephone commissary tablet things like that that funding when it comes back in instead of it going into the general fund to basically take the place of what we're required to do it is used for program programmatic reasons could it be used for mental health yes that's a very broad definition health education and Welfare it could be used for GED programs religious Services anything programmatically in the facility as well as hiring folks to come in to support those programs major Spencer can speak more to what we're looking at trying to do good morning so these F funds that we're requesting is to increase the things that we supply for the detainees and that is to in increase the sheets blankets all of the day-to-day living things that they need as residents of 219 so that's why we ask for the.
Increase in that way we don't have to keep coming back when we get low on items that we'll have these thing this money already available to us thank you so for that definition righty thank thank you all for that so next we'll move to 2446 budget ordinance amendment number 24 BCC 0076 Public Health to recognize.
$222,500 058 approval of an interlocal agreement between central Pines Regional Council city of Durham and Durham County for cost sharing of the city of Durham Durham County Bicycle and pedestrian plan in the amount of $24,000 commissioner Carter well thank you I attended The bpack Retreat on Saturday and I just wanted to express the excitement of this group for this plan that's being developed the the bike and pedestrian plan and and lift it lift up its importance I just wanted to mention that commissioner Wendy Jacobs yes and I also wanted to know this is the first ever comprehensive plan that the city and the county are doing together on for bike and pedestrian resources and so I I also want to lift it up I do I do have a question I was looking at the list of the other plans that will be looked at and I did not see a reference to the triangle bikeways plan and also to Durham County's open space plans and I I I want to lift that.
Up because I was glad to see that land use is going to be incorporated into this and looking at our new comprehensive land use plan I think that's really important that we need to be doing more and more of that linking together transportation and and land use so I just that's why I want to make sure that we are looking at that as well so if you could respond to that Ellen Ellen can you turn the mic on person okay Ellen Beckman Durham County transportation director certainly we can look at that we're we haven't written the contract yet so there's flexibility still in how we exactly do the plan so we'll note that okay great that's really great and I noticed that you are going to look at this will help inform our MTP and you know a lot of our our other plans as well that are underway and that you'll be looking at complet streets policies and opportunities to the the some of the pl projects that already have been approved for State.
Transportation funding as well yeah yeah that's one of the critical parts of the plan is to develop a comprehensive Network that then gets adopted into the CTP the comprehensive Transportation plan by the no because that's the document that ncdot kind of refers to when they do their complete streets analysis so okay great well thank you so much for your leadership on this and making this happen yeah we're excited it'll be it'll be okay yes thank you great okay item 2459 FY 23 Durham County Transit progress report item 24 0 61 approval of the fiscal year 24 you raed I did have a quick question for Alan I didn't understand what the DG modes are and and also I just want to say kudos to you for this also fantastic annual work plan update and I was wondering how we could make sure that the community sees this because this has so much good information in it so the the item the FY 23 Durham County Transit progress report is our report getting mixed up I'm.
Getting mixed up with the the next item so I guess since you're here sorry I skipped ahead okay so can I read that one yes go ahead right so we're talking about 2461 approval of the fisu 24 Durham Transit work program quarter three amendment in the amount of $26,250 for that's the one yeah okay y sorry so there's these two items the progress report from FY 23 which is an annual report that go triangle provides every year and then this item is the fy4 quarter 3 Amendment work program amendment that modifies three projects later today in the afternoon will be a presentation of the 25 draft work program so is your question about the Amendments specifically yes the the one for the city the DGI modes the modems yeah yeah modems yeah Jenny green is here from the city she could probably best explain what a digim modem is Jennifer Green City of Durham Transportation digim modems are the modems just like on your computer that allow the system to see where.
The buses are located when they're on the street okay sounds important yeah they are they yeah they are critical for the operation of the system and they also provide the Wi-Fi on board the buses okay awesome thank you so that report will does it get sent out like to the PS and Inc Coalition for affordable housing and Transit folks like that does H how does that get distributed the annual report yes I'm not sure it's a go triangle go triangle creates it we WE Post on our website every year it's required by our Ila to be presented to the governing board so that's why it's on your agenda okay I'm not sure if y'all sent it more extensively out to more groups but this is morning everyone Steven schlosberg I'm a tax District administration part of go triangle we do put it on the go triangle website and we obviously send it to all the partners that being said if there's a desire we could work with Ellen and obviously the council here to.
Send it to other you know parties or itu I think it's a great report I think it really tells where the tax District really the the where the funds go but we could definitely work with Ellen and the group on on where and who else would should see it but it is posted on the websit and we could give we can make copies if we want nice glossy copies so yeah definitely yeah okay I yeah I don't I just don't think it's enough to just have it sitting on a website I a number of us were in a forum a pack one Forum last week and and that's one of the things that we heard is that people want more information about transportation funding and so I think sending it directly to the pack one coordinators the Inc Coalition for affordable housing and Transit the Durham committee The People's Alliance these are all groups that work are working on these issues would really help and asking them to then send it out to their members.
Yeah that would be great we'll work like I said with Ellen for this year and going forward we'll be very proactive and making sure that everybody has it super early great thank you thank you everyone okay any other questions all right thanks so much let's see okay next we have 2463 award contract for velocity. HS item 2464 approval of reallocation of juvenile crime prevention Council jcpc funds in the amount of $15,300 for additional programs and item 2467 Durham County matching grants program approval of fiscal year 2023 24 Grant cycle in the amount of $100,000 got some Applause commissioner Carter yeah this is a great program clearly I wasn't on the board when it was created 33 years ago but the people were Visionary at the time to create this program and also recognize the importance of our open space and real estate department and the amazing work it does and I just wanted to thank that group I see some in the audience Celeste I know you're going to be.
Speaking to us brandan thank you for being here I know you're on the agenda later and also thanks to the Doss to the Duram open space and trails commission for reviewing the applications I did have one quick question I was just surprised there were only two applicants was that is is how anomalous is that or is that more typical than I'm realizing you can turn on your microphone sorry there's a button good morning Commissioners thank you for the kind words we did have a third applicant who withdrew their application a few weeks ago were not able to continue with their proposed project so we went back to the other groups who had already been approved by the committee and they were able to increase the size of their requests so that we could could use up the grant funding thanks it two out three so three down to two do we often have more you know 10 or does it just change from it's different every year we've had we've had.
10 applicants in a year before and we have had to turn applicants down in the past right I was thinking that was the case yeah correct it is it is different every year okay well these are certainly two very worthy applicants Zeno River and uturo who are doing really cool things with their outdoor space so thanks again and this is also a program that has a great return on the investment I think it's about more than three to one you know over the over the life cycle of the grant so fantastic y'all do great work thank you so much so Madam chair that concludes the Cass agenda thank you so much County manager that moves us to our other business which has three items that that are on a timely manner so they would require even though this is a work session for us to approve them at this work session through a suspension of the rules I'll read the items and see if there's any questions from anyone regarding these items.
24-38 approval of the contract with envir trol enviral trol LLC in the amount of $23,988 for the replacement of two cus reheat boilers at the detention center and the authority to execute change orders amendments to the contract as long as funds are available to this in the CIP fund no I was asking any questions on this item commissioner Wendy Jacobs Well I mean I I think you explained it but in in here but the fact that we purchased these years ago Unfortunately they didn't last very long are you feeling confident that that we're going to get longer usage out of these it it sounded like there are going to be some differences with these units good morning Madam chair County managers Commissioners yeah they're actually a little more than eight years old they were they were installed in 2011 with the per countywide performance Contracting so we've had had about seven good years with them and then over the last five years we've had continuous issues the heat exchang is going out we've tested.
Water to make sure it wasn't the water that was the issue yeah we've put out for bid for a different type of boiler so yes we we do feel the boilers that we're putting in they're going to be more efficient and they're going to last longer if there's no other questions we'll go through each of these items one by one suspending the rules than entertaining a motion for approval for each one separately so with that I'll entertain a motion to suspend the rules Madam chair so moved second okay moved by Vice chair Burn seconded by commissioner Howton all in favor say I I I any opposed okay rules have been suspended I will now entertain a motion for approval of 24-38 so moved second moved by commissioner J Wendy Jacobs second by commissioner Vice chair Burns all in favor say I I I any opposed okay 24-38 has been approved that moves us to our next item of 24-6 budget ordinance amendment number 24 BCC 000077 Public Health to appropriate $.
283195541 Durham County Youth Home contract to enhance Staffing do you have any questions regarding that item okay then I will entertain a motion to suspend the rules so move second move by Vice chair Burn seconded by commissioner Wendy Jacobs all in favor I any opposed rules have been suspended now entertain a motion to approve 24-6 so move second moved by Vice chair Burn seconded by Comm commissioner Wendy Jacobs all in favor say I I any opposed okay 24- 00006 is approved unanimously that moves us to the third and last item of 24- z47 budget ordinance amendment number 24 BCC 000078 you gu shorter numbers Public Health to appropriate $122,800 33 of General fund balance to cover increases to the county current County contract with wellpath to provide comprehensive medical services for inmates in the Durham County Detention Center and residents of the Durham County youth home any questions I'm make a motion to suspend the rules by I do have oh question from Vice shair don't nobody beat me up the.
Difference between the two you see how this one is to increase the current this one kind of broke it down by the FTE is what's the big difference between the two I mean I'm for it but is can anybody tell me the difference between the two director J hey director jenin how you doing doing well hope you are happy New Year happy New Year Rod jenin Public Health director good morning to you chair Al Vice chair Burns Commissioners County manager and staff this increase is a result of the Consumer Price Index I can assure you that after heavy negotiation and wrangling we settled on 3% which is usual on customary and yes this is different from the the first item okay thank you yes ma'am do I have a second commissioner okay so motion by commissioner Howton second by Vice chair Burns all in favor I any opposed the rules are suspended now I'll entertain a motion to approve 24- z47 s second moved by Vice chair burn second.
By commissioner Wendy Jacobs all in favor I I any opposed no okay 24- z47 has been approved thank you very much thank you Dr Jenkins now that moves us into our.
Discussion items and we have a plethora of discussion items so I'm going to just remind everyone of the times allocated to each discussion item before we get started so that we can move swiftly through them the first item is Santi Road Park project presentation there are 30 minutes allocated for this item and I believe it's about 20 minutes for the presentation 10 minutes for questions would that be appropriate okay.
Cool good morning I'm Celeste Burns I'm with the good morning I'm Celeste Burns I'm with your Open Space Program Brendan Moore is here with me with our open space staff and Christy with project management is here they're helping us with that project okay I'm have to get used to this and I'm just gonna see excellent. So I'm a scoop so our open space staff are responsible for the open space program that was established in 20 2003 by the board we work with land owners nonprofit groups public entities and other partners to protect and Steward land natural resources waterways and cultural sites we protect and manage areas for public Recreation which includes Parks natural areas and nature trails and we also work with interested land owners to protect land through conservation.
Easements our County open space staff currently manag and Steward about 4,000 acres of land this includes almost 1300 Acres that Durham County owns we hold easements on about 2600 acres of land of which about 2400 acres are working land easement and right now we have five projects in in process to protect an additional 245 acres in. Durham okay we currently have four open to the public nature parks Little River regional park is in the Northwest part of the county and is a partnership with Orange County's parks department holl Rock Nature Park and the newo bottomlands are further south holl rock Nature Park is also a partnership with Orange County parks department these Parks include about 12 miles of hiking trails and provide access to some beautiful and state significant natural areas now the Santi Road property is in East Durham and was purchased as part of the implementation of the East Durham open space plan it provides unique opportunities in East irum and the protection of these 268 Acres benefits water quality conserves plant and.
Wildlife habitats and is an opportunity to provide nature-based public. Recreation the site is about six miles just east of downtown Durham and about a mile and a half north of Highway 98 is a few driving miles from several Public Schools the closest being Neil Middle School there on 98 and the L between Falls Lake and the property is owned by the Army Corps managed by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and includes a section of the mountain to Sea Trail and is accessible from Santi road so when we purchased this land we utilized funding from the city of Raleigh's Watershed Protection Program so there are some restrictive uses to the property stream buffers are protected impervious surface is limited to 2% and the majority of the property must remain wooded however even with these limitations that leaves us about 36 Acres that can be used for more developed recreational facilities and.
Amenities this site provides an opportunity to create a welcoming and unique outdoor nature experience that could include hiking and walking trails camping provide space for nature-based outdoor education the site is a great place to model environmentally Progressive improvements and design and could be an opportunity to showcase state-of-the-art storm water management and Landscaping with native. Plants so what is our next step we would like to proceed with a request for quotes or an RFQ to engage with a consultant or a team of consultants for Community engagement and planning for preliminary design no new funds need to be allocated for this contract there is approximately $300,000 held in trust for the county by the Duram Parks Foundation that was a donation to the county back in 2017 from a WC Smith estate we also have some additional funds in capital project and once we have talked with the community and have a plan that documents what folks want we will be well informed and prepared to like access a number of state and federal.
Grants we would also like to plan that part of the feasibility study would include exploring potential project partnership opportunities that could include working with Durham Public Schools Andor the city of Durham's parks and recck Department we've had preliminary conversations and site visits with both of these. Groups so to summarize open space and project management staff will work with Consultants to on public engagement conceptual analysis and preliminary design to help us determine Community needs optimal Partnerships and desired and allowable property improvements with a timeline and budget we are real excited to bring this welcoming and meaningful Outdoor Experience is to this of this beautiful spot and feel that with Durham's rapid growth particularly in East Durham that the timing is appropriate okay thank you so much Celeste you're welcome I see by share Burns is already ready with her hand up so I'll go to her first celissa is my cousin we're both Burnes that's right I had to back her up so that's my one so really really quick I noted there.
You said there's like 300,000 in that fun and you all want to put RFP for a feasibility study do you know about how much a feasibility stud is gonna cost so the first item CHR r with project management hi we'd be putting out an RFQ request for qualifications so we we'd be looking for a design team architect landscape architect Engineers so because it's an RFQ we don't know the amount ahead of time that's right thank you so it's a cute thank you so much well just let us know if you got a I don't imagine it would be over $300,000 but don't let this that's my worry because it is such a big space but just let us know if you have to come back but I think this is an exciting project I'm a outdoorsy girl so I think I I and I like that you all are doing some partnership so I I'll I'll leave my questions to everyone else thank you can I can I add one thing just because you mentioned.
Partnerships we have a there's a list of other partners and stakeholders in the white paper right I believe so so I think you probably have all seen But attached to the agenda is also a white paper that open space row with more information and the the list of stakeholders that they currently have that they're planning to incorporate into the process thank you commissioner Wendy Jacobs first of first of all congratulations Celeste as the new manager for this department and I just want to say you guys are like amazing the amount of work that you do and accomplish with a very small department and and I'm also glad that both this item the dust item and this item really highlighting these are very unique programs that were specifically created by this board they are locally funded they are with other funding that you brought in but these are these are very unique programs to the Durham County Board of Commissioners very special programs this is really exciting because I think.
This is the first Park effort that we been engaged in since holl Rock Nature Park which I'm very intimately knowledgeable about and so and and I know that the the park planning process is is is also just a very meaningful process I love the fact that you are there's so many Partnerships here with the city and also looking at that map all of the schools that are nearby and also just thinking about the other benefits we know all of the development that is happening in East Durham and so people having Open Spaces like this as Durham our comprehensive land use plan continues to build out as we become more and more dense having Open Spaces like this that are so close to downtown so close to the urban growth boundary places where people can be in nature is is really really important and then the water quality aspect of this protecting Falls Lake I really appreciate how you all bring in so many other force so many other sources.
Of funding you always you guys are always maxing out that one of my questions was do you feel like and I'm also now chair of the upper New River Basin Association and so this land purchase was really made possible because of of that partnership because the City of Raleigh financed this because we're protecting they drinking water do you feel like there may be other opportunities for us to do more of that as we move forward with the IIA IIA I don't see Ryan here today but you know this this could really also this model could really benefit us and also just regionally and just wondering it's it's very important and we are in communication with Ryan EES and their work.
Yeah right yeah yeah we are we do stay in regular communication with Ryan and their work with the IIA and the water quality that protection that they're doing you know this this is funded by city of w Watershed protection money which used to be called uni that program still exists they now call it the Watershed Protection Program the city of Durham has a very small amount of money that goes to the northern Durham that our program is actually used on a small acquisition goodness back in 20 many along the Little River so we've got those two pots of watershed money now how that's going to change with upper news un RBA stuff and I'm not sure but we we Talk regularly with Ryan on that we'd like to see that simple land protection meet some of those state regulatory you know metrics that they're going to have I think time will tell on that okay but more and more people in the conservation world are optimistic than than I've ever heard.
Them be yeah we that's part of the guiding principles now right for moving forward with the Falls Lake rules and so I just I hope that we'll actively be communicating and and building we will and I and I think most projects that we work on I usually call or email Ryan and say hey we're looking at this you know how might this fit in with the work that y'all are doing for the fals rules we really we really integrate that stuff and can see more Partnerships with our swollen erosion folks colleagues as well fantastic yep thank you I just want to express excitement for this project as well and and and also I want to say you learn a lot when you go to a Retreat from our boards and commissions which I already mentioned that I did that on Saturday but I learned so much me one of the things that was asked at the retreat was what do you love about dur and so many people mentioned the fact.
That we're a large city with a small town feel and that we have amazing amenities including all of our open spaces and places to walk and recreate and you know and have an antidote to being cooped up inside like we are so much in front of electronic devices so feel very excited about this and I know that this small and mighty Department sitting in front of us it's it's because your of your ability to form relationships with people you know those who are willing to you know participate in our conservation easement programs and the relationships you form with all the different partners it doesn't happen without people who are really good at forming relationships so just want to appreciate your work well as a risk sounding corny we don't do this work unless I mean this is a passion it really is I mean protecting things that are going to be permanent assets to the community and you know we have to go back like in the early 90s there were.
People in Durham County who really cared for example about the new hook Creek Corridor and wanted to protect it and develop the new hook Creek corridor open space plan which we're still working to implement today and it just feels it just feels really meaningful so I am privileged to to serve you in this capacity thank you guys thank thank you so much Celeste and team and yeah I just want to jump in on the Kudos and thank you for your small and mighty team I do want to ask a related question because you know the 4,000 Acres also a huge thing to be managing so really amazing that our Durham County team is able to do that just wondering or so manager I guess question for the manager maybe Julio I know we have Jane has retired and she's still on Consulting do we know like how when we'll be able to make this small team a little bit bigger oh yeah keep it at full size well and that's one thing that ACM Delgato.
Has been working on is to assess how this team worked and to leverage the positions that we have and make sure that the work that is happening complimentary in other departments that we can gain Synergy around the work that's happening in different departments so that it it doesn't create to much of a burden on one department and other departments don't have as much responsibility if you know what I'm saying so we're looking at how we can make sure that they are synergizing the work even though it's two different departments let's say we have environmental priorities in soil and water how can those staff members complement the work that's happening with our open space in in so we're looking to gain synergies around these different areas well I hope we can protect our small and mighty team doing amazing things and you'll hear more I think next month about our project at Orange Factory Road so more to come thank you thank you any more other question okay we're good to go thank you guys so.
Much our next item is 24- z69 presentation from Durham Tech Community College capital projects update we have have 30 minutes allocated to this one president buckon will 20 minute presentation 10 minute questions work for you.
Perfect am I on now there we go good morning chair alone members of the Commissioners and managers so well great to see you my trustee commissioner howon good to see you we're excited to be here and provide an update on our Capital construction projects we're going to give you an update on two I think many of you know our Chief Financial Officer Andy kch who joins us and many of you may have met vice president of Campus operations chief of Campus operations Dr Susan Bowen Dr Bowen's our lead on all facilities projects at the college and she and I are going to do some presentations and Financial Mr CL back us up on budget numbers as we need it first before we get into this let me just express my thanks to this board for your support and leadership in putting these projects on the bond referendum and thanks to the voters of this County for approving them we know that that investment in Durham Tech this capital investment was.
An investment in the people of this County and the workforce and economic development this County and we're proud to be carrying that Banner on behalf of this board in the county and doing this work I'm going to give you a a little bit of the background on these projects and then Dr bone will give you an update on where we stand and and how we are moving forward the first thing I draw your attention to this is a map we showed you back when we were talking about putting these projects on the bond our map of Main Campus both these projects are on our main campus here in Durham you are looking North down to South and both these projects are going to front on Lawson Street so if you think of Briggs going to the right or the east on this map and then bacon on the left or western edge of the campus here numbers 12 and 13 are the two projects we're looking at inciting both the Health.
Sciences and Life Sciences building on those sites you see a roughly 35,000 Life Sciences facility roughly 86,000 Health Sciences facility both of those will be complete not only with classrooms lab facilities but perhaps most importantly simulation settings where our students will be able to be in the the very kind of environments they'll be in in Industry also student spaces faculty student collaborative spaces and the like little bit of a rendition that I think we showed you before this is now looking South Briggs now to the left and the East bacon to the right this is looking on LW and again you'll see the massing and the scale that we're looking looking at with these two projects and its relationship to campus and what it's going to create on campus in addition to the buildings themselves the kind of collaborative quad spaces that you see here I also want you to see in the upper kind of left side we recently announced a Bloomberg philanthropy's investment into Duke Duke Health Duram Tech and.
Durham Public Schools that is where that is the building it's an existing building that holds all of our Health Sciences programs currently that we will renovate to house the new early college life scence excuse me Health Sciences Early College so as all of our Health Sciences programming moves out into the new building and we put additional program in the new building that is where the Early College site will be and we're thankful to have those renovation dollars from a private fund funding source one more before I pass the tort here to Dr Bowen we have been through two robust now actually Four robust selection processes for our architectural partners and our construction manager at risk Partners we are about to take our recommendations for the construction managers at risk to our board next Tuesday commissioner Howton will be part of that approval process we don't have that firm name those firm names for you at this time but we do want to tell you a little bit about architectural partners and a little bit.
About our mwbe participation in both first thing I want you to know know we had a significant amount of interest in both these projects 37 firms submitted proposals for life science and health sciences 20 firms on the construction side for both of these we decided in the architectural process we wanted to beef up some of our capacity in choosing architectural partners and so I'm very pleased that North Carolina Central University UNCC Chapel Hill and Duke University the four years who do a lot of construction projects in our backyard actually participated as advisers on our selection proced to make sure we had as much information and experience expertise as we wanted on these committees we also had 35 degrees north who is our construction project management firm that we've brought on to help Guild build our capacity to ensure we get these projects done under budget and on time and so we're going to talk share a little bit about the two architectural firms that we're working with in this in this process and then.
And also we'll share a little bit about our expectation on mwbe participation with our construction firms these were excellent processes and we've got very strong Partners to work with us so Dr Bowen let me advance it and then pass this to you good thank you and good morning Commissioners it's a pleasure to be here I'm happy to share with you that for Life Sciences Our Life Sciences building The Architects that we chose were Andre Johnson Architects as you can see we tried to share with you what their team looks like they have made the decision and we've begun working with them to pair up with O'Brien Atkins who is familiar with our campus and also has some very good expertise in lab design and Consulting in that in the Triangle actually so we'll be using them I will tell you and Johnson presented during the evaluation period and the interview period substantial experience in working in Durham also with the state Construction office and had significant experience in life.
Sciences so that's why they were chosen for that and you can see their team. Here for our Health Sciences building we chose the architects of Lord ax Sergeant a quite large firm that comes to us with a good amount of experience in the Health Sciences area and also I would say again has is familiar with Durham County and also the state Construction office as you can see here this is their complete team that they brought with us an experienced team that have worked quite extensively together and that's why they were.
Chosen I'm G skip this for a minute and go directly to our mwbe participation with our life science is building it is as president buckon mentioned a $35 million project when we look at Architects that we have chosen for this their mwbe participation for this project is 36% for our construction manager at risk which is currently as president buckson mentioned getting ready to go in front of our board for our selection we are waiting to see what that will be and who our selection is but we did want to share with you that much like Durham we've decided to make the commitment to at least a minimum of 25% so The Architects I'm Excuse me the seor that were interviewed during interview we we talked about that at Great length of how they were going to reach that what Workforce Development programs they have and spent a good amount of time in both their proposal and also questioning them during the interview for our health scientist building that's a $77 million project.
Lord Atkin Sergeant has an mwe participation of 177% and again for our semar we are looking at the minimum of a 25% participation rate I'm going to try to go back I'm trying it it's not going up how about the clerk is going to help you thank you so much here we go great so what we wanted to share with you is our Gant chart currently for our two Durham projects and as you can see here the top project is our Health Sciences project and our life sciences is below on both of those projects we have reached 100% completion on our architect selection we have moved forward with such exciting things as our engineering for our Sue survey and Geotech we have selected our commissioning managers for both projects projects and have now entered our Advanced planning design phase as you can see from this chart if you can read it it's a little bit I catching here what we're looking to do or what we anticipate is that we will be starting.
Construction for our Health Sciences building we're hopeful that will begin in February of 25 with completion and ready for operation in January 28 for our Life Sciences building similarly we're looking at starting that project in December of 25 and ready for operation in October of 27 the bulk of the time you're going to see here in addition to the construction is the design phase which we're in the process of starting right now and are working not only with our academic programs but also our Architects and their team thank you Madam chair we'd like take any questions well thank you so much for this presentation thank you for the thoughtfulness in your processes I'm really glad to see that you're modeling our Durham County goals for 25% mwbe thank you commissioner Howton for representing us on Durham Tex board and participating in this process see if there's any questions commissioner Carter commissioner yeah thank you so much for this presentation for your vision for the campus and for Durham Tech in this area with Health Sciences.
And Life Sciences and just you're very thoughtful and careful planning and and the way this is moving forward it's very exciting the programming is exciting you got to have the buildings in the space to do the programming which brings me to my one of my questions is about I know you're not presenting on the early college program but Good Golly that was exciting to read about and to hear about just just wonderful news for our community and for the future of Health Science Workforce Development if the life sciences side or the Health Sciences the new buildings won't be completed until 28 when does the early college program start fall of 25 okay is our plan start so we are looking at a couple different interim locations between when it will start in the fall 25 and when will be ready to move programming in do some renovation and move programming into what is currently building nine on our campus where I showed you that site between DPS Duke and Durham Tech we.
Are looking at a couple locations where we might do an educational Village also known as modulars we might do in the short term I like the name good but there are also euphemism yeah there are also a few properties that Duke health may have available our preference is to have those students on our campus not only with to get them used to being Durham Tech students but also they take classes they'll begin taking classes on the campus and so we want them to have access to advisors and faculty but we'll look at the best fit for the interim period okay well great I'm just I'm glad it's getting started in 25 not we don't have to wait till we can vacate that site but this this is another example though of the benefit of that Bond right is we are moving current programming in from one site to the new site which frees up that space anyway very exciting all of it is very exciting thank you so much thanks commissioner commissioner.
Wendy Jacobs then commissioner Howton yes I really appreciate you all bringing us this update and keeping us in the loop and there by the public and it is really exciting to see the the vision of the campus the development of a quad concept and and also the Partnerships that are happening around all of these job sector areas and I think this is also a great going to be a great benefit to Duram public schools with the Bloomberg Grant and the healthc care pipeline fantastic I was wondering on this map the going back to the picture Could you I have two questions one is what is the exact amount that that duke or the bloom gra Camp will contribute to the Health Sciences building and kind of not just the capital but also just kind of that whole if you could talk a little bit more about that how that will contribute to this structure but also where the affordable housing project is in relation to this as well sure Child.
Care sure let me let me give you a couple different updates on that so we have from from the 30 m roughly $30 million just shy Grant from Bloomberg philanthropies is about 18 and a half million of that comes to us dermtech 15 of that is allocated for Capital and that's the renovation Capital will'll use to redo what is now building nine that says the Early College site on this map we believe that will be sufficient to do the renovations assuming that nothing crazy happens with construction costs in the next couple of years but we also then have funding from Bloomer to do the startup phases around personel Furniture equipment Etc they won't contribute to the new Health Sciences building they will contribute to the Early College site although we'll have equipment that we'll be able to use for students who are work in both sites there is also there are also resources that Durham Tech Durham public schools and especially Duke Health are contributing in kind and a lot of policy.
Work I do want to mention this that Duke Health has done to ensure that students younger than 18 are able to get into the hospital settings and do clinical rotations apprenti ships internships that is often not the case because of age restrictions they are waving that so that we can create this pipeline it's it's a it's a nationally in inovative program and and again we're proud to be the only Community College among the 10 healthc care sites around the country if you if you went from that early college site now building nine and went straight East and maybe a little bit South through those woods you'd get to our affordable housing site on Briggs not on two South Briggs right now we have submitted our 4% low-income housing tax credit application we're confident that that will move through but we're waiting for that to get through because of what you and the city have done we now have the financing in place that once we get that 4% tax credit we have.
An equity an equity investor in place that we can then move into the of planning permitting construction phases and so we're kind of knocking on the door of that waiting for that final 4% tax credit to come through and then we are moving child care if I can move to that last one on child care thank you for the resources this body invested in us together with Kate's Corner that allowed us to provide free tuition no cost child care to our students chiefly and some of our faculty and staff we are now working with Kate's corner to look at what could be a permanent solution would be on our campus but available more broadly we I don't have much detail beyond that to say we're kind of in the early phases of thinking about what what a facility might look like in that area that we have that has some space that we might use that is a really critical issue for our students and our faculty and staff and it is a place.
Where we feel like we can provide access to child care that just is very hard to come by in in that geographic area and we can be part of that larger solution but it's going to take some it's going to take some strong partnership together with Kate scorn to help figure it out thank you so much for that followup information and I just think that you all are really modeling what we are what we're also trying to model too in Durham County you know we're supporting affordable housing we're building a child care center and the you're doing that too and I think that's we're you know I I appreciate that you also are trying to you know connect all of the pieces that the social determinants and and all of the elements that we know is important for people in our community to thrive and succeed so appreciate that you the partnership and the values that you and priorities that you're also following through on thank you well thank you and.
Thank you for your support and partnership on every one of these items commissioner Howton thank you madam chair and hello everyone good to see you JB I what I want to lift up you know the work that you're like the I guess you're the the Eng engine and your staff is a vehicle to keep you moving somebody's got to keep you moving so I just wanted for you to let your staff know how much we appreciate the work you do you know I'm I'm on the board so I get to see but in front of this board I want to acknowledge your staff and all the folks that are working to make all this stuff happen because it doesn't happen by itself so thank you commissioner I appreciate that acknowledging we will certainly bring that back to our colleagues thank you thank you thank you so much president buckon and team appreciate your time and your thoughtfulness and transparency with us throughout this entire process thank you that moves us to.
Sure we are gonna do a little Switcheroo and have a arpa update next from assistant County Manager Deputy County Manager Claudia Hager and her team and I know she mentioned that it's going to be a 30 minute item instead of 45 so do you think the same 20 minute presentation 10 minute questions 15 15 perfect I wasn't in the room when you mentioned about the break for going over to the graduation what did you say about that I didn't hear it we did not discuss for the graduation okay I thought I heard you said something about taking a break no we we switched the arpa update was going to be after lunch but because the presenters for this item needed to be somewhere at one we were moving this item up before lunch okay I guess I heard you.
Wrong.
Good morning Commissioners it's a pleasure seeing you today and to have a continued conversation on arpa we will change the flow a little bit different today to accommodate the time constraints so we can allow most of it to cover a very important topic on the housing Loan Fund in Durham and I have two individuals who will assist today Christy Ry who is a project manager with the organization as well as John Frolic with Self-Help Credit Union and again we are excited to share we'll give a quick recap of the January meeting stirring committee recommendations and then we'll get right into an overview on the Durham affordable housing Loan Fund at the board session back in January we did a quick recap of efforts that haveen happened over the past I guess 18 months as we've looked at how should we invest arpa dollars and out of that process a u affordable H well a housing steering committee was developed and we looked at strategies on how we move forward with the maximization and optimization of.
Oper fund use leveraging those dollars with the city as well as a a the task force devel a white paper which we went over last time and with that white paper there were three recommendations one of which was to consider the investment into the existing housing loan fund and there was a dollar amount identified as potentially an initial allocation the second was to evaluate the post pandemic needs and look at Best Practices to determine where we should do things differently as related to housing security and we we are the big players in that space and we have many partners as well then the third one was to look at ways to develop a concise metric that is a scorecard for the county because we we do invest in a lot of spaces but we do have funding limitations and so the desire is over time for us to refine those those spaces that which we so now I will transition to the area in which we wanted to follow up on with.
The housing loan fund and Mr Frolic will go into that presentation you've seen headlines recently where self-help is u a partner with other jurisdictions and excited about that and so again our board started this discussion back in 2022 in November and we're we're grateful that we're at this stage thank you thank youer and thank you Commissioners first of all your your staff chrisy and Jay Perry and Miss Hager here have doing a fantastic job and I'd love to take them on the road with me to Florida Western North Carolina West Winston Salem other municipalities that are looking for us to consider doing a housing Loan Fund it really we're great in helping it evaluate this so I'll try to be brief and really make this your time for your questions on the Loan Fund here self-help did our initial housing Loan Fund here in Durham with the city of Durham in 2019 that fund is now fully deployed and we're inviting other.
Folks lot of you FKS I know about self-help but just as a quick primer the center for Community self-help is an umbrella organization we have two credit unions across the country the center of responsible lending and then we have the self-help Ventures fund which is an affiliate of selfhelp and that's do our non-regulated lending such as affordable housing loan funds this where we combine public and private Capital to be able to make impact for our communities next slide so the history of affordable housing loan funds for selfhelp again I mentioned the Durham affordable housing Loan Fund was started in 2019 that funds A10 million fund was a partnership between the city of Durham Duke University the foundation there the truest and then the initiative which was the North Carolina Community Development inititive R the National Institute of minority Economic Development so this fund was really to designed to help nonprofits acquire and hold properties for future development competing with cash like buyers and efforts to preserve affordable housing next we.
Responded to a request for proposal from Wake County our neighbor to the west to the east excuse me and that's a 61.6 million fund that we launched in late 2022 and that has both Bridge financing and GAP financing for preservation of ordable housing so that's the focus for that that fund has started deployment we have one loan made and two others en closing the Greensboro housing fund the most recent fund to launch that fund we are co-administering that with the National Institute minor economic development through parallel funding and we have initial self-help has initial 13 million trunch out of a what we're expecting to be a $20 million fund by the end of this year and that's gap financing and we talk little bit the specifics of that for both preservation and creation of a flexible fund oh sorry normally people like it when I'm not so loud town of Chapel Hill is the last the last jurisdiction so we awarded the town of Chapel Hill administrator role in late.
Excuse me in in late last year here and was a winning response to the town's request for proposal that's a combination of UNCC Health Systems dollars and the town of Chapel Hill dollars we anticipate launching a $2 million fund again for creation and preservation of affordable housing by mid year the Durham fund brief history here I talked about it launching in 2019 really out of organic convening convened by by Duke looking at problems in the community and and that fund that partnership between Duke University the city of Durham and then for-profit and nonprofit financial institutions really was key to the success of pulling that data to make an impact in the community over 10 years we're anticipating that the fund will preserve 500 affordable units here really enabling local affordable housing developers to stabilize and expand the housing stock it's great news that the fund is fully deployed that's also the bad news the fund is fully deployed and we have a growing need so delighted to have Durham County considered.
Participating in the fund just briefly I talked about the the different folks involved it was a city of Durham Duke University Sun Trust at the time now trist and then Institute Capital which again was formerly the initiative so how does the fund work it's it's composed of what we call Senior debt and then second loss and first loss investors and the whole idea is as as a as a lender in order for us to take those risk to help do very high loan to value loans where your lending may be 100% or 110% of the value of the property or to take deeply subordinate loans on a property to and and do that at low cost we need risk Capital to come in and so that's where the city of durman du University provided some risk capital and then Senior lenders like truist and the initiative came in to provide what we call Senior debt and that senior debt is then self-help provides a guarantee for that senior debt as where the top loss Capital.
Enables us to take that additional risk the idea was to create loan terms to borrowers that would make sense for them to take a little risk on properties take manageable risk acquire those and hold those and prevent them from becoming market rate housing so market rate housing isn't a terrible thing but we have very limited stock of affordable housing and the idea is to to keep that from going away so what we're really looking at is new first loss Investments are required to grow the fund and any Community we go to there's two key things it's top loss capital and then it's the ability that the community knowing what it's needs the good news is we know what we need in Durham what we really need next is some more top loss Capital can I ask I I just don't really quite understand the first loss second loss sure so a good example of I'll go back this slide here so in terms of first and second loss think of that.
As one bucket that's risk capital and selfhelp I should say is very good at not losing anybody's money that's that's how we've been successful we we have rigorous underwriting to do that but the idea here is as these funds come in to self-help Ventures fund and then we deploy them as loans for affordable housing if the fund experiences losses so if some of these loans go bad essentially then the top loss so in this case the first and second loss funders they will absorb some of those losses and so in this case in the current makeup of the fund the top 30% is this first and second loss so we could lose up to 30% in loans that went bad and still selfa Ventures fund then we would still not be tapping into our own capital and then at that point after that we're at risk so we're at full risk and at lenders typically will take 70 you maybe 70% to 80% risk so in this.
Case the top l enables us to go all the way up to 100% in terms of the the max amount of the loans the 100% of the value of the property or in the case of these other loan funds to do subordinate financing where we're in second position behind another lender and in that case we really have complete exposure and so this first and second loss this risk Capital enables us to take those additional risks to make those type of loans so that's that's how that top loss Works I'll speak a little to it more in the next SL but was that helpful that is helpful sure that's very it's it's difficult I know I'm relatively new to lending it's difficult to think of the think of it from a lender's perspective where A lender we're we are kind of restricted to how much risk we can take to be sustainable and so when you get Beyond lending 70% of a value of a project or you get into a second.
Position behind another lender that's a very risky position for a lender and hence most lenders don't do that type of lending and that's where this risk risk Capital comes in to enable us to say okay we can sustainably take that risk our goal is to return all the money and to keep all the loans good we have an excellent track record of that but in order to do that we need that that other Capital JJ over here would it be accurate to say that any government or Foundation money going into the greater fund is at a higher risk than the self-help money that's correct the we we have not had any challenges raising the what we call the senior lender money so those for example the the truest and The Institute Capital money that's in the fund or if you go to Greensboro where we have Wells Fargo and Pinnacle oftentimes we're having Banks providing Community reinvestment act dollars into the funds but they can't tolerate losing those dollars they they're they're going to.
Give them at a very low interest rate long term but they need to know at the end of the fund someone's standing behind that and so in that case self-help Ventures fund balance sheet is standing behind those Investments. Thank you so this this slide I find this very helpful communicating with folks kind of on on all sides of a Loan Fund on the left side you can see investors there and I've I've circled local government so that's Durham County city of Durham city of Greensboro those type of funders Foundations Regional employers or bank community reinvestment act investors and those folks provide loans and grants it's been loans to date into the fund and the whole whole idea is that these are 0% to very low interest rate loans for the life of the fund so we're hoping to do with the Durham fund is expanded to a 20-year life so 20 years and those come into self- up Ventures fund those loans and self- up Ventures fund then holds.
That money and that's the fund is the funds at self-held ventures fund and then from there we make loans to borrowers we already have a very robust origination team and servicing team so it's a One-Stop shop self-help takes care of all that we do independent underwriting within the the confines of the the product that we've described and agreed to with the funders and in this slide I'm showing example of bridge financing so the idea with Bridge financing is when a property comes available on the market oftentimes a developer that wants to do affordable housing it may take two to five years to assemble the rest of the capital to make that work and so the idea of bridge financing is to provide that financing UPF front close to 100% of the need because we know a lot of developers especially nonprofits don't have Capital sitting around enables them to then acquire the property and hold it while they work to assemble tax credits philanthropy government sources whatever those are to make the property.
Sustainable for the long term and the idea is that these are shortterm loans maybe up to five years and then when they get paid off which some of the Durham fund loans have been paying off they revolve back into the fund and we make more loans and then the bridge takeout sources there's a kind of an alphabet soup there of takeout out sources in terms of different methods to do long-term. Financing properties and people that's it's really all about people at the end of the day in Durham the Durham fund is really targeting serving households that earn 60% of the area mean income or below or homeowners that are earning 80% or below in the vent of properties developed for home ownership many of the properties that we financed to date with the Durham fund are serving extremely low-income families making 30% area income or below we preserved 243 units thus far and maybe about 30 to be created so a couple of the properties were for future creation of housing and we're.
Targeting about 500 units over the life of the fund with the existing fund without growing the fund at all and I think that's my last slide oh here we go far so recommendations we'd like to expand the geography that's currently limited the city of Durham we'd like to expand the geography to the county refine the fund goals and that's really what the fund are input to say what's what are new challenges facing the city of Durham ideas that we have are creating a a subordinate debt or Gap financing product to be like we're doing in Wake County and in Greensboro and the target for new fund we'd really want the fund to grow to at least you know by $ 15 million and to grow the existing fund of 10 if we have a $2 million investment that can translate to an $8 million addition to the fund I kind of note here 500,000 is a good start we could temporarily deploy that outside the fund if we had 500,000.
Coming in today so we could get it right into affordable housing and then re circulate that back into the actual Loan Fund once we get to a $2 million point the need for the additional one and a half million of commitments whether it be from Durham County or from other funders such as philanthropy is really that bears to go back to the senior debt funders or to bring in new funders we need to show that we can grow the fund in a in a meaningful way and so that's where $500,000 is plenty of money it certainly means a lot to me but two million would be able enable us to really then take that two million create $8 million more of investment into the fund and we could have $18 million through affordable housing Loan Fund current fund matures in 2029 and this investment could really catalyze us then working with the other funders to extend it on out to another 20 years yes I have a question what is your.
What does your applicant look like I'm sorry say again the what would your applicant look like oh the applicant for the Durham affordable housing Loan Fund yes these These are developers with recent and relevant affordable housing experience and so that's either folks that are operating affordable housing and maybe acquiring existing units or they could be again nonprofits or we could expand the fund to for-profits that are creating new housing but it's really for folks that have recent relevant experience in doing the scope of work they're doing it's it's what it's not and it's helpful to emphasiz to to your constituency it's not for individuals who are looking for affordable housing they're really the people that these developers by acquiring these properties and then whether they're renovating them or just preserving them or creating them that the developers of those units are then serving the the individuals that need the affordable housing okay and thank you for that and you mentioned something else that County's dollars would be at risk that's.
Correct that the County's dollars are would be in what we call it the the the first or second loss position and so the risk for those dollars is if you know selfhelp is going to make good loans as we we do with all our loans our charge off rate is extremely low but in order to do the type of loans that are more than 70% the value of the property or to be in a second position to another lender we need need we need funders into the fund to be able to take potential losses and so that's where for example in the case of the current fund it's the city of Durham and Duke that have stepped up to a a a risk Capital position or top loss position so that we do experience losses in the fund you know we make the loans as best we can in terms of being good lenders if those loans go bad that there can be some that initial loss is absorbed by those funders thank you.
Did you have one more slide this is just a quick summary here the I talked about additional two million in these top loss dollars that Miss Howton talked about we can multiply that times four by bringing in the senior lenders for $8 million in the fund we think that we create a preserve a range of 200 to 400 more affordable units depends on the type of unit and use case of the fund and then contact information for my colle James rerro who's the director of capital development he'd be responsible for bringing in the other funders and myself is up there so always welcome questions now or or later our door is always open thank you so much presentations like these always make me grateful that we have subject matter experts like Deputy County Manager Hagar and y'all and our Partnerships I will see commissioner Wendy Jacobs I see your hand up for question thank you so much for the present and again for the partnership we are really fortunate to have.
Self-help as one of our community partners with an outstanding track record and I'm really excited about the county contributing to this affordable housing Loan Fund this is a great example of something where we do not have to recreate the wheel it's already in existence we can plug into it it can can be expanded to be countywide and frankly when the slide that you showed about how this is being deployed in other counties if you go back to that slide ours is really underfunded because you know when you look at our population and we're only at 10 million Chapel Hill is starting out with 20 and then way County which is about three times as us has 61 million where where're ours is really underfunded and as we know we've talked about this a lot on our board is that County government cannot solve the problem of providing affordable housing on our own we need to be looking at every single possible tool and strategy and this is a really successful strategy and Tool as.
You explained to us Claudia in your first presentation that this is a way to leverage other funding that this this helps to bring in additional funding sources for developers so I guess I I fully support us moving forward as quickly as possible with our participation I would like to know about a few things one is the role of and related to to the policies for this program the role of protecting and preserving existing affordable housing versus building new affordable housing because one thing that we learned with the Carver Creek project where we actually provided that full funding right away so that housing for New Hope did not have to go through this process and possibly lose even the opportunity because it takes a long time as you explained to put together these deals are very complicated so but we would have lost an existing affordable housing property if we had not acted quickly and you know the second part recommendation Claudia that you guys had from the group was.
Basically we need a plan we need to be tracking so I I would really like to understand that that because preserving can often be cheaper also which we saw with caror Creek than building new so that's one of my question second question is the policies around these properties do we have requirements such as they need to be affordable for at least 30 years and then after that the right of first refusal goes back to the public entities because that's another way we can prevent these properties from then going back onto the open market or back into the market rate after 30 years so that's one thing and then my third question is what are we doing to reach out to employers to for them to participate in this revolving housing fund because it benefits our local employers to have affordable housing for their.
Workers so I think to the first question commissioner Wendy Jacobs the role of protecting and preserving preservation one of the Wake County staff members talks about you have a bucket and it's very important to plug the holes in the bucket before you keep pouring more water in and so the idea of preserving houses that's a very I think it's a great analogy for me that said I I encourage the Commissioners to to consider as as we think about the Loan Fund both creation and preservation preservation opportunities when they come they come quickly and it's important to take advantage in the right way but they can be rare it can take a long time to get preservation and so if you have a flexible fund that can do both the preservation side and provide funding for creation of new units I think you have the best of both worlds that's what we advocated for Greensboro for example their their main need was preservation particularly of Aging housing stock but we encouraged them to.
Say hey think about New Creation as well and I I can't talk specifically to developers that we're in in stages with with the Greensboro fund but suffices to say there's new creation of units involved with some of our early both preservation and new creation of units with our early loans that we anticipate closing in that fund the second question policies around the properties with the affordable housing Loan Fund there may be deed restrictions associated with other funding coming in but in addition to those the the fund what we've done with the Durham affordable housing Loan Fund is that because it was really targeted at nonprofits we've said that the nonprofit will accept deed restrictions upon permanent financing with the adaptation with with Wake County and other funds if you have a a for-profit involved in the bridge financing then we're going to say you need at least a 10year deed restriction so your max loan term is five years and then you need a 10year deed restriction and that's to prevent even though a.
For profit may have good intent it prevents the for-profit from holding the property under cheap financing for five years and then saying well I'm going to make this market right now so it gives at least another five years beyond the term the same thing with gap financing we haven't talked as much about Gap financing but those terms are typically 15-year loan terms so the Greensboro housing fund for example those are 15-year loan terms designed to sit next to a a senior lender in the project and we have a requirement for a 20-year deed restriction for those the deed restrictions that we have on the funds are aside from the Durham from the other funds it's affordable to 80% area median income households and we found that was important to provide some flexibility so that you maybe have a mix of units potentially involved and and of course as you know the the the Gap is getting wider with increasing cost higher interest rates and stagnant incomes and so sometimes it can be hard.
To to serve all 60% area Medi income households so the right of first refusal there that's a that's a good point and something we could integrate into the fund is the idea of the county leading with this initiative and saying hey we'd really like to see a right of first refusal for the county to be able to acquire the properties at the expiration of the The Loan Fund or the refinancing Point I should say a sale point of the properties to help preserve the the properties for for longer so that's a good thing to think on for us and then lastly employers we would love to get more employers involved in the fund we're we're talking in a couple municipalities in Florida one of whom is really trying to Target employ local employers we were interested and continu of interest in doing that as we are already thinking about growing the Wake affordable housing preservation fund and I think the the method that could work well is really a joint method.
Working with the local government and the administrator to to reach out to those employers and and to really you know explain to them how it helps their business by making sure that there's affordable housing in the area well I would like to suggest that if we do move forward with this that we bring in Andy Miracle on this and also I know Madam chair and Madame manager with your conversations with the chamber and the leadership Circle and the new nonprofit that's being formed at the chamber level whether this could be another way to pull in the private sector and even with our economic incentive contracts consideration of participation in this directly in this fund so correct me if I'm wrong isn't Andy's on the working group right Andy is on a working group he's also behind the scenes making sure that we're in the direction that blends well with our overall economic and I just want to say in response to your answer about the term the length of the affordability I would be very.
Concerned about investing in projects that only have a 10-year time period affordability I mean for me that's just not worth the investment of a public fund so I I really think it's important that we're investing in things that have long-term affordability with private public money do we have any commissioner C well I just also wanted to say I I'm excited about the possibility of Durham County participating in this fund and agree that the 10 million is too low for Durham County and will the Administration be recommending a level of contribution to us is there a specific ask is this is the specific ask two two million or well we wanted to have the discussion this morning yeah because we there were lots of different conversations last time the potenti potential of using some arpa dollars and we are decoupling that for various reasons and so today we wanted to hear the board's thoughts and also get the experts to share what's happening at other communities because it's that was very interesting.
To see other helpful and so what we will do is come back with additional information and further recommendations we know our desire is to present options to the board for consideration I know in the last conversation also chair Howard commissioner Howton asked about the city's involvement as well and they are partners and have invested and and so we want to come back and share what their prior participation has been and the potential of future Investments right now we had identified 500,000 two million is needed for them to move forward but again we'll come back with further conversation so we maybe so that two million could could we could have contributors from the city from we could contrib increase contributions perhaps from the city maybe increased contributions from duke for example or other of other partners that's correct commissioner car the the it's but the key is that they're the the top loss funders that first and second law set of funders so as long as we have those totaling $2 million that's.
Where we can go out and raise the other six million to make the 8 million increase in the fund Duke wasn't one of the top loss Duke yeah Duke is involved as a and I I ideally agree that we want to have public investment in affordable housing be linked to long-term affordability in the way that Wendy was mentioning but I would be open to some flexibility on that because I you know I do think that if we put too many restrictions we may not get the developers who are willing to move forward and I want it's better to have one than zero you know what I'm saying if if the restrictions are too limited so anyway I would be open to flexibility and you know you know just additional input from you all as to what works we want it to work and then the only other thought I have is are with this kind of loan is self-help working at all with school districts who have land as you know part of the contribution.
Towards the affordability we had the opportunity in the past to have affordable housing for teachers sort of Workforce housing at one of the sort of you know School sites School District sites that's just there with a old building dilapidated building nothing's happening on that site you know we We There was an opportunity in the past and we sort of lost out on the ability to move forward with that and I'm just wondering if you know you you're you're doing any work anywhere in the country with that kind of project we haven't to date that I'm aware of it's certainly a model that we've seen and it seems encouraging it's always great land is often the the scarce part of the equation and so if there's an entity that has land we have considered in the near vicinity a similar project to that that ended up getting funded in different ways but I think it's a it's a very promising one and and that's where again the if if the there's a community.
Effort to be able to you know if the land is there but the money is not that's where the affordable housing Loan Fund can come in to help provide either the bridge financing that may be needed or in the case of U if they're U Gap financing in terms of just needing to fill out that whole Capital stack and when you say Gap financing are you talking about the gap between what the market rate would be and what the affordable rate is a great qu in this case the Gap financing is your your first mortgage loan or your senior loan coming to the the borrower that's the developer that loan is typically not going to be more than 70% of the total needs of the project in fact many times because that market rate debt is relatively expensive the project can't afford maybe more than 40 or50 % so the idea with gap financing is that U with relatively scarce Equity let's say maybe only 10% of of cash.
Equity from the borrower and maybe 60 to 70 say 70% Standard Market rate First Mortgage Debt there's a gap between there so you've got I'm doing my math right you've got a 20% Gap and so that's where Gap financing that can provide 20 to 30% of the total Capital comes in it's it's subordinate it's in a riskier position than the first mortgage and that's why it's often times not available but coming out of a Loan Fund it can be both subordinate and low cost and really supportive of the project so that's the Gap we're talking about you're right there is also a big gap between availability of market rate versus affordable housing okay thank you indeed complicated thank you commissioner Carter thank you so I had to get my equipment straight so I'm sorry for that little Gap I but I did get to see Durham Tech I did get to listen in so I'm here now one you already know like I'm a huge proponent of this I'mma Be a bull about.
It I was a little bit jealous that last Thursday Thursday before when Greensboro did their press release and say that they had already moved on with theirs so we are literally seeing every other major Market move forward with these funds because it works right like we literally are seeing it work W I know CH thought about it I don't know where they are I haven't talked to Karen Howard or anybody but I didn't know until I guess today that the RFQ they actually had a win in RFP or RFQ for Chapel Hill the only thing I would say I get it we're sitting here talk about restrictions I I personally feel like this will give us a better opportunity to work towards building more naturally organic affordable housing because when we put some Gap funding in that also gives responsible developers and I'm going keep saying that because we know what irresponsible development looks like we've seen it in these Chambers and folks in here voted for it we know what like a.
Responsible developer would do there are actually people out there who are in affordable housing market we know this because we work with them this board works with them and if they need if the difference between them being able to do apartments and town homes is $2 million in gap funding if the difference between them being able to offer a better mortgage rate is $3 million from us and so I don't know how many of y'all looked at that 90 page packet I was okay with the fact a bank is the only place where money can magically be made and what we're we're honestly saying I want y'all y'all the experts get me right here from what I got in the packet we would invest a dollar developer would come back and invest a dollar go to the bank to get $3 of community revitalization act funding if I the CRA money then they would take that $5 do go out into the market and get a construction loan of 15 we the.
County invested a dollar and got $19 back where does that mask not work for our residents that's all I'm saying so I'm a proponent of it I do want to see what our City's going to do but what I don't want us to do is build a fund that is so different from our surrounding areas that ours fails and that I think is what my worry kind of sort of is because if this is what wake is doing if this is what Greensboro is doing if this is what Chapel Hill is doing this is what Austin's doing and we're doing something widely different it's not that we won't have a program that they want they can go and get business elsewhere because the perimeter counties are doing it a certain way and we're doing it different so that IDE did just want to throw that out there I like I said I was listening I not I'mma hold my question because cuz I don't have anybody but again I don't want our.
Fund level to be so low can we do the 60 million that Wake County did no but I don't see why we can't get up to 20 and so those are just my thoughts on the fun thank you by share Burns I just had one question from myself and this may be like a pie in Sky idea of just thinking about you know what the the triangle solar program that ran a few months ago and I think they're doing the second round of that has anyone and you don't have to answer now because obviously you have to look into it has anyone done a model like that around housing where it was basically community members bought into going solar and like the more people that bought into it it brought the rate lower of seeing has there been any model like that into housing where individuals say like we want to invest in affordable housing we want to you know build or have a house at that help helps bring the rate down by coming.
In collectively of going in for that thank you commissioner Alam not on the we haven't funded anything on the individual level aside from for example there's a model called a limited Equity housing cooperative and there are some of those around the country so there there is a model out there in terms of the Loan Fund we haven't seen an application for that that type of model there a a bit of a tangent to that is that oftentimes a lot of individuals want to do something about affordable housing in terms of being philanthropic and so the challenge we have is it's often very difficult like for us to our you know I kind of mentioned $2 million being the minimum that we have to then activate other parts of the fund I'll give the example of the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro which is our our our top loss funer in the Greensboro fund for the self-help product that is a lot of of smaller donors that wanted to make a.
Meaningful impact in their community so it's not housing for themselves but they're wanting to make housing for others and those smaller donors or investors really have invested into a Community Foundation pool that then was a they were able to aggregate that and then invest that at self-help Ventures fund through a loan to self-help Ventures fund so that's that's one where we have folks in the community to include potentially maybe smaller employers or just individuals that say I'd like to do something about it but I don't have a lot self-help is an equip to handle those smaller dollar donations or I shouldn't say donations Investments but if there's a Community Foundation that would be willing to aggregate those that's a way to to add so individual want to take part so I'm sorry I didn't answer your or give you really a solution to the individuals coming together in a Cooperative sense there are models for that Cooperative housing but it's beyond the scope of what we're we're currently doing in the fund there's.
There's also co-housing models that are similar but not exactly the same as Cooperative housing typically just a private sector tool but your description sort of perfectly described what they're trying to do as a sort of separate private sector model thank you all so much again I had one quick one it's just a question you all might have went over in I see board discussion I'm going back to Greensboro real quick because and maybe the RFP really it's just a question because the last time we had discussion said open RP but I noted there's a partnership in Greensboro so is the difference and this slide is a good one to describe here in the case of the Durham the initial launch of the Durham of foral housing Loan Fund I said an organic convening because there was not a formal request for proposal it was really self-help was brought as a a trusted nonprofit Community partner and and not not saying one model is better than the other in Wake County's.
Approach they put out a formal request for proposal that was about a six six Monon process or so and then is about a year to get the fund closed from there so much longer timeline with the formal request for proposal process Greensboro the Community Foundation they again brought in ourselves to administer and fund one product and then Institute Capital to administer another one that was more that kind of organic convening where it was a very quick launch from the time that I think from the time greensbor started talking to us at the time we actually were were ready with funds was less than a year so yeah thank you thank you so much for your presentation again and I look forward to the followup that brings us now we're gonna as we have some time come back to our 24- z666 update on the strategic planning process so I know Shannon our chief of staff and Josh director of strategy G and performance will be presenting with their teams y'all are right before break.
So I expect lots of fireworks get us fired up no pressure at all and I see we have allocated 30 minutes so 20 minute presentation 10 minute questions Perfect all right well are we at afternoon no morning good morning Madam chair Madam Vice chair Commissioners and County Manager also our attorney Massie thank you for receiving this presentation today this is to bring you an update on Deco forward and that is the U name we have given our new strategic plan and so at that I will turn it over to our director of strategy and performance Josh who will introduce his team and they will lead this presentation thank you Shannon good morning Commissioners my name is Josh Edwards I'm the director of strategy performance for Durham County I'm excited to share with you an update on Durham County's new strategic plan Deco forward 2029 first I would like to introduce the office of strategy performance team with me I have Adriana Johnson strategic initiatives analyst CG Garner strategic initiatives analyst and Pat M strategic plan.
Manager also I'd like to take a moment to say how proud I am of my team they've done an amazing job getting to this point and working together as a team with a goal in mind so thank you very.
Much as of today we're at the drafting phase of the strategic planning process what we present today is not final and will change with the valuable feedback that are received today and during future listening sessions next steps will be discussed at the end of the update but once we get there the strategic planning process will be once it's approved OSP office of strategy and performance will move on to the next phase which will be the departmental business plan development we are steadily making progress.
Forward as part of the strategic planning process the office of strategy and performance has consulted with County leadership presented at the board of Board of County Commissioners policy Retreat and held individual and group executive leadership feedback sessions additionally SWAT sessions were conducted with all County departments except for the sheriff these sessions resulted in 152 objective goals 219 actionable initiatives and 25% of all employees responded to the survey and then 505 residents responded to the County resident survey these engagement sessions are only the first phase of Engagement with the community and employees and now I'll turn the presentation over to Pat M to discuss the results of the survey good morning so the purpose of our resident survey was to gauge resident sentiment around our proposed Focus areas in the new strategic plan and we also wanted to just gain some feedback around what their General concerns were as Durham residents so our survey was available in English and Spanish and was open to all Durham residents between early November through mid January we.
Would like to thank our Pio and budget department they helped us share it out on some social media platforms we also shared this survey directly with some Community groups and encouraged to share with their memberships and the survey was available in hard copy form in our library branches and some other County offices which sof foot traffic so we were happy to see we got a responses in a mix of different formats and we closed the survey two weeks ago so we could analyze the results and present you what we found so you'll find on this Slide the demographics of the residents who responded to our survey we were happy to see that with 505 total responses that U at a confidence level of 95 5% and about 5% margin of error this is statistically significant but the demographics here don't precisely reflect the demographics of the Duram community so for instance we saw some over representation in white respondents and female respondents and if you go to the next.
Slide we also asked zip codes so we could see where in Durham we were hearing from so you could see on this map the zip codes which which are shaded darker blue saw more responses and the lighter one saw less responses and this relatively matched up to the population plus or minus like 3 or 4% depending on the ZIP code the most over representation we saw here was in that South Durham 27713 zip code and the downtown 2771 zip code so the main takeaway here as we go through these results is that the results are statistically significant but there are potential biases in the data to the degree which the community and the survey respondents don't necessarily match up demographic wise so we we asked residents which of our proposed strategic Plan Focus areas were most important to them so residents were presented with these seven options as well as the Departments which were in them and they were given the option to check as many or as few as they liked so.
On average residents selected about four of these and here you can see the number of respondents who selected each one as well as the percentage so for instance Regional leadership was selected by 72% of residents but a lot of people selected that as well as a few other ones and we also asked a couple of open-ended questions and residents could write whatever they wanted here so we asked what they hope to see Durham County accomplish over the next five years and just any other thoughts they have as r as of Durham County we our team went through 451 of these comments and parsed out themes and tried to group them based on how similar they were and what you see here is basically the frequency which which some topics were mentioned so for instance somebody could have mentioned planning and the libraries in the same comment so each of these columns would have a mention.
There durd during the initial presentation of The Deco forward 2029 strategy to the the county Mission Vision and core values was discussed and the issue of lack of deib language was raised the office of strategy and performance in collaboration with the office of equity well-being Revis the Mission Vision and core values to be inclusive and Equitable to all Durham County residents and the future of Durham County the recommended Mission Vision and core values is the culmination of voices from the community employees executive leadership and feedback from the swap meetings and I'd like to read those to you right now these are our recommended mission statement Durham County aims to to cultivate responsible Public Service vital for all residents to experience a high quality of life and amplify the diverse Heritage of the community our recommendation for the vision is Durham County is an empowered and Vibrant Community with opportunities for all residents to live grow and Thrive and our recommendation for core values to serve with Integrity engage with empathy build trust and accountability provide.
Equable customer experence experiences nurture belonging and inclusion and Foster teamwork and collaboration and we welcome feedback on these recommendations from the.
Board sorry we have one slide that's actually missing I apologize I'm going to read my notes on if that's okay and we can send you over the revised presentation after this okay as discussed during the November board retreat the transitioning of the pre previous strategic plan goals into Focus areas so the previous plan had five goal areas this shift in language from goals to focus areas was intentional to suggest rather than hitting a goal that has a endpoint we would structure the Strategic plan around areas which we'll continuously focus on over time the seven Focus areas also reflect the new County organizational structure implemented in 2023 in our previous goal oriented plan the general managers aligned with the County's goals to promote accountability through the transition of Durham County's organizational structure we've aligned executive leaders to focus areas to promote collaboration between the Departments Project based work and accountability in moving the need forward on High level objectives exec itive sponsorship does not always align to organizational structure and as you.
Can see from the slide of course it's not up here I apologize there are now seven strategic Focus areas which will have strategically focused objectives and action oriented initiatives we will go through all seven Focus areas with you today now I turn the presentation over to CG Garner I I just want to interject it is on if we click on the link that slide is uploaded. Good morning I am CG gonner one of the Strategic initiatives analysts for the office of strategy and performance on this slide you will see the high performing organization Focus area the objectives in this Focus area are captured by our budget Department Finance Grants Administration and the tax administration department this Focus area area is described as collecting funding and managing resources for the highquality service that delivery the executive sponsor for this would be depy County Manager Claudia Hager in the interest of time today we will be discussing only the high level objectives and what you can see in front of you and on the screen are the.
Action oriented initiatives that are listed so the high level objectives are effectively allocate resources to meet Community needs and maintain a resilient Diversified financial position create systems which Foster timely accurate and effective Financial Service delivery across the county and promote education on County finances and tax programs to residents I I just have a quick question if when do you want to hear any input from us like related to each of these areas like do you want us to wait till the end or do you want to go through Section by.
Section I think if we would it be easier for y'all if we had it all at the end in case there's questions that yall answer throughout the presentation yes for ease of collecting notes yes that'd be best thank you for that question moving to the next Focus area we have the regional leadership the objectives in this focused area are captured by transportation the city county departments Economic Development Board of Elections and public information this Focus area is described as being a regional leader at the Forefront of Service delivery that improves the quality of life for residents and the ex excutive sponsor for this one would be Deputy County Manager Maurice Jones the high level objectives are create increase and connect all D residents to equable e economic opportunities enhance access to Regional multimodal Transportation offerings and Empower and equip County departments to celebrate achievements and success stories and moving to the next Focus area we have the safe and resilient Community and this is captured by our Sheriff's Department emergency services.
Youth home Justice Services and ciss which is community invention and support services this Focus area described as creating a community where all residents feel safe and can Thrive and the executive sponsor for this one would be assistant County Manager Dwayne Bron the high level objectives are increase Equitable account outcomes and opportunities for Youth and Durham create thriving healthy and safe environments for residents and County employees and equally invest in and increase restorative and wraparound services for employees and residents and I will be passing it on to my phenomenal teammate Adriana Johnson thank you good morning everyone this focus area is community infrastructure and the objectives of this Focus area are captured by Register of Deeds can okay.
Let's the Departments that are capturing this Focus area our Register of Deeds oh we're good all right that's fine no wores I got it engineering is Register of Deeds engineering Soil and Water and general Services thank you so much manager the focus area is described as maintaining and improving the foundational structure needed to build a sustainable future for all residents and the executive sponsor is assistant County Manager Julio Delgado the objectives in this area are plan for the long-term Equitable use of County Land facilities and equipment increase the physical safety of the county and strengthen diverse external Partnerships to prepare for growth creating a better quality of life for Durham's Community the next Focus area is community empowerment Community empowerment objectives are captured by Library veteran services and Cooperative Extension this Focus area is described as empowering the community to enhance their opportunities to thrive the executive sponsor for this area is assistant County Manager Tammy Hall and the objectives are promote available Services educational resources and support networks to diverse communities.
And to improve the chances for all residents in Durham to thrive in the community our next Focus area is healthy and inclusive community this Focus area's objectives are captured by Social Services Public Health and Equitable well-being this Focus area is described as engaging a community in Equitable and inclusive services that support the health and well-being for all the executive sponsor for this area is assistant County Manager Joanne Pierce and the high level objectives are equitably increase healthy outcomes and quality of life for all and identify opportunities to increase Equitable outcomes in County operations and services for our final Focus area we have responsible governance the objectives in this area are captured by strategy and performance Human Resources internal audit County attorney clerk to the board and Information Services in technology or isnt this Focus area is described as streamlining government processes and increasing trust with the community the executive sponsor for this area is Chief of Staff Shannon trap and the four high level objectives are review and develop well-defined policies and procceed.
Procures that effectively address organizational needs develop retain and recruit diverse qualified and knowledgeable staff establish and sustain a countywide culture of data informed decisionmaking and continuous Improvement and to create public facing content for accountability and transparency around County Focus areas that slide concludes the presentation of the high level objectives and action oriented initiatives thank you. Commissioners thank you again for the time to present the update of Deco forward 2029 moving on from today the office of strategy and performance is engaging with the community in at least two forums one in person and one virtually and will be a collaboration with the budget office Additionally the office of strategy performance is meeting with Department directors and their staff to further refine the objectives and initiatives presented here and start the pre-planning process for the new performance management system that will be developed in fiscal year 2025 last the office of strategy and performance plans to work with our consultant to survey the employees and residents to gather as many voices as we.
Can the office of strategy performance plans a final draft to be before the board for approval no later than June 24th therefore we can have a July 1 implementation date again thank you for your time and attention and we welcome any questions regarding the Strat planning process thank you so much this is an amazing presentation y'all brought the fireworks that I asked for but thank you for the intentionality y'all put behind this of serving so many staff members the community members and showing us the demographics of where we've gotten responses from I think that's really really valuable information for us as a board to see where our residents are really engaged and also gives us an idea for areas that we need to get our residents a little bit more involved in these processes before I pass it on I just had one quick question the Departments listed under each executive sponsor specifically like the last one they don't necessarily report to that department just fall under okay yeah.
That makes sense then I will say we have about 10 15 minutes for this this item for questions I'll start on this side ask folks to be cognizant of their colleagues being able to answer ask questions too so commissioner Howton thank you madam chair I don't particularly have questions today I need to as I say chew on it a bit more but I just want to say thank you for all the hard work that you've done this is amazing and I appreciate it Mr cter yes thanks for being a great team you guys and you know coming forward with work that I can tell you are proud of yourselves and you should be than so thank you very much I'm gonna say just a couple of things one at a high level and one more specific and I'm only saying a couple of things because these couple things really matter to me at a high level I think less words is better and I also think that Simplicity is really important so that.
The community can understand it can regurgitate it even and right now I couldn't do that and so you know just looking at it one time or a couple of times because over the weekend but you know what I mean so there's that and then second of all I think it's imperative that we have as a focus area something that we call out explicitly Rel relateded to EnV the environment and you know I just think that every other problem that we deal with pales in comparison and really if we don't get a handle on environmental sustainability all of our other challenges are moot because we're not going to be here to deal with them so I just really want us to call that out explicitly if there's a way to to combine any of the focus areas so that there's fewer of them I don't know seven to me feels like a lot I liked five I feel like I'm being critical and I don't want to be basically the work is great.
And I just really think those two things matter a lot to me and I just want to say them please know though that I really appreciate your work and think it's excellent so far this is really hard to do well and you guys are doing a great job I don't know if you wanted to respond or go to Vice chair Burns thank you very much I I don't know why people raising their hands we going in order I just wanted to say I want to Echo the sentiments of commissioner Carter for a couple of reasons I when I first got elected you know we had these go areas right like they made sense to me because I was running for office so I looked them up and I knew what they were and I knew what I was coming into and I said with the manager I get that we're coming away from that because the public didn't know what these gold areas were like they say okay this assistant.
County managers over this goal where the community know what the goal was so it didn't you know but I kind of got to lean in with commissioner Carter just a little bit to say this would also be somewhat difficult to consume I'm not saying that we take anything away I I I actually don't have a problem with it like this because this is how we would have an em manuals I would just be interested seeing as how you all are doing a minimum of two I hope that that minimum is like you're saying we're going to do another one I would be really interested to see how the public would chew on this so that's the like I don't have a problem with this in a manual that I get I don't have a problem with it if this is what we have out in our offices but to sit and go through because quite frankly you know some people have no idea what the register these goes through does or what.
Facilities does and that is under an umbrella of an umbrella and then we going give them all these things so I I it would just be interesting to see what.
Those public comment periods would go back if and maybe you all are not going to give them to to the public the way you gave it to us but I know we've seen pieces of this when we were doing our public policy Retreat and now we're seeing it again so I I just want you to be cognizant of like of the folks that we're working with I am I it's you you only hit another one I was going to hit I was I was somewhat concerned there are two things that I think should be in here here that I didn't necessarily see but it's one of those things it's no different from our community benefits agreement that we do with companies that come in we have a myriad of things in there but people can pick and choose what they want to deal what they want to do based on how much tax incented they want to get with us and we put a lot in there because we want people to know.
What's in our marrow I personally feel like two things that are in this board's marrow and that I would hope would be in the board's marrow going forward are one Environmental environmental sustainability and two minority and women participation on the contracts so those are the two things I just do not see explicitly highlighted if I am if we have done a disparity study and we are moving into implementation stage and we have project managers and now we are working with all these companies that we come in to hit a goal of 25% I personally whether that's Pion Sky I know we can't necessarily have quotas but if we are demanding that folks have that that we want people to do that who are coming in here we ourselves have to do it and we have to say it in everything that we put out that when we are doing business we are trying to work within the community with women with people of color because they make up a significant demographic in.
This County if we know that the city just got $4.8 million for battery charging stations if we know that the school board the school is now trying to do is now trying to have more lectur buses if we see bus Rapid Transit is going to natural gas if we have now said that we want to be carbon neutral by 80 80% carbon neutral by 2030 100% by 2050 all of that needs to be in there somewhere so that people know that these are our values so those are the two I agree with environmental sustainability but yeah I I I really need to see something about minority women in participation and some form of goal and I mean that is across the board and I'll stop here the reason why I'm throwing it out there it is not to bully any of the CMAs it is not to bully any of the dmas it is literally to say that we give out a billion dollars a year and I get it nobody saying that you haven't.
Been doing your part nobody saying you haven't been making a best faith effort but we now Tammy's not even in the room we now have a person here who has rebranded our mwb office and we need to make sure that everybody across the board is making best efforts to recruit locally and recruit equitably that's all I'm saying so those are my two that I I I just need to see it in there bigger than this commissioner Wendy Jacobs thank you Vice chairs thank you I me this is really important the work that you are doing we have not updated our strategic plan in a long time and frankly we're at a very different time within the trajectory you know me being part of this organization for 11 years I feel like we're at a really pivotal time when there's all these things happening and we're really looking towards you know the next 20 years and all of these opportunities that we have with our growth I think I'm going to just.
Speak high level right now because I would like the opportunity to actually meet with you all to kind of go more into detail but I mean I think echoing what everybody said that because this is so complicated I I get it and so one of one of my questions is is every single County department included or represented in specifically under each of these goal areas I mean I haven't counted them up and I see some listed but is that reflected are all the Departments literally listed in one of these areas you're going to see all the Departments listed as part of it but they may not be represented each individual objective area because these are our five year two to five year high overarching goals to reach and so every Department not might not be tied directly to it through the objective now there may be a measurement inside of the initiative level or at the business plan level where each department will be connected to it but you may not be.
Represented directly by the objective okay so under the goal focus areas I see like here responsible governance there's departments listed would we find every Department listed okay under under a focus area right yes okay I just want to make sure I just want to I think that's really important correct yes and I want to Echo what my fellow board members have said is I think the language needs to be as clear and simple and concrete and direct as possible this is something I have trouble with personally so I know how hard it is and I think like for me actually this one does a really good job of that when I look at the objectives and then the initiatives underneath like the initiatives here are very concrete like they look like things that can be measured but I don't necessarily see that in the other areas I think it's important that we get away from some of the more abstract language and and also you know really what are what are.
Things that we initiatives that we can actually measure and then also thinking about things that are already priorities of this board and that we're also investing in syst systemically and some of our adopted plans so I I do want to also lift up that I didn't see enough specifics about protecting our natural resources you know environmental you know energy sustainability and resiliency the other thing is I also want to ask you are you also reaching out specifically when you get when to each of the Departments to get their direct feedback on the language that's really important because like I noticed for instance the one on there's a reference to for instance under I think it's Health go back is that Health oh there we are okay okay so I've you know again language is so important number one c related to substance use and opioid dependency like we wouldn't say dependency we would say opioid use disorder so I think I think making sure that we reach out directly to the.
Folks that are working in these areas about what is what is the best language to use to be sensitive to that is going to be really really important and and then I noticed even related to the first one about forget the first item but that we looked at if you could go back to the first one oh yeah High performing like the first one number one like for me one of the priorities needs to be diversify invest making Investments That diversify our tax base you know we talk about like we need to you know do a Sports plex expanded Convention Center so like those are that's like something I would want to see reflected in there first ifying our revenues so anyway I I that's what I say I would love to sit down and meet with you one onone but I think this is this is a really great start because we we have to have something to all respond to and this is really challenging and I appreciate the way you.
Are digging into this and I I think this is a great start and I look forward to working on this further thank you thank you commissioner Jos you thank you all again very much for your feedback and yes we would love to meet one-on-one with each commissioner in the near future thank you I have one last thing also I noticed that there's the other elected bodies like the shareff there City County departments and regor of Deeds where would can we also integrate education somewhere to this like where that relationship is or yeah thank you thank you all so much again for this amazing presentation and all of the work I know hours and hours and hours went into this so thank you and I look forward to our individual conversations thank you so much with that we are going to be taking our break we do have two items after break and then some Clos session so I want to ask do folks think a 20 minute break is good to get us 12:05 we.
Return okay so we will see everyone back at.
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Thank you everyone for staying with us during our break we are now going to move on to our next agenda item which is 24-65 the draft fy2 Durham annual Transit work program presentation with our Transit director Ellen Beckman and Ellen we have let's see one hour allocated to this item so I'm thinking do you need 40 minute presentation 20 minute questions sound good to you or okay 20 minute wait we're GNA do 20 minute presentation 20 minute.
Questions we'll do 2020.
Then okay ready to go all right I'm Ellen Beckman Transportation director for Durham County I'm here to present the TW fy2 draft work program for the Durham County Transit plan I have a team here and online actually to help answer questions Steve slosberg from go triangle he's our tax District administrator so doing the financial side of the development of this work program and Jenny green again from the city of Durham who manages godder Mobility Services planning online Jay hikis from go triangle is also on there he's a Services planner for go triangle and not sure his exact title and lastly I know Brandy Miner Durham County's staff working group administrator is on listening unfortunately she has covid so she would be here presenting and we certainly couldn't have gotten here without her help so I want to acknowledge her her work all right so the work program is the annual budget for the Durham County Transit plan those of you know that we adopted the new Durham County trans a.
Plan last spring so this is kind of our first time going through the budget process under that new framework our our governance policy says that the the work program now needs to be adopted by both the Durham County Board of Commissioners and the go triangle board so I want to emphasize that throughout this work program we're trying to operationalize that Transit plan and we're not trying to change major things it was just adopted this is really putting that plan into action with specific projects for the next year so similar to that we are maintaining the key themes of that plan those were improving the current system we did a lot of public engagement with the plan and you'll remember that what we heard from bus riders was how important it was to improve the bus system so more routes more frequency you know more reliability so that's maintained in this work program also so connecting the region with quick and reliable service and we have a placeholder in the plan.
And we have a placeholder in this work program for projects that help connect Durham to the region through you know be it bus rapid transit or Comm passenger rail or other types of major Investments and then thirdly better experience at stops and stations so improving bus stops throughout the county and improving our Transit centers and then lastly more projects sooner you know we're we're trying to accomplish both short-term projects that can be done more quickly and reserving the capacity for longer term projects so this is my favorite pie chart in the whole plan this kind of shows how the funding is allocated to specific projects and the top is from the Durham County Transit plan and the bottom is the updated version with these work program projects so they're very similar which is good first and foremost enhancing and extending bus services so more buses on the streets and then secondly that quick and reliable Regional connections and thirdly the bus stop improvements there are some changes after that though that I'll talk.
About more as we talk about the specific projects but for the most part a lot of this is very consistent with that prioritization balance of projects that we set in the trains of plan one other part of the Durham County Transit plan was improving Community Trust and improving Community Trust through more kind of better budget documents and transparency about what we're funding as well as an accountability structure so this work program starts to put that into action we have our Transit plan which is our vision plan and then the work program again the budget you'll notice that the project sheets incl for each project now include some implementation and performance metrics so that's a new element that was required by our new governance agreements those project sheets will then go into project agreements that are approved and we intend to track those implementation metrics we're developing a website transit tracker to keep track of all this and it'll be displayed to the public and to words so this all kind of fits.
Together where we go from Vision plan to specific projects and implementation and then of course the results hope will inform our next transit plan and our next budget so this is an example of those project sheets in the implementation metrics and performance metrics I will say that this part is a work in progress like in some of the project sheets you'll see in development so we'll be working with all of our partners to refine those over the next couple months this is the draft document the final will come back in two months but here's an example the bus stop improvements program which is managed by go triangle you remember last year we talked a lot about this and there were some goals set to deliver 50 stop improvements in fy2 and then 75 stop improvements in 26 and thereafter till all the bus stops and Duram are improved.
All right so by the numbers here's our fy2 work program budget so the vast majority of the funding comes from the hasson sales tax for public transit and Durham you'll notice compared to the Durham County Transit plan there is no vehicle rental tax included here as a revenue so this reflects the go triangle board's decision to retain that U so our total funding estimated for next year for revenue is about 45 million when we updated the sales tax number for to reflect the actuals in the past year and then applied that long term in the financial model it resulted in about an 8% increase in overall revenues so that's good news we have more funding than what we anticipated during the transit plan a quick question Ellen with the 8% overall in increase in revenue does that reflect also the decrease of losing the vehicle registration the the vehicle rental tax I mean the rental tax yes it does okay so that was about two and a half% of the.
Revenues in the transit plan so that has gone away all right so the overall forecasted expenditures are shown here we have both capital projects and operating projects you know a lot of the capital projects are infrastructure like bus stops vehicle acquisition and then we have a placeholder for regional connections we wanted to make sure that we had a placeholder in this work program for opportunities for grants or other opportunities that might arise to P to continue to pursue that and then secondly on the operating side we have a lot of Staff that's Transit plan Administration and tax District administration and then Transit operations is the running of the buses by go triangle go Durham and Durham County access so here's the expenditures by agency city of Durham and go triangle are the largest you know entities as they are the ones who operate majority of the bus service in Durham County so in the end with the revenues and forecasted expenditures we end up with about $6.6 million fund balance.
Transfer I do want to note though that of course we modeled longterm all of our commitments of operations and capital projects through 2040 one other enhancement to this work program is that we're now including a multi-year operating program and a capital Improvement program that wasn't there last year so that those are shown in some tables in the back that show what we expect to need to spend through 2040 Steve helps us model all this revenues and expenditures to make sure we can afford it long term and that any decisions today aren't precluding our ability to do projects later so that's the the cash flow kind of diagram shown here we are meeting our adopted Financial policy for all of the kind of reserves and that the excess liquidity that we required in the transit plant so we're not changing any of that all of those financial policies are the same and we we did want to make sure it was known that there are anticipated expenditures into the future especially as we do larger capital.
Projects that the fund balance today will be. Needed so by policy is that the fund balance line yeah so we had adopt a policy that said we would have a $10 million minimum fund balance oh my God but we have so much we have over 10 times that much today but you see that the the chart dips into the future I guess it does get close to the line and between fiscal year 35 and fiscal year 40 I guess it does get close to the line but it jumps right back up again you know which is good but I just like to spend the taxpayers dollars not every single penny but I don't know I just it's my thing fund balances always worry worries me anyway just point noted yeah and Alan I was going to jump in because I think that this slide can be misleading if you don't understand that the liquidity is because it is being budgeted for different projects along the way so I.
Think that that's there needs to be some explanation about what liquidity is that is the money that's being used to actually fund all of these Investments so it's not like when and and also around the fund balance transfers that is because we have to have money at different points in time to actually Implement what's in the plan and especially some of the big Regional infrastructure projects are going to take a huge amount of money so I would just say if you could give some thought to how to better like be able to explain the complexity of this and that it's just just not money just sitting there it's actually already been programmed in the budget yeah certainly can U modify this slide again like the multi-year operating program and capital Improvement program go through 2040 so that we are anticipating those costs and we did model it and that and we we actually had to revise it several times to get a model that worked there were you know more requests than what.
Is in this document we had to cut it back a little bit to make it work so I wouldn't say that we are hanging on to any funding unnecessarily like there is definitely a plan for it that's why the that's what the multi-year operating program and CIP. Represent not to believe the point but why is our policy that you know that we are only going to have 10 million in fund balance if we need so much more than that maybe we need change our policy so one thing with the with the policy is so we actually have a capital reserve fund balance that that authorizes that 5% of whatever rolling 10year capital is already reserved so on top of that for example this year we around 29 million will be reserved for the capital fund balance so the the financial policy that we all discussed was a 5% capital reserve fund balance and the equivalent of 90 days operating expens then on top of that working with the partners we discussed just in case there.
Was ever recession let's say to have an an excess of another 10 million on top that's what that minimum fund balance policy is so there is a a fund balance already baked in and plus another 10 on top of that so it's actually adding very conservative extra kind of cushion just in case so we wanted to make sure that you already have this amount that's allocated plus an extra 10 million so as you see in it looks like FY 35 36 the low point is 22 million but out of that 22 million excess liquidity is only another 12 million that you could spend on new projects the other thing I would say through FY 40 and Beyond part of as elen mentioned we only budgeted through 40 Projects so as the process the vision plan keeps going we will be obviously looking at 40 to 45 and that's where those excess funds will be drawn down so obviously continuation of Transit operations will the new capital projects and things like that so it.
Grows but then the assumption is there'll be new projects to take its place okay all right so talking about specific projects we have a whole lot of continuing projects projects that have already been funding funded and that will continue and the operating projects are included in the document we are working working on the carryover capital project sheets they will be added that's the appendix that says in development so I want to note that that will be coming forward with the final plan and then U we updated some projects you know maybe the costs went up maybe the scope changed and in some cases the project sponsor changed and then there's some new projects and by new meaning they weren't in a previous work program they most of them were in our Transit plan though we expected them to happen they're just now starting this year there are two proposed projects that were not so I'll talk about those a little bit later so going back to the themes first of all improving the current.
System so one of our big categories of funding are those bus operating projects this work program reflects the priorities of the short range Transit plans so you know we velop the the vision plan and then go dur and go triangle look really closely at the specific services and do public Outreach with their Riders and determine like how exactly to to run the routes and what how how exactly number of buses are needed for which route and so like when they did that work it did change the the fund the specific funding from the trains of plan to this work program so this I guess this work program incorporates those updates but in general it is consistent with those goals that we had to provide more frequency and more routes it did it did result in a small change to those wedges so if you looked at that pie chart that's that's what resulted in those changes for the enhanc and extend service in the more routes to more.
Places and I I'll note that most of the changes here are on the G Durham system the Durham system was able to restore ridership or restore service recently you know those of you know we've had a bus driver shortage for long time they they're making progress on that and they were able to restore ridership or restore service in January and so now with continued additional bus drivers they'll be able to add more services so that that's reflected here so as we U add more service we're going to need more U maintenance capacity so one of the significant changes here is to increase the transit plan share for improvements to the godor fa Street bus operations and maintenance facility and plan for the construction of a new separate PA Transit maintenance facility so due to you know additional work work on the on the analysis about what is needed there the the cost has risen risen and we were able to increase the transit plan share from 5 million to 30 million for those.
Two projects collectively this would represent about 50% of the total estimated project cost so it will require additional funding either Federal funding or local funding to make up the other 50% and that's resulted in a change to that operations and maintenance wedge go triangle has also imp has plans to improve their maintenance facility U there really was no change though in the funding from the transit plant so I just wanted to note that both systems are working on making sure that the maintenance facilities are sufficient for the anticipated increased.
Service so the other one of the other key themes was better experience at stops and stations so a couple couple changes that were made we increased the transit plan share for funding for Durham station from 2.7 million to 9.98 million many of you know that the city of Durham also received a $10.8 million Federal grant for that project so it's about you know 5050 or so Transit plan and Federal grant funding so that will improve the main downtown bus station ad like more covering to protect Riders from the element Safety and Security upgrades and other types of things like that the city of dorm is also starting a planning study to look at the Village Mobility Hub so Mobility Hub is kind of like the buzzword for major bus stop everyone uses that term now it's like so if you hear that it's just it's a big bus stop where multiple routes maybe come together and you need you know larger shelters more waiting area so they're going to be doing a.
Planning study for that they received a Federal grant for planning and we also increased the anticipated Transit plan funding for construction and future years up to 1.5 million and then thirdly we we had funding in the work program for access to Transit projects in other words sidewalks that get provide you access to those bus stops and we also anticipated more funding in the future years of the transit plan so this city of Durham has identified two projects for the for that those funds a sidewalk on Junction Road and a sidewalk on Horton Road the budget is consistent with the previously adopted and forecasted Transit plan funding overall but now we kind of have specific projects identified and then thirdly there are many other improvements being made to stops and stations go triangle is continuing to do the bus stop improvements program there was no real significant changes there but I just wanted to make sure it's known that that project long-term project will continue also go triangle is working on improving their Regional Mobility Hub.
In RTP where the main hub for their system and then the city of Durham is continuing work on the fville and Holloway Corridor projects so fast and reliable regional service so this again was like the second biggest wedge in that pie chart we have a placeholder in the model for a long-term project or projects we did extend the timeline you know doing a a project like this takes a lot of time there's a lot of planning work and design work that has to take place before construction can start so we did reflect that in what is in the model and then we're also reserving some annual funding for planning or Grant matching opportunities so that's that 500,000 that was there so that's the update we made we are also continuing on the three projects listed the bus speed and reliability study managed by the dccm they're going to be starting the scoping process for that momentarily at the the last the quarter two amendment that came to this board three.
Months ago reflected a Durham County contribution to the ncdot fast 2.0 study so that's the study ncdot is doing to look at how to integrate Transit into Highway projects so that will get underway shortly and then we also have about 600,000 approved for the East Durham railroad crossing study by Durham County so we many of you'all know we received a $1.2 million Federal grant for planning I just received like draft agreements from F they've been kind of slow I think they got a lot of money and their processes are a little slow in getting it out the door but as soon as we get those agreements you know they'll come to this board and that project will get underway we also in the fall we discussed that we could use potentially use some of this money as a match for an ncdot RTP Inner City passenger rail station so that's kind of an example of what that that planning and Grant matching placeholder could be used for opportunities like that arise we want.
To be able to contribute all right so there's two new projects that really were not contemplated in the transit plan but have been requested by the city of Durham and go triangle they're both related to bus Fair subsidies so the city of Durham's project is called direct investment in Mobility Equity program and they're asking us to well I should say the city intends to continue fair for fre in fy2 but hasn't made a long-term decision yet they've asked to reprogram about 374,000 from two projects that were related to fairs already that were in our past work program to this effort so it's about 374 going from those two projects to this new project that that's not sufficient to fully cover the cost of Fair free service so the city also has a budget request for 1.9 million of city funding that's you know as you all will be working its way through their budget process and then secondly go triangle go triangle does intend to return to fairs in fy2 and they have proposed this.
Regional low-income Fair program so it would be across the whole region from the transit plan funded 70% wake 20% Durham 10% orange and it would add 78,000 starting in fy2 25 so this this would provide free bus passes to people who are already receiving like public assistance through various programs so they would return to fairs but those who qualify for that would receive a a fairf free pass so these are new and you know for the draft you know we're seeking any feedback on policies or principles you have around these two programs okay so those are the projects our process is that this work program was released for public comment last week we require a 21-day public comment period so it's open for the next three weeks we are going to be presenting to other boards as well to get their feedback the staff working group which is kind of the staff committee that develops this will be voting on a final version in a and it will come back to you in April for.
Approval and then it will go to the go triangle Board of Trustees so it has to be approved by the two boards so it's on the Durham County website it's on the go triangle go forward website we're also doing some popup events at Durham station to engage with Transit writers over the next few. Weeks thank you so much questions thank you Ellen and team very detailed report I will see I'll start it on this end for questions starting with commissioner Wendy Jacobs yeah well first of all I just want to say fantastic work I mean 143 page update to the work plan I mean I I've just never seen anything like this so I am so impressed essed with all of the collaboration and all of the great work that is being done really in accordance with our new Transit plan it's it's just really exciting to see it being implemented so one of my questions is around again similar to the update or the 2023 report is I know we're going to.
Have these three popups at Durham station but I think it's important that we send this out directly to again the packs the Coalition for affordable housing and Transit Durham committee People's Alliance Inc and ask people specifically please send this out to your membership with that request so that we can get it out so one of great to see that we're have higher revenues that we thought we were going to have even with the loss of some of our revenues the budget for this year even though it's higher is are the are the are we keeping are we basically following the plan in terms of generally what we had budgeted for that's that was one of my questions on an annual like on a just a one year at a time basis we didn't I guess I don't think we ran those numbers specifically we're more looking at the through 2040 you know okay because you know in some years you may have be heavy in one area especially if you're doing one big Capital project.
Right and and light in another area but in the end it evens out to be mostly consistent with that Transit plan okay well I just I guess I think that's going to be really important that we think about how we how we are tracking that to make sure that we CU you know we just saw that there you know the the amount doubled for Durham station I mean you know there's just we're being asked to contribute to some other things which is fine but I I was that was one of my questions when I was reading this and I also did look through the 143 page plan and I looked at the budgets and I was you know so I think that tracking if that we can have some way of really tracking because it's so complicated even even the budget that you have in there that compares last year last year's budget and this year's expenditure I noticed like the capital was a lot lower this year than it was last year for the.
City but anyway so I think just trying to I I'll feel better knowing that we are somehow have some way keep making sure we're staying in the ballpark and I think the whole concept of the putting money aside to the fund balance is going to be really important to communicate with people because what you're going to get is you're going to get well why why are we not spending that money now and I think explaining that that is intentional so that we can afford some of these really really big infrastructure needs that we're going to have especially you know hopefully we're going to be able to do brt after we do this bests speed and reliability project and hopefully we're going to keep having some opportunities to match some federal Railway Railway grants to implement passenger rail but we I think it's that's going to be important to communicate on the slides and in the presentation so and you know in terms of the two new things that you were asking.
About for possible funding I totally support us supporting Fair equity and making sure that Transit is accessible and affordable to all people so I I think that's great the project pages that you have at the end I noticed there's still it's in progress but especially around the ad administrative positions like kind of tracking that I think is going to be really important for us to show how is that money being used and how are we measuring that it's money well spent and all that I I wanted to also lift up that with the region the regional transit the RTP Regional hub that there's also ncdot rail division has included funding for that for that Hub as part of one of their grants and then the ncrr actually is also included in one of their Grant proposals studying double tracking from RTP to East in to the E I guess I don't know how far goes into East Durham but the East Durham tracking doing double tracking so I think that's.
Really significant that we also are seeing this partnership and and other agencies helping us and having that Outlook so I I think that's that's really exciting and also the Durham Transit track when do you think that might be up and running I hope to bring a contract for approval next month I'm we're close you know we've selected a consultant and we're we're working on the agenda item so wow should that is fantastic you know we'll be using a consultant that has developed these sorts of dashboards and other communities and has a lot of experience so they had a lot of good ideas on excited about that I mean that that could be to get to your points on this you know we intend to that that could incorporate the actual expenditure of dollars and report on that you know every what we we said we were going to update that twice a year so you'll have that once we get this all in place hopefully we'll have that up and in a.
Kind of easily accessible website fantastic great work and I love the map maps on the bus routs too so great work at Durham County also worked on those so great thank you to everyone who's made such done such great work for our community thank you commissioner Wendy Jacobs by sh burs I'll be really quick and because I know we got other presentations and other folks want to go so I'mma try to do yes and no questions if that's helpful for y'all and not pontificate number one I know that we have our transit public comment that's open I know you highlighted that it closes on like the 21st I just want to know like how is it going are we seeing people engage with it because I agree with the suggestions we have but are we seeing people click on it are we seeing comments coming in I do not know that information I can get back to you it was went live late last week right so you know the first week is usually when.
People want to jump on something and then like the last week we so I'm all about ramping up our efforts but I was just curious to see what it was so far my next one so I asked this SL the other week at the special tax board meeting for go triangle and I know that we braid funding for all of these projects that we work on but what I did want to ask was so one of the vehicle tax has been sitting at $5 since like 1970 80 something whatever it doesn't reflect like inflationary costs that have gone up and so if it was indexed based on inflation it' probably be $122 right thank you for the affirmative nod did my homework before I came so it would be $12 but go triangle is trying to Lobby the general assembly to bring it up to $7 because of course folks would have sticker shock if we shot it up to 12 so my question here I know that.
I'm in support of it I know some of the other Board of County Commissioners on other boards when we were talking about it it was somewhat foreign to them my question kind of sort of for y'all or at least for the transit the staff the staff committee that makes recommendations are you all working with gold triangle to also put forth a position that we need to move it up to seven because that's like $2 million that we're leaving on the table I think just that additional $2 would net us $2 million more annually so are we as a staff working group pushing that narrative also so go triangle currently the Durham Transit plant does have a $7 registration fee and a $3 right we could bring back that was comment to go triangle staff or a leadership to let them know that if as they're going through that process to think about the transit plans too I don't know that answer if that's part of the conversation so we can definitely.
Relay that right so that one is seven there's one that's five that should be 12 and we're trying to up at seven maybe I'm getting that one wrong but no thank you for that that's helpful but I do think we all should be on the same page and go triangle just shouldn't be going over to the general assembly without it's one thing if our board does it it's another thing if our working group does it I think we'll get some we'll get some more traction if collectively the entire region agrees we need to move this feet up because we haven't changed it since before I was born I will take that message back that's something to be said I think the only other thing I want to throw out there I noted you gave us a chart last time Ellen on the and it was I remember it's like kind of purple and it showed all the bus stop improvements that we were going to be making so.
You're saying it's 50 I know about in 2025 it was 75 in 202 what's the number for this year so our goal that we talked about last year was 40 was 40 okay I just want to know because it wasn't anything I I I mean I I'd have to defer to go triangle staff on the current status of where we're at on that but no that's no that's fine that's what I we just had 25 and 26 I was just adding and it's a goal so we're not holding you to that I agree with everybody else is been to ex some presentation and then my last question I have a couple more but I'mma give it over I can email you about these I'm super excited I'm happy that finally sent you the paperwork for the $1.2 million for for the East Durham project with our our train stops I guess I know I'm saying it wrong but just from you what do you envision the end go being that's a pretty busy one.
Like every every time I drive over this gonna sound weird I think to myself Ellen going to figure this out with that $1 million that she had like I go through that you know to head home and there some days we we had a question about what were some of the improvements we were making we were at H and career center and we had some questions like what improvements are being made in East dur we talked about housing commissioner Wendy Jacobs brought up the the grocery store and I brought up and I did bring up this stop but I was like I don't even know what the end goal would be and not that we have to have one but it's a thought process that you know we're gonna women a Bruce to place this thing and like put up a wall or is it that we're just going to make it safer or we're going to cut off some of the tracks like what are the I saw some of.
Y'all laughing y'all got my reference so yeah to put up a wall but what what is the thought process what do we think comes out of that feasibility St study for that intersection because it's rough yeah well the intention is to improve safety the three railroad crossings right there's a history of crashes at those three Crossings the train causes delays you know unreliable travel times for people as well so Our intention is to improve safety first and foremost that's how the funding was identified you know we are going to do a planning study right and that involves a lot of community engagement right right starting with Community engagement about what those goals are of course safety we know is going to be one of them but we want to also understand the bigger context that we're working in and how changes to those Crossings could affect residents businesses other aspects you know so so you know I can't say definitively today what the outcome is going to be right but you're.
My expert so I got to ask you sometimes like what do you foresee because I don't have the lens that you have right so y'all would not with us in Indiana I asked about two questions about bus Rapid Transit and Ellen said do you want to geek out about bus Rapid Transit I said yeah I couldn't join in but then I realized well if I have any questions this is who I need to ask so but no I I will I'mma stop there this one I will throw out I will I was going to hold on this one but we got to see some of the bus rapid TR I know we're doing our study to figure out how we're going to connect with it I would IM imagine that maybe we would connect the same way that way county is do you envision and because this is what I'm envisioning I got to see one of the buses it was ran off of natural gas do you envision that.
That's what our bus Rapid Transit might look like at the end of the study and let me know if I'm getting you in trouble by asking that the public buses yeah the articulated bus the yes I saw I saw that as well all right yeah that could be what ends up being a place in Durham County like we we are not sure at this point like we have to do the study I do know that and Jenny can can confirm this that the improvements at Durham station could accommodate buses like that that's my understanding in the future get in trouble Jenny get in trouble yeah Jenny green city of Durham Transportation the improvements at Durham station are set up for future electrification and and charging if needed and U the longer articulated buses oh yes yes there isace articulated because that was weird to look at okay I will leave it alone now but thank you to answer all of M thank you Vice chair Burns commissioner Carter this has been a truly informative.
Report and really appreciate it agree with everything my colleagues have said along those lines so thank you and I think the fact that we have an accountability structure is remarkable and I love it and you know it'd be great if we could figure out how to have more accountability structures for the things not related to Transit but just you know related to other services that the county provides and other plans that we're trying to implement I love the project sheets and I wanted to ask one question about those and it's related to I'll start with this question question the project sheet question is a smaller subset of this question which is actually this is a work program and and the plan that we are have is I feel like it's not exactly a Transit plan it's more like a Transit tax plan but that be fair to say because we don't really know what else is planned right that the city is funding separately that's not included here is is that a fair yeah I.
Mean this is the budget document that is specific to the three countywide fees that we have that are required to be spent on public transit right so the sales tax the $3 vehicle registration fee and the $7 fee do you think we'll ever have is there any appetite for having an actual Transit plan that incorporates all of the transit programming that we have in the city of Durham including go triangle go Durham the city's funded you know programs over and under over and above this I guess existing Services sidewalks includes all the sidewalks people ask all the time questions about sidewalks would be great if we have project sheets on sidewalks that was my other question was do we have any accountability structure for things like that that are somewhat outside of our Transit tax and other smaller sources of income plan yeah I mean I would say the no's plans are the most most comprehensive that we have in the region they adopt a CTP which is unconstrained financially longterm.
That's a good point an MTP which is the next you know 20 to 30 years and incorporates all revenues anticipated so that that might be the closest to what you're talking about and it also includes all modes Transportation yeah okay Point well taken yeah so you know there's other Revenue sources like the state funds City funds and this is just related to the County Transit funds okay could someone talk about the par Transit improvements that are in the work plan and you know access and go Durham connects with microtransit I just have been hearing that I've been hearing some desire for faster you know P improve faster results around parat transit or maybe even increased investment sure I can speak to that the city right now in the fy2 24 work program has is is conducting a study a Paratransit Improvement study that study is going to conclude this summer with some recommendations to come out of it and in future years the in this in this work program there is funding that.
Has been set aside from the Durham County Transit plan for those improvements on the parat transit service the Durham G Durham access and Durham County access programs and do you expect those will be enhanced services in the same way we're trying to enhance our bus you know service that there'll be more frequent and more routes reaching more people that kind of thing is that what you expect to come out of the Transit parat Transit study we hear we hear a lot from customers about the need to improve customer service so providing same day bookings providing you know faster response time shorter rides things like that so those are key areas where we're trying to improve the service can't wait to see the results of the study great thank you for that good answer so one other question is there a way let's say a developer wants to profer a bus stop right as part of their development plan but the bus stop is not one that's ongo triangles.
List is there a way for the city of Durham and Durham County to receive that bus stop even though it's not on the list of bus stops that are you targeted for improvement this will be a new new bus stop Yes this the question came up at a meeting I was at okay and maybe later you could just let me know how what is that mechanism you don't have to necessarily tell me now but yes I don't I'm not familiar with the exact details of that but I can get you in touch with the right person great thank you and I mean I would say our goal is to improve every bus stop and D we said that throughout the trans of plan process so we can't do that all at once right go triangle is looking at specific stops each year but our goal long term is to improve improve all of them well this was actually a new bus stop that was you this is this is not a hypothetical.
Question it came up and so I'm glad to know there is a way that we can accept the construction of a bus stop by developer yeah we have the the we have a construction team for Transit improvements and so they work directly to do inspections and so that it's part of that acceptance process thank you thank you commissioner Carter commissioner Howton thank you madam chair so I get to see this twice on the seventh again my question that I'll ask today is about your the revenue I wanted to know if the the tax dollars is included in that that the board voted on had to do with wake is it included in the total amount so the vehicle rental fee is not included in next year's budget next year's Durham County budget because of the decision of the go triangle board I don't Stephen would have to speak to wake and orange but yeah so right now with orange it is also not included based on the go triangle board's.
Decision to retain it wake there's discussions to actually release their draft plan with the option of it in and out so included and excluded so when that gets released you'll see there will be financial data that shows with the inclusion and without the inclusion there's still discussion obviously between Wake County the Campo which is the capital area n and go triangle staff on the path forward but the goal is to have a decision or just really a one clear path forward by the recommended plan so it follows a very similar process where draft plan goes out public comment comes back in the technical committee the staff working group here the Tac which is Transit planning advisory Commission in wake we'll have a a conversation based on public feedback based on any adjustments and then put out a recommended plan so the goal and the hope is by the recommended plan to have a decision of what will be if it's included and not included okay thank you very much thanks for your.
Presentation and thanks that I will get to see it again thank. You policy around what policy around Transit Equity yeah Helen said she want some feedback on that but maybe that's for another day I mean you can think about it as well I get back to yeah to me later I know that was one of the new programs that was added yeah and it but the city's paying for it all right out of their revenues or is some of it coming from the transit it would some come from the transit tax like that the city's U proposal had about 374,000 in next year's Durham County Transit plan budget going towards that okay and what you know what they proposed is a $1.9 million request in their City budget and that's coming from city tax dollars or from the half cent sales tax city city yeah City budget I mean you want to speak to that but that's my understanding so I mean the the loss of fair revenue is.
2.2 2.4 million or so okay a year okay all right I also support you know doing are making fair at a rate accessible I think we all do I guess the question would be do we make it fair free for everyone or is it like way Count's doing more or go triangles doing on more of a sliding scale kind of thing so that would be the question and I don't know the answer yeah I mean the systems have approached this in different ways yeah so I could see merits to both and I don't know which one I would support at this point Thank You commissioner Carter thank you so much Ellen again I think yeah to commissioner Carter's point I'm sure we can all continue to be in conversation with you and share feedback around the transit Equity piece and all of it but this is really amazing to see all of the detail that has really gone in this and I concur with commissioner Wendy Jacobs about trying to get.
This information out as much as possible to different Community groups thank you right thank you we'll be back in couple months with the final version wonderful thanks thank you that brings us to our final discussion item for today 24- z56 presentation from the Museum of Life and Science capital projects update we have 30 minutes allocated for this presentation so we'll do the same we've been doing 20 minute presentation 10minute questions hello Carrie dish Simone. Roy you'll have to press the button on your mic and you gotta get a little up close and personal with it this button all right well I wanted to first start by thanking all of you the Commissioners County Manager Dr so and all the county staff for the the intense support that you've offered this Museum not just in the years that I've been here which almost three years now kind of hard to believe but indeed since the museum opened so we want to start by introducing the team I have with me today it's an amazing team.
Our newest member Simone Guthrie is our new VP for marketing and we've got with us daa Jan who has recently been promoted to be RVP for advancement and I have with me somebody who I I believe may not need an intro Roy Griffith who has been designing exhibitions at the museum for 30 years now I mean a moment of Applause and. Pause doesn't like that very much but it's well deserved so today we just wanted to give you a little bit of update on on closing out the previous Bond projects and give you a little bit of a taste of where we are to date on the most recent bond which we're very excited to kick off now do I have the ability to forward this well let me do it then we're then gonna let you know just a little bit of our recent accomplishments we want to spend a bit of time talking about our community engagement a little peek at where we're going in the future and of course along.
The way any questions you have we're really excited to be here and share with you where we are so we have completed all of our 2016 Bond projects as you'll remember those were infrastructure upgrades increasing some of our operational resources and of course expanding on our play-based learning ethos I hope all of you have had a chance to come out and experience these firsthand or have something on the calendar to do so we've got our studio Earth which is an outdoor classroom supporting our Earth moves exhibit parking deck allowed us to take our our guests cars from out of the surrounding neighborhoods and bring them onto campus that's worked very well for us we've got an association Internationals architectural American associate ation that Woodland classroom situation got a lot of awards and finally the final project for the 2016 Bond I believe was our animal quarantine building and that allows us to comply with our requirements as an accredited zoo and of course to welcome some of the animals that we enjoy bringing onto our.
Campus in addition we were able to complete a major Lobby upgrade our welcome Hall which I want to point out that thanks to the support of the county we we we leveraged that support we went further there and we were able to bring in $1.25 million in additional funding to support the projects that you invested in to start of course those also helped us to finish out all of these Bond projects which I don't need to tell you but I'll remind you that those projects were all budgeted for and and committed to long before covid and so we were able to complete all those projects through that those fundraising efforts as originally planned and we're incredibly proud of that those those costs went up in the range of 30% across the board we have a new Warehouse play to learn is a huge hit with the under five crowd and explore the wild is allows our visitors to get out a lot closer to our Urban Wetlands on campus I called Roy out because.
His team is exceptional and the whole Community here should be aware of the amazing work that's done at the Museum of Life and Science year in and year out we were just awarded two major International Design Awards for two of the projects that we completed thank thanks to bond dollars so we were awarded a silver for Earth moves in cultural and Architectural design for a science center again that is an international award and our exhibits go up against any exhibits at any Museum anywhere in the world I'd like to point out that those designs also go up against some of the most major exhibition design companies working today and we have our design team inhouse so these exhibits are designed for our guests for our community designed for our campus to enhance the experience that we already have and we are privileged to have the team working on them that we do have our bronze medal was awarded for play to learn which as you'll know essentially tripled the amount of space.
That we're offering to Early Childhood Learners at the Museum I think you'll see a little bit later the numbers coming in and taking advantage of our free under three program admissions effort has gone through the roof in the in the in recent years all right what let's get on here so a little a little look at what's coming up through the 2022 Bond projects as you recall we're really looking at expanding our infrastructure to support our growing VIs visitorship we've got a cafe coming up we are improving our meeting space on campus taking on a couple of exhibitions that really need some some enhancement and some upgrading and we've got a lot of sustainability efforts that we're leaning into as well putting on photovoltaic arrays and looking at enhancing our dark sky compliant lighting we are we are well underway in developing Our Cafe specifically looking at giving more Four Season seating available for our guests but one of the things that we're most excited or at least I am Roy are you.
Most excited too great we're pursuing the living building challenge with which is the gold standard in executing building from a climate from a sustainability perspective perspective across the world and we're looking to be certified and in the process we're bringing in a lot of our vendors a lot of the folks that we work at work with locally and we're really looking for this building to be an example for our community so that more people are building in this sustainable method and of course are being a learning environment we look forward to sharing all the learnings that come out of this this building project we've got our climate and sustainability exhibit growth underway we've actually opened our Minimate exhibit which is a new way that we're approaching exhibit design and again I want to say for somebody who's been doing this work for 30 years it never ceases to amaze me the level of innovation and openness to change and process that Roy and his team bring so this climate and sustainability exhibit.
Is actually being designed in in the moment we're opening up the design process to our community and so we're inviting the public to come in to weigh in on the exhibits as we design them that's something we would normally do for two or three years behind the scenes we'd get it perfect and then we'd roll it out we're kind of leaning into a topic that is critical that's very it's resonating with our visitors right now and so we want to in explore that with them them right now second secondly we're working on our biotechnology exhibit you as a as a and as as an educational institution sitting here in the the Research Triangle we're really looking forward to bringing all that this community has to offer in terms of the scientific and te technological advancements that are taking place on a regular basis we are in the process of building that exhibit working with a lot of local local resources Lo local teams to help us with that that'll be on the second.
Floor just to give you a little bit of a review over the last year it was a record-breaking year for attendance 580,000 visitors that's up 880,000 from the previous year we try to be as accessible as we can be and we're looking for more ways to do that but in the meantime we continue to offer those 22 community days we welcome in our Durham Durham Public Schools field trips for free we welcome in Educators and I mentioned that we are free for those under three and with our new playto learn space we're really serving the community excessively in this way what was our number on that daa number free under three this year we'll bring it back additionally we've got over a thousand IGN IGN households ignite membership households to remind you these are the memberships that we offer to families that are Iden identified through our Community Partners those are $ five memberships you can see they led to 14,000 visits so those those members are visiting the museum 14 times a year on.
Average the people who need to engage at the Museum are being given access and then of course we've got our camps we've got our school programs and we do a lot of programming for the community this past weekend we just had our black excellence and science on Sunday we welcomed everybody in all right again from a community engagement perspective really wanted to give you some more visibility to that 20 ignite learning Partners we'll get to a slide that will show you the names of some of who those who those folks are but in addition we've been working with NASA we've been given a a NASA grant for sparking interests we're raising raising interest in stem education among Spanish-speaking families we have been engaging extensively in climate Communications with our communities and of course we are always looking for more ways to lean in and support our colleagues at Durham Public Schools this is just I think think an impressive slide that shows you just how deep our relationships go across the.
Community in terms of identifying those families that can best benefit from from membership level access level memberships the Durham children's initiative just brought a group over to experience our black science in excellence yesterday we're always looking for more ways to develop further programming in in addition to to offering memberships for this group we talked about that this NASA Grant is allowed us most recently to bring 54 Spanish-speaking Duram mites up to NASA Langley that research center is only open to the public once every five years and through this NASA Grant we're partnering with El Centro espano and El futuro to help identif create programs and programming with those communities that will in turn be a model for organizations Ser serving Spanish speaking communities across the country the importance of the work we're doing there is underlined by the fact that NASA Deputy Administrator Dr Pamela melroy came down and visited the museum with representative fushi this year so we're we're top of mind for our friends at Nasa again leadership and climate we've.
Got our third North Carolina wide youth climate Summit coming up this month mayor mayor Leonardo is coming to welcome them as is Reed Wilson from the state this program is growing every year we're excited to make it a beacon for ch kids youth these are high school students from across the state who come and explore what's happening from a climate ter perspective with University level lectures they are developing plans that they then bring home to their home communities we're also working with Central pin's Regional Council in developing our climate action plan for the region we welcomed members of the community just last week it was the largest of four Community engagement conversations that were put together and we're looking forward to supporting them and working with them to develop this EPA funded plan and then finally the exhibition that I was talking about two programs I thought I'd highlight with from Durham Public Schools our first our Sparks after school program which is a partnership with bioc Christ Pharmaceuticals so it's a public private.
Partnership in which members of the team at bioc Christ are actually trained by by our our Educators and commit to working with Brogden middle schoolers for a whole year it's a mentorship program it's free for students and it's a wonderful partnership for us with with local community businesses and we're looking to expand that program as well another program we're working on with DPS came out of a huge success last year Museum Educators were brought into fifth grade science classrooms once a week they were teaching science on Wednesdays for three classes in those classrooms rooms the end of grade science efficiency proficiency grew anywhere from 8% to 38% depending on the classroom and that's compared to growth of 3% for the rest of DPS or 2% growth North Carolina wide so we're expanding that program this year Museum educators are going to be coming into five fifth grade classes now across DPS and we're very excited about the outcomes for that program a little a little bit of insight about where where we're heading.
Ironically maybe I don't know maybe this was planned we came up after transportation we are really interested in advocating for public transportation to the Museum of Life and Science this community invests in this resource it is a phenomenal educational resource it's an educational resource that can have an outsize impact on the communities that need it most and those communities are often those taking public transportation it takes a anywh from downtown Durham somebody can arrive at 0.1 miles from Marble's Children's Museum or Natural Sciences Museum in downtown r r Raleigh from downtown Durham a family could get on a bus and only be let off 0.5 miles or 7 miles from the Museum of Life and science it's an opportunity for us to create accessibility for broader member broader swath of our community we're also looking at additional ways to expand our accessibility we're looking at partnership programs that are National from a museum perspective and hope to have some news for you on that in the coming months as I mentioned we're.
Looking at improving our dark sky compliant outdoor lighting we feel like that will allow us to potentially expand accessibility through changing our hours and offering maybe hours that get into the evening after work for some folks and of course we're looking at expanding our teen and adult programming at the Museum as well well we're deeply grateful for the County's financial support we are also not resting on that Laurel we we have invested in disa and her team we've got an amazing development team in place and we're looking at growing those efforts we're stewarding donors we're really seeking Grant support in an outsized way I think our grant our grant dollars have grown by 30% this year we're also as always looking at ways to ensure that we we can increase our earned income for the museum and then you may have heard that through support of Mike Woodard at the state level we did we did receive a million doll State appropriation to help help us keep the roof keep the.
Roof working at The Butterfly House that Butterfly House is almost 25 years old so and then in addition from a future Focus perspective this handy little graph just demonstrates the the yellow bars are showing you where are where our development the development is of our current campus and you'll see we've got a about 5% left of our campus to develop we're we're hitting we're hitting capacity there and you can see Museum of Life and science's growth trajectory has really been a combination of Durham County's growth and wake County's growth over the year and with that projection we're really we really want to ensure that we're able to continue to support our growing and diversifying community and so we're going to be exploring we're heading into a strategic planning process so we're going to be thinking about what are some of the ways that we can continue to grow despite our landlocked 84 acre campus that we've got there so just a little visibility for you on kind of where we are as an.
Institution and just to leave you with the thought of the day which is deep gratitude to the county to all of you for supporting the museum over the years and to open it up for any comments or questions you might have for us we'd appreciate your your input thank you so much Carrie for this presentation so great to see y'all Roy disa Simone I'm a huge supporter of the museum outside of even the commission just personally for a family love that we have this community resource probably been there almost like every other weekend for the past couple of months because of that Play and Learn space is so convenient and safe for the little one so thank you to that also just wanted to before I pass it off to any questions you guys condolences I know I follow your social media very closely I know you've had a couple of passings on the animal team so condolences for Gus and Miss Piggy I'm going to miss seeing them also but.
Glad that we have Murray joining the family he's very sweet to see playing in the new enclosure I didn't have any questions I think this is amazing I'm just really excited to see how y'all implement the new Bond and create more spaces because I think even as a member I haven't even explored every single part of the museum I feel like I'm seeing a new exhibit every single time so this G to be really great to see how you guys use the new Bond funding Vice chair Burns well one I I I can't go every weekend like commissioner Al because my niece actually believes that that really big spider is real and I haven't burst a bubble yet so it's going to come a day where I'mma come a calling and I'mma need y'all to just make up a spider cuz she actually thinks that it's real from a photo and wants to see it but if y'all have a phone number for Harry Potter I'd appreciate it but I I do.
Want to highlight just a couple of things really quickly because y'all are last and then y'all can run one of course we going to give like a big shout out to Roy for all he's done but K we kind of got to give you one too like I remember when we I was on the interview team I I was I was newly elected but I I don't think y'all I want to just highlight for the public and everybody else that 580,000 visitation rate that's up 880,000 that really has a lot to do with you just being very open I can remember you know after the first couple of meetings I think when you and I had our first one onone I mean it's black history month so I'mma Be black like she was the first person to invite the Chancellor from nccu to the museum that makes absolutely no sense to me that we brought somebody in from the outside and she was the first person to say what do you mean you.
Haven't been to this Museum what do you mean nobody's ever invited you there and so she came in here with this really culturally competent lens and when when Javon elevated to you yes it's one of those this museum is open to All Families but there are some teachers who never brought their kids to the museum didn't even know that access was possible and we said okay if we do a full court press so look what happened these $5 memberships you right it's only a th000 14,000 visits if you give people access they will come and I I was on my that I had to do a bunch of a bunch of different churches but my sister and two of my nieces they were at the black Excellence event it was amazing like I literally got there at the end and so just thank you for all that culturally confident work I have a million other questions but since you have a a captive audience I just want you to speak to two.
Things number one you and I both know what Bill I'm talking about at the general assembly where there's another Children's Museum that is trying to position themselves as the Children's Museum of choice in the state of North Carolina no it is not Marbles and it's not us but it should be us and how do you how do you want us to help you engage and move the needle at a general assembly so that you all are not pushed I'll say it it's the kids zone in Chapel Hill which is nowhere near as big as our music museum has nowhere near as much work and and in programs and animals just it's not it's not our Museum so they they're trying to position themselves as a museum of choice car needs our help because they're going after a big chunk of money and I personally think we're in a better position to get it so that's one and then number two and I bring that up because I do remember that million.
Dollars that Mike Wood went out and got for us we went to a bunch of people in the delegation but that's who went and got it and then I guess the second part of that I I I'll let you do that one and then if we have time I'll come back to it but that's the one I want you to kind of elevate here how we can be more supportive because you've been a good Steward of our money I believe in my heart you're going to be a great Steward of State money and how can we help you position yourself to get access to it well thank you for bringing that up commissioner Burns and thank you for your service on the board we're still exploring exactly the way we want to approach the the Kid Zoo effort to to become a state the state Children's Museum my understanding is that they are not looking for the dollars to support they're not looking to operationally be the state Children's.
Museum in other words they would not come up under read or report in they're just they're looking for a designation in the same way there's a designation of as a theater I actually have an invitation out to the Kid Zoo executive director to come over the museum and walk and talk and offer them the opportunity to share a little bit more but what I would encourage everyone to do who maybe hasn't is to just look at the at the statement that is on the kidso website in terms of their stating where they're they're looking to go and it they they Northstar sounds a lot like the Museum of Life and Science and I believe that you know as a community we should invest our dollars appropriately for the for the community so that more can go to programming less to overhead so I'm interested in in being a partner with them to understand how we can we can ensure we're we're we're serving the broadest amount of the community without doubling doubling down.
On dollars that that are redundant Goa so no that's helpful and that's a really political way to say that that's why they pay you the big bucks and so I I do want to throw out there this one last thing cuz you did say something about the bus stops and I'm trying to think about where that closest bus stop is at the top of the hill where you can't go down I hate Ellen's not here so any direction that you can give us on that one because adding additional bus stops like we kind of already have track the improvements we're gonna make I don't know I can't speak for Ellen because she's not here but I I actually think it's closer cuz the the Chapel Hill Durham Express rest if I'm not mistaken is actually a block closer than what you think it is so it is less than S miles if somebody from downtown dur want to get to that one so how is it that we're make it's a lot easier to get.
There than elsewhere and my last thing on access since you've been there I can remember there was a time and I think I told you this people would have parties at the Museum and then they kind of locked a lot of that down and then under your leadership I just want to say thank you publicly for opening up the museum to nonprofit no matter what size a lot of y'all don't know this the Durham success Summit which we gave funding to they did a fundraiser there Equity before birth which is ran by Joy gosh I'm I'm Joy Spencer one of the joy Spencer thank you had their fundraiser that's a party party and then you did a fashion show for Mark Taylor designs and I don't know if a lot of y'all know that based on the photos he got there he's now presenting at Fashion week next week we do not have a lot of really great fany spaces that open up their doors to small and mediumsized black entrepreneurs and nonprofits and you.
Have had absolutely no problem opening up your doors and letting folks raise money in there and also highlight the good work that they're doing so I just want to publicly say thank you for that because that is not something that Dar has been used to before you got here and I'm done thank you commissioner Burns it's our pleasure thank you sh burs missionary Wendy Jacobs thank thank you so much for this report it's really great similar to Durham Tech for us to be able to get this check in with you all and see how the bond money is being used and so that the public can see that you are being great stewards of that money and making really great Investments and congratulations on the well-deserved awards that you have gotten I'm really thrilled to see you know the performance metrics that you I mean the outcomes and and the data that you're sharing with us it is fantastic so related to the under three population know a lot of also a lot of.
Again alignment with what you all are doing with our goals and values and priorities you know around you know our early childhood action plan and supporting early childhood and and all of that so I was wondering do you know that what the participation is like for insurance or what if you could tell us more about the relationship with like Durham prek providers and Early Head Start and just kind of the child care centers that we have in Durham because that's of course for foury olds the Durham prek is foury olds right and and Early Head Start is one of our ignite Partners and so in addition to offering those memberships we do offer we've been developing programming I think it's on a quarterly basis for our ignite members to bring groups of those families together because a lot what we find is there I call it The Thomas Crown effect where people think oh I can't bring this two-year-old it's a it's a glamorous Museum and and no you should bring your two-year-old.
It's made for your two-year-old so our ignite Community Partners are critical in bringing in bringing those families in and giving them access and have and giving them visibility to the fact that that museum is a place they belong and their young child belongs so we're doing that we provide as soon as Universal prek went into effect we we extended the same free field trip accessibility to those groups as we did with Durham public schools and we've we've been actively working to help even before we opened play to learn we were offering to do we shared signage about how to register for for Durham prek and we have been speaking with Durham dur Public Schools about supporting us putting a full-time facilitator in that space to help with that is that answering your question about yeah I just I just you know I think it's important that we keep maintaining those relationships and especially as new providers come into Durham prek and you know I just want to make I think that's.
A great way for us to really connect you know across systems sure Comm yeah commissioner Wendy Jacobs you also mentioned the Early Childhood action plan and I do not believe the museum in the past was sitting on in that group or and so that would be something that we would love to have somebody represent the museum in those discussions we want to be wherever there's discussion going on about education most particularly early childhood education we'd love to be at the table to support and we have a new new Early Childhood coordinator so if Madam manager if we could make sure that those The Early Childhood coordinator gets the connection because I was also wondering about the ignite referrals how many are coming from Durham County social workers folks in Cooperative Extension who are working with families Public Health staff who are working with families and even our immigrant and Refugee coordinator I just think there could be a really good pipeline yes I can't tell you off the top of my head how many.
Are coming through those channels but we can certainly look into it and we can we can follow up with you on that okay great I was also I looked up the living building challenge that is the coolest thing right I yes like you all can now be setting an example for us you know because we do like the lead and all of that but that is that is just even so here you are setting setting the bar for for everybody do you in terms of revenues and I hear what you're saying you guys need other sources revenues do you feel like the cafe will be a potential I don't know how you guys have thought about the cafe but even and and you know I went to you guys had a holiday thing you know the adult programming like just I don't know is there a potential for that to be a good Revenue Source well it is already a good Revenue Source in the last year we.
Did add a beer and wine Garden at the Museum and so people have been availing themselves of that and with little to know disturbance that we've identified I think having seating that is more amendable to people all year round so when it gets very cold and when it's very hot will probably lead to more sales at the cafe we're we're envisioning projections over the the growth of the the five years after which we opened to almost double fantastic and also just want to throw I really love your focus now also on Youth and teens and I just want to mention we have a Durham city county office on youth that to connect with them on that Laura Kil is the director of that and they have you know another opportunity for connections and also suggest that you do follow up with Ellen Beckman our transportation director because one of the things that's was in our new transer program that we just looked at and I didn't ask about this today but there is.
In there was a new on demand service for Durham and it had education listed on there the purpose was one of the purposes was education so and this is to like pay for Lift rides so you know is there an opportunity that for certain parents who may be within meet some of these eligibility could you know get a free Uber lift ride for them and their children to the museum so that's that's something that I suggest you talk to Ellen about this is a new program for the work plan thank you commissioner Carter then commissioner howon well thanks for the fun and fascinating presentation I can honestly say that I think that you all are doing the best job with sort of community outreach and all the different ways in which you're trying to increase accessibility to the opportunities that the museum provides it it's it's the it's the best Outreach and effort I've seen since I've been a commissioner and I really really appreciate that very much you.
Know it is publicly funded as you say and should be accessible and really think you all believe in that and are making it happen so thanks and I love everything you're doing around the climate and sustainability and the the livings building you know setting the bar higher for us all and your future Focus I mean you clearly are Visionaries and you love science and you love people and you love making it happen and thank you so much we're proud we're proud to be part of a community that has you thank you commissioner Carter thank you so hello hello thank you so much for your presentation is absolutely fabulous there's one question I had the the ignite program I'm glad that to hear that that's still in operation what I didn't hear and you probably said it I what's the percentage of kids that are showing up do you have a number of young people that's using that program the number of the total people at the museum for the ignite program.
Program the ignite program I think we said we had 14,000 family visits through the our ignite membership so that's 14,000 visits out of 580,000 visits that doesn't include Durham County days I there are a lot of other accessibility programs that we have in place but for that one particular the measure that we're I I will say that we are trying to live up to for ignite memberships is we had set the goal of having our ignite memberships at about 10% of our total memberships The Challenge has been our memberships have grown we're now at nearly 177,000 member households within the community and so we should be at 1.7 so we should be at 1700 ignite households and we're working with our partners again putting in place these quarterly these quarterly program visits where our ignite Partners can come in and demonstrate to the people that they serve that this is a resource that they should Avail themselves of so we're working with those com with those Partners to try to raise the.
Number of of families taking advantage of th of those we're also looking at expanding our Partnerships in order to identify more families to bring into the fold but we're running we're running slightly behind on that because our memberships have grown so much recently thank you for that thank you again for all the work that you do I love you thank you commissioner howon thank you all so much once again I appreciate all of your work in Durham and I can't wait for my next visit I'll see youall again we'll see you there thanks commissioner.
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You that brings us to the end of our discussion items we do have two close session items under the same general statute so I'll read the board is requested to adjourn into close session to consult with an attorney employed or retained by the public body in order to preserve the attorney client privilege between the attorney and the public body which privilege is hereby acknowledged to General statute 14331 18.11 A3 and again that's for two items so moved okay moved by commissioner Jacob seconded by commissioner Carter all in favor I any opposed okay we are in close session thank you everyone for.
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We have met in close session and we've given direction to staff with that that brings us to the end of our work session so we are.
Adjourned.