Board of Commissioners · Regular Meeting · June 3, 2024

acknowledgement as we convene for the durm county commissioner's meeting it's crucial to recognize the painful truth of History we stand in the stolen ancestral lands of the katava Eno okichi shakori and the tuscaro peoples whose deep connection to this land predates our arrival we acknowledge with humility the unjust displacement and violence that occurred leading to the disposition of indigenous peoples from their homelands their resilience in the face of such adversity is a testament to their strength and their Spirit may we humbly honor the ancestors and Elders of those Nations both past and present by committing ourselves to fostering understanding healing and justice for all who inhabit this land let us walk forward together with Open Hearts acknowledging the past and embracing a future Guided by compassion respect and unity with that being said I did want to let everyone know that um I do have a family emergency it's kind of been going on for a little while I'm going to stay here as long as I can in the ignorant attempt that truth will at some point Prevail throughout these proceedings I did Reach Out to commissioner Carter and gave her to write a first refusal about

uh running the meeting so she is uh thankfully obliged uh we will go ahead and get started our first presentation that is slated to run for 90 minutes is during Public Schools discussion budget our chair has excuse me our um clerk has uploaded the presentation and we can proceed with our speakers not unless the manager has anything else to add all right thank you ma'am welcome superintendent Moore is it on okay good afternoon Vice chair Commissioners manager happy to be here today uh we're going to go ahead and get started I'll go ahead and go to the next slide I think I can advance can I Advance oh whoops did I do that or did you do that okay all right I always start with desired outcomes what I hope that we will get out of the presentation today I will say that in

the folders that you have you should all have a green folder you have a copy of this presentation you have a copy of um some uh FAQ that was sent out Friday afternoon and some responses some of those responses are on the paper and some of those responses required attachments that are all in the folder as well um so um but I will focus on the presentation in terms of what we will be doing today our intent today would be to provide you an overview of some District highlights um some current and future fiscal measures to reduce local expenditures kind of like um JB last week we got the memo as well um so we'll be talking about some of those things that we are doing in the district um and then we'll get into the 2425 board proposed budget request and we'll close out with some deferred needs that we want to talk about and then certainly give you an opportunity to ask questions as we move forward some District highlights and I'll spend a little bit of time and and talk a little bit about some of these Beyond what's on the screen for the 2223 school year

2% of Durham Public Schools met or exceeded growth goals it's almost 90% of the schools meeting or exceeding growth that is remarkable as we have come out of the pandemic for that percentage to be that high for the schools in the district as a subset of that 20 schools which is more than a third are ranked in the top 20% of North Carolina schools for AC academic growth um that is also remarkable for that many schools from one District to be in the top 20% and that leads to the third bullet um early this year I believe it was in January the New York Times featured Durham public schools in an article that really touted the district's pandemic recovery one of the things that's being tracked across this country is how well school systems are back to prepandemic levels with regards to academic outcomes for students and what districts are finding is that those um steps back and steps forward are happening but it is really remarkable that in Durham we have

achieved pre-pandemic levels still a lot of work to be done but that is a remarkable achievement in the face of how hard that has been for districts across this nation recently we received some accolades from the north CL Department of Public Instruction as DPS was named an AIG promising District what's important about this metric is that it recognizes that his historically the practices for identifying students for academically intellectually gifted services in the state has faced some scrutiny with regards to not resulting in Equitable outcomes for students of all colors and backgrounds and that um all students have gifts that are to be tal that and talents that are to be nurtured and that the manner in which a district um identify students for AIG Services can help reverse the course of what has been seen historically in the past and so during Public Schools is being recognized for the alternative Pathways to AIG identification we recently also had 10

schools that were recognized by magnet schools of America as Schools of Excellence or schools of Distinction this is also important it's the largest number that have been recognized certainly as Durham grows its magnet population as a part of the growing together initiative and then you heard about this one last week Duke Health Durham Tech and p ps received and almost 30 million is 29 a half Grant to open a new Early College focused on health careers what's particularly impactful about this piece of data is there's only one other program in the state of North Carolina that actually has three partners with an early college most Early College Partnerships are between the Community College the University or the university and the local school system the third partner here Duke health is what makes this remarkable and a standout that is that is not common it is I think the second program in the state that does that and then on a on a real specific note U Pearson toown Elementary School principal Asia Cunningham was the

recipient of the coveted milin educator award otherwise known as the Oscars of teaching this is not an award for which you can be nominated or that you seek out this is an award that the milkin foundation searches people Nationwide to award and recognize it comes with a 25 ,000 unrestricted cash gift to the recipient so Oscars of teaching for sure and then in reverse order from from what I did in the joint meeting I want to talk I want to start with some of the fiscal measures because there are a couple of additions to this so there are some things you know Duram Public Schools finds itself needing to really scrutinize and and as they should our local budget in particular and all of our resources as a result of the missteps and the miscalculations that happened in the past year with regards to the classified salary study um the shortfall that was identified and the

steps that had to be taken hurt people and I W I have to acknowledge that and as you know as I came in as interim it has been a priority to understand where all of our resources are and really examine um how we need to mark them and best utilize them moving forward so a couple of things that have happened um we have had some positions allocated to schools classroom teachers and assistant principles over the years that were beyond the formulas that are allocated by the state for this and that's okay to do so long as you're doing it within an established budget and you know you have the local dollars to do that so what we have done is we've eliminated the flexibility of additional positions Beyond what's already established in the base budget there have been times when after the school year began after the base budget was established requests have been made for needs and for right now anyway we are sticking with what's in the base budget to make sure that we have certainty that the funds are

available we have also eliminated the flexibility of some conversion from allotment categories meaning that in some cases you will receive a an allotment or a resource for a specific purpose and a school has been allowed to change it to a different purpose sometimes those are more allowed than other times and when they are not allowed through how our resources are marshaled and distributed to us from DPI that costs us local dollars we have to put those resources on local dollars and so once again in order to ensure that we are staying within the base budget that we have allocated for different categories we are freezing conversions for the next school year we are also having to do some tightening around hiring and payroll for teachers that have emergency licenses person permit to teacher EP programs residency license these are teachers who come in not with the certification that is already in place to have a teaching position we know that because of the needs in the district the pipeline not

being great alternative Pathways to teaching are important for all districts but there are periods of time and requirement that are bound within those alternative Pathways that you have a certain amount of time and steps that need to be taken in in order to convert that emergency license or convert that permit to teach to an actual teaching certificate and once we go beyond the life of the emergency permit or the permit to teach if you're going to continue to pay those teachers at a teacher salary and the local supplement that is hitting your local bucket because you cannot put them on state paid positions and take advantage of the positions that we are given by DPI um we've already eliminated we did that earlier this year eliminated out of state travel and reduced instate travel to emission critical that's already in place and it will continue into 2425 we did freeze local expenditures for the remainder of 2324 so whatever it is that you might want to spend needs to

be approved by cabinet in order in regardless of of um what it is whether it's School based or Central based if it's out of local funds um we have implemented a review process for all non-school-based hirings so that positions at Central Services are sitting vacant for a period of time before they are hired um or if they are hired and then this is a a new bullet that has a figure on it that was not in place at the last presentation uh we are looking at a minimum of a $6 million reduction to local non-personnel budgets for 24 25 that is for next year that is about a 15% reduction in non-personnel budgets for 2425 um we are not looking to schools for those funds we are are doing that at the Central Services level likely to impact supplies materials travel maybe electronic subscriptions um contract dollars for different kinds of things in the district um and we're still in the we haven't fully identified

where specifically but we know that amount and we'll talk more about that in a bit you've seen this slide before um this is uh updated with all of what's in the board's proposed budget I'll go through what's in each of the categories for refresher the green box at the top includes items that all districts have to implement that you don't really have a choice about um these are things that come from legislation uh you'll see for example there's a certified salary increase that's built into the second year of the banial budget estimated at 5% there's a classified salary increase estimated at 3% um that is based on the banal budget I I will stop here for just a second to say that if the legislature increases beyond what is currently in the second year of their adopted budget raises for teachers or

39 million is based on

5 million uh there is also an item for Master's pay um As You Are aware somewhere around 2011 or 12 the general assembly removed Master's pay moving forward for teachers who achieved the Masters it um if you had started your cours workk and you finished it you would be grandfather but anyone who started their masters after 2011 or 2012 is not eligible to receive

2 million and this number would change every year based on who in your District um has a masters and certainly If This Were to be implemented it might draw more teachers in that have Masters and has implications in future years the next item is the completion of the compensation study the implementation that was started last year that um the where the financially modeling did not actually project the actual number of funds that were needed the funds were not available um the board implemented an increased um classified schedules that basically ran from July through the end of February and then course corrected in March u based on available dollars in the budget um the

5 that came from the board's fund balance that was part of the budget appropriation for this year so all of that combined is um where we ended up with for this year's salaries and then in looking at what was

8 million dollar that includes not just the salaries but the retirement and the FICA increase you have some questions about that and there are some responses to that in the folders that include Mr crutchfield's schedules that show what the average raises look like across different categories however it's it's hard to zero in on a specific amount because it is still tied to how the an individual ual is placed on that schedule based on their years of experience but it shows you mins and Maxes and based on those mins and Maxes what the percent increas is um I will also say that the percent increase is at least 3% for everybody based on where they currently are because 3% is what's already in the legislative banal budget so everyone will increase at least 3% from where

2 million there's also a request in here for additional pre classrooms there are three classrooms scheduled to open at

5 to six million but we felt like that we needed to Stage that out over a multiple year ask so you would likely see this in in future years as if it rises to the level of a priority to continue to do that work in order to get to the level that's

7 there are some items that I I do feel compelled to to mention that are deferred needs that um we discussed as a part of the budget development process but did not make it into the final budget you can obviously see that the final budget request is compensation heavy as we've determined and the board has moved forward with that being the priority need for the district and within the the compensation um I think the the board has been pretty clear that the completing the work of the

compensation study is a priority for them um the technology refresh in order to continue to refresh all of the laptops and devices that were R doled out during the pandemic as we went to remote learning that is about an $8 million cost um that is likely to come down because we are eval re-evaluating right now in particular our K2 um device deployment and whether or not that still needs to be one to one we are currently one: one there um but but we are evaluating whether or not that needs to continue in the early grades um we have some deferred needs around curriculum resources and subscriptions it's about $2 million um that we would request there some additional staff in some critical needs areas for 4 million this would be counselors social workers restorative practices coordinators at the elementary school the district has a focus and a priority on restorative practices in all of our schools that are required to engage in restorative practices to

support students there are positions allocated for a coordinator at the secondary level middle and high but there are not positions allocated at the elementary level for this need and then the the biggest chunk really is the operational needs that we have moving forward um between HVAC and life cycle repairs and Replacements Safety and Security needs that are related to fire safety and some equipment and repair needs related to um successfully implementing c districtwide as we move forward and that is around 25 to 30 million in all three of those areas this is the what I've been calling the money slide again and um happy to open it up for questions that's the that's the end of my formal presentation but you have a lot of information in front of you and want to let it go now for you for questions ladies if um you all do want to stop here as opposed to going on

through the presentation I would be more than happy to oblige it is of course at the pleasure of the board I know yeah I'm looking at you uh I know are there any slides in particular that anybody wanted um superintendent more to go over before we proceeded into the Q&A portion yes oh I'm looking at you you got your hand up before we go yeah thank you so much um for the information that's in the folder I really appreciate it obviously we will look at it later um but I appreciate it um and also I appreciated the information about um some of the things that you're implementing to control costs and to uh step up to the financial crisis that we're in right now um how will you make turn those the actions that you are taking now into actual policy moving forward

um so there's this is actually sort of embedded in in some of the responses we are there are a number of things that we have to sort of dust off revise update or create in order to institutionalize some of these changes um we are updating the finance manual that we currently have in the district that's not been updated in the number of years to include some of these changes and codify some of them in the manual so that they are socialized and train trained on across all districts an extension of the update of the finance manual is a budget manager training that is being developed and will be rolled out to all school-based bookkeepers so that they have an understanding of the law the policies that are in place and in terms of how to effectively manage the budgets at the school level that training will also be applied to anybody at Central Services who manages a budget it will also be applied to every principal in

the district so those are the three priority areas to achieve budget manager training um I'm working with um NC asbo the north Carina School business Officers Association that has training modules available for bookkeepers and principles around this work so we're working now on timing of doing that and when that can be done uh the target for it is for that training to occur prior to the beginning of the next school year the complete revision of the finance manual may not happen by the beginning of the school year but it'll already be in progress um and then so those are the pieces associated with sort of day-to-day finances um another piece that is um that that I'm working on as a again a thirdparty consultant to help work with our human resources staff and our payroll staff to develop an allotment manual and that is a manual that speaks specifically to the resources that we are allocated for from the state from our federal sources and local sources so that we can clearly see

the formulas that guide the implementation of how resources are allocated to schools so that you can also include within that manual what flexibility exists and where and what the processes are to exercise that flexibility and it is a manual that will be available to everyone to see so that it is um transparent to the public to all of our schools all of our stakeholders so that they can see how we are using our resources so those are some of the things that are in place that will move forward to help codify the things that you've seen already well thank you I mean what you just said is really critical because um and I know you're here as an interim and I appreciate what the work that you're leading but the kind of challenges that we're facing it's not just a oneoff this is the future right and so we have to have um the types of things that you're talking about institutionalized um unfortunately that we are looking at a future with less

resources so I I appreciate that um related to um the budget itself and the decisions around compensation just to clarify the where we are right now and I'm trying to understand and like what level are we at now are we at um are we basing the new um you know whether it's the teach the certified or the classified increases is it based on the criteria that existed before October of 2023 plus the 11% like what is the floor that we're at now and what is the criteria or the policy that is that you are using right now moving forward for how compensation will be um allocated so

I'm I'm going to assume that this is specifically about the classified compensation but if it's not I'll I'll tag on to that so um so I call it a I call it the hill implementation because it was what was imple implemented between July one and end of February which was I think voted on by the board in October or November um was not the hill recommendation but it was based on the hill the hill document the hill work with a couple of changes um namely um the hill recommendation did not provide for everyone to be paid on their current years of service but rather the recommendation was to be paid on state years of service when the board voted to implement the hill recommendations but to implement it with actual years of service that actually is is part of what drove up the cost and that's where the

1 million that was allocated from the commissioner's local

8 million million that's requested for the compensation study is to implement the proposed salary schedules that Mr Crutchfield has developed which are are largely they over 90% of those schedules have a starting Min that is

exactly the same as what the previous compensation study recommended but how you get from year to year in terms of steps and what those increases look like did drop off some because the previous uh salary study recommended 1 and a half% raises every year as you went up this one is more like 1% and so you didn't rise as quickly as you went through the years of service and the schedules that Mr Crutchfield has developed also do not exceed state maximums in in categories which in the previous um compensation study some of the the job classifications because of the 1 and a half% every year at the top of the scale exceeded state maximums so that's been um fit within the mens and the maximums for the state for those positions and that additional cost as we uh marked it out through our existing

8 million okay so you you said that we're now starting at at n a a base of $90 million more 90 million total to okay okay 90 million total okay um and then just trying to understand this um what has been done about the whole issue of using this way the state looks at experience versus the way during Public Schools what is the policy that is going to be used yep so that that's work that's happening right now we presented to the board at the at the last work session or last meeting a draft of a salary Administration policy so that is still in discussion and before the board right now there are some decisions that need to be made about once these schedules are adopted and people are

placed on the schedules what does what do raises and movement look like beyond that and and there are options for how to do that um you can build a schedule that that looks like it has steps and has a percent increase from one year to the next um right now those steps are are assumed within the mens and Maxes in the comp controller schedules but right now those steps are for placement where does a current staff person go the board has indicated that where we place an an existing DPS employee right now will be based on their years of experience not the state definition but the Durham County the way they've been doing it for years so that no employee goes backwards quite frankly um and they maintain their years of experience as they are currently being paid uh but it is what happens after this implementation year

that is part of what's in the salary Administration policy do you build in the steps as a permanent feature of the salary schedules and the assumption is that every year there's a 1% increase or whatever it is the board determines um or do you um instead provide language in a salary Administration policy that reflects that we will be responsive to what the general assembly does and intentional asks that may come before the Commissioners and are potentially funded and adopted in a final budget resolution of the board for what that would look like um employees prefer the first because it's built into the schedule but building it into the schedule if you were to do about a 1% raise year over year which is what Durham has done in the past it's give or take more or less depending on what job category you are in but you can see at $90 million 1% would be almost another

million dollar it's $900,000 would be more than that based on what gets applied here this coming year so it's about another million dollars every year if all staff stay in place and move forward a year but whether or not you actually need that million dollars to implement a 1% increase really depends on the in and out flows of Staff you have staff that retire staff that leave new staff that come in and so you you may be able to absorb that million dollars within the 90 million based on what happens with movement with staff there's just no way to really know so um most newer salary Administration type policies recommend not having steps and instead building in whatever ask is made as a part of the budget development process so you know that this is what we're asking for and if we get it good if we don't then we don't or what the legislature does and so it's it's kind of like an Andor um but that is less certain for staff

8 million is to achieve salary schedules that are market rate responsive that is that is what it will cost to implement the work that was done over the past year or two to raise classifications different job category classifications to the market rate and then beyond 2425 that is what's in the salary Administration policy this sets the Baseline so this is the new Baseline and

does this right size some of and I'll stop after this does this right SI help now CU I ain't about to help them you better go ahead and be nice I about to be does this rightsize some of the kind of um things that we heard about before where some people got you know disproportionate increases that were not necessarily market rate um that exceeded market rate um does this just is what implementing this actually will it address some of the actual inequities that were actually created before so um when you look at the com controller schedules those raises are between 3% and no and the high is like 17 whereas when the the hill study was Implement was the the recommendations they brought forth and then what the board implemented was from 4% to 40 some per so and and that was

based on again years of experience and that one and a half percent per year so this does right siize that which is why some employees don't want it um it's um it is not what their paycheck reflected from technically July to the end of February but it is um a minimum of the 3% that is coming from the legislature or higher depending on what's in the schedule but the highest in the schedule I think I've seen is 17 and do we have the controllers you do have those you have those in there yes you do okay all right thank you and I'll stop I have some more but I'll wait no you're good and I um so that so that y'all can get all the warm and fuzzy because um I I did tell folks beforehand that I I had to leave because I had a family emergency and honestly I should have left before now um I really should have but I have put this job ahead of family and thank God November 25th I don't have to do that no more um

what I will say uh a couple of things I like how you put it achieve salary schedule that is market rate responsive I think across the board that is what everybody in here wants um so oh commissioner let me finish my commissioner Carter will continue the rest of the meeting I I saw some folks walk in and they might be curious as why I left and it's it's about five of y'all that walked in who don't do nothing but lie on black people so I want to make sure I told the truth again all right so commissioner Carter will be the one back backing it up um I want to throw something out there I caught that nod that you said in the beginning you said you saw JB buckon uh do his presentation and you say you got the note I need you to understand superintendent Moore this ain't got nothing to do with you I W i woman to woman if I see you on the street in 10 years I need you know ain't got nothing to do with you so I can to appreciate you outlining the accolades of during Public Schools the five women up here commissioner uh commissioner uh chair uh Alam is not here we don't need

nobody to roll out the red carpet like we do appreciate what our teachers do we do appreciate what our principes do we are in community with them whenever this group of people who surprisingly showed up today uh decides to invite us to a ribon cutting if they decide to ask us for some money if they decide to say hey we're doing this with some solar panels there art we in the midst like we try to show up because we want to and I also one Accolade that's not up there and and and quite frankly L again cuz you only got here we sitting up here talking about these accolades I just want to say big UPS to Dr muinga that was unceremoniously thrown out of this government so I thank him for some of these accolades I was there uh at for Asia uh Cunningham when she got the milk and award this is the same black woman who was a principal that they tried to fire a couple years ago because they say she didn't know what she was doing but now she's awardwinning and got $25,000 and they wanted her from the outside this is the same woman that's running a school that's going to have 219 more black kids at and I see parents coming up there every day or every other day up

to the school board saying we don't want those kids here cuz they don't learn like our kids learn they don't know what monory is they don't know what the IB program is but the growing together got everybody in their feelings about it because for once we're finally going to merge these schools but they didn't want that black woman there as soon as she won now they don't want black kids over there with the black woman and I don't have a problem saying this because it's the truth right like that's not me picking on anybody that's me saying it is what it is when we had an issue with Durham School of the Arts black parents came in there and said this is how my child is treated we had a black woman Dr Muhammad to come in you don't know this that woman came in there she went to I say for three days with her child Prince abundance and the teachers never noticed her she video oh I still got it I'll be more than happy to email it to you and she sit there and she cried with her son that is not an indictment of DSA that is an indictment of whatever person was running ISS that day so don't go out and say commissioner burns suanti the woman cried in her car because she sit in there it's like 11 black kids in there no teacher no homework no anything her son got in the car with her and he broke

down crying he said Mama this how they treat us every day and so when I get emails like that and I get videos like that and this woman could just sit and I ass this and nobody say anything I send them to the school board members and you know what I get might get a reply ain't never got a response about it ain't got a response about the other email that I sent to y'all that we're not g to talk about and I say all that to say to the teachers in here to the members of De who are in here if a pop if the microwave over in this room right here I love my staff I'm about to talk about y'all if I was to burn some popcorn in the microwave over here these people would email and swear up and down they got expiation I can't come to work commissioner Burton is trying to kill us with popcorn I believe that when people don't like the food at the jail they email us when people don't like the air that they breathe somewhere they email us so when those teachers came and stood up there the other day and they said to us there is mold in my classroom I'm like this ain't the first time that they this has come up this cannot be the first time when we had somebody to come to us the first year from DSA about the chillers that had not

been repaired but but Wendel Davis had given them the money and then we had to go into fund balance or go into one fund to go out and find the money to buy a brand new one the very next year we had uh I won't say which Elementary School it was because I don't want to get it wrong on camera we had an elementary school that did not have a stove and I was like how in the world are y'all heating up food for these kids they were heating them up in the warmer so these little black it was a majority black school didn't have a stove if they would have come to any other the five women sitting here we'd have moved the money that day if you would have told us that there was an issue with Mo we would have moved that day and y'all sitting up here with a fund balance you sitting up here with money from the 2016 Bond there were Capital Improvement dollars I've even I agree with my colleagues that we need to there's some more money that could be put in the capital Improvement dollars and I'm willing to work on that but what I can't understand is how we in my this is me speaking because I know only a few one of my board members has told me she don't agree with this what I don't understand I'm going look at y'all is how y'all allow this thing to go on for this long and you ain't Advocate to us like that's not even a joke I'm looking

at the school board right now and I've talked to my board members no one has come to them about the other day when that woman said 90 days with no HVAC I would have never wanted that for a child please show me the email where that was sent to us please show me where that was communic they can't so if I know they not advocating for these black kids that feel like they're dealing with racial disparities to the teachers that are sitting in the back of the room texting on their phones pretending like I'm not talking they dang show can advocate for y'all so that's where the issue is y'all like okay what we need to get do let's get rid of the black people mbinga gone Bost gone all right now Ma Burton gone Brenda Howton gone CJ Davis gone Elaine O'Neal gone we ain't the problem we are not the problem it's the folks sitting in the boat not wanting to rock it they more comfortable sitting in the boat as an elected official I don't have a problem getting in there in the pool with the black kids that's drowning I scared the hell out of my staff last week you know why cuz I finally broke down crying because I know I got to get the money right over here but I got dead black kids in durm I watched teachers sitting here the other day when Dennis

Garrett got up there and they roll their eyes he said you know I'm trying to help these kids because they're not in school that wasn't an indictment of them if a kid get shot at age 14 at 10:30 by virtue of the fact that he is 14 and it's 11 o' he was not in school that is a fact that is nothing to do with teaching what I think is that we have had a school board and I'mma say it to y'all face since y'all here who have failed these students I have no problem saying that to y'all since y'all don't pick up the phone when I call I have absolutely no problem saying that we sat in a joint City County school board meeting the other day and you had the nerve enough to say oh my gosh our tax rate is lower than weight counties before I can say anything this commissioner this commissioner said it's not this is before they changed it you've been sitting on this board for 10 12 years and you don't even know what a tax rate is bro do a home and Homemaker like help me out like I I I I don't get it at this point how you don't know that but and I'm saying this to the teachers the person that you elect that does not know what the tax rate is if she don't know what the tax rate is how in the world can she ask for money for y'all she can't cuz she don't even know what she

doing cuz she don't pay bills in her own house so I'mma say that the other thing I want to point out here the um you said that and and and I get it you want to defend them you in community with them you ain't in community with me so you don't know me you don't know me but you said it was divisive and irresponsible to break down the dollar amounts well the dollar amounts are broken down when they're bought to us so I don't see that there's a problem that we regurg toate those back but the reason why we doing some people up here do it to protect themselves because they know if they send money over there they can't we don't legally we can't say what to do with it but the other reason why I like to say it is because for 50 years before I was here before you was here black families had gross disinvestment in their schools and so they want to know where the money goes you know why the parents can tell you where the Bloomberg money is going cuz y'all did a press release you know how they can tell you about growing together with the um Mackenzie scotman because you told them you have to tell parents and you can tell what folks at the school board want to tell parents and what they don't want to tell parents and I'm going to end this up cuz right now we're doing a superintendent search thank God Javan Lewis went to the durm committee and say

hey durh committee I think y'all need to demand to have a meeting you need to demand to have one between the zoom and people in person because once again I was there I don't know if y'all notice I show it for y'all y'all don't show it for us I showed up there was some great questions asked some great stuff put forth it was about 45 people before the between the zoom in that and that's at the durm committee between and somebody get me right Hillside Riverside excuse me Hillside Southern which whatever the three high schools were there were not even 15 parents that showed up for a superintendent search in a school of over 30,000 children let that sink in I couldn't believe how how is it at the last minute we sent something to the durm committee and we almost got 50 people to show up and you all had sent out an email for weeks about the superintendent search and we couldn't even get 15 parents so I want folks to understand there is a concerted effort to keep people ignorant whether it be children whether it be teachers whether it be parents and I'm going to end on this because I see it's a lot of letters going around for three years I've been on this board and everything that the

school board has asked for we have voted on but we have gotten letters to our homes that say we are disappointed in you most pointedly they say they disappointed in this woman this woman doesn't do anything that we we don't ask her she need three votes to move anything in this budget so once again we're like how can we attack the black executive that's done absolutely nothing cuz that's what y'all really good at so that's where the letters have gone to I'm disappointed in her y'all ain't sent no letters to Phil Burger House you ain't sent no letters to Tim Moore house and those are the people that are in a position to actually fund public schools and they're doing it because they don't want to and we are doing it because we literally can't I broke down crying the other day because not because of this but because there was a black man standing there y'all know chief chers he just want to save black kids he could be home retiring he was like I just need this money to save a few more black kids and I'm crying because you all want them to go to school I want to go to school but I want them to be alive and this man wants him to be alive too and in trying to help you with your budget I can't help him and that is a horrible feeling to think that you have to help somebody beg for their life and

that is what we do up here that's it's a few of us up here y'all a here denti y'all don't know about the gang violence that goes on at night y'all don't know about the about the prostitute Superior prop you don't know some of the stuff that we see in on on this County Commission you just and I get it I swear to God I get it I don't want to I don't want kids to have to be without HVAC I don't want to be without good food I don't want being mold but you all came in here and you all put something on us and to be honest my colleagues will tell you I've talked to the majority of them we G to try to do something we gonna try to do something and it's not because and I'm G say this so unequivocally but after the meeting didn't me and you talk and we came up with a number and we came say how we going to do it I'm I'm in sense that we got to raise taxes in the city does and the only thing we going to do is put more black people out of their homes because that's what this is going to do I've talked to um commissioner Alam I've talked to commissioner C I haven't talked to commissioner Howard yeah but you know who ain't talk to us about y'all money then people who walked up in here with this performative allyship today so we're going to try to figure this thing out we are and I and I

agree with somebody I don't want ma'am I I I've looked you up I don't have no problem with you I get it they done told you to hate me that's fine I hope we can have coffee in a decade but I don't want the new superintendent to come in here and and be at a disadvantage either but the reason why commissioner Wendy Jacobs is asking all these pointed questions is because quite frankly we have given you more money M every year after year after year after year and every year you mismanagement so mismanage it so when we ask questions it's has nothing to do with your Acumen as a teacher it has everything to do with the fact that you have seven people over there who have disenfranchised you all by mismanaging your money for the past decade and they GNA continue to do it after it because we just got done with an election and so that is what is scary to us I don't know she asked three different ways what controls do you have in place what controls because she that's her nice of saying I don't trust y'all neither that is her nice way of saying I don't trust y'all either and that's why she said is it codified like is it somewhere where we can legally say y'all do not mess up

this money again so please stop this craziness about the school the County Commission does not support teachers stop all of it we don't trust the school board I excuse me I don't trust the school board and I'm okay saying that and I don't have I don't think black parents have a problem with me saying that because they don't and last time I checked we a see a whole bunch of them at the public hearing I'mma y'all think I didn't unload like I wanted to I got to go pray my sister about to go into surgery I really want to say some other stuff to y'all but I'mma hold my M as my daddy would say does anybody you like you want to respond to something do you have something it that has to the Dae folks I I ain't got nothing against y'all I got something against the fact that you all have been LED astray by people who do not know what they doing the only thing I wanted to say is I I do think it's important in in this interim seat happening to be here during this process to to elevate the things that that have not risen to the level of community conversation um because I part

of my primary role from day one is to build a bridge to whoever the next superintendent is and by really bringing to light the places where investments in particular for me it's the operations and the facilities piece that has been deferred years over years over years and perhaps there's not been great understanding of what those needs are like given the age of our buildings and what's happening in them now this initial request talking about the amount of the Deferred needs that would that would need to be put in place in order to move forward the because I have that data now because I've asked people to produce it I think it is important to share it because um whoever comes into the seat next is going to be sitting in some needs that are critical moving forward and elevating some of that at this point in time um trying to deal with the the classified compensation work that did not get implemented properly in the last year

based on the financial modeling just didn't work um trying to tackle where that is now and and bring to light what I know what I found what we're able to you know everything that we're able to talk about so that whoever comes into this seat next some of those more difficult pieces uh about what the landscape looks like moving forward and what the needs are have been brought to light so that that person has really quite frankly the the greatest opportunity to be successful because some things have already been put out in the universe prior to him or her coming on for commissioner Carter um well thank you interim superintendent Moore for this intense heavy folder of work information for us um I know that we'll all study it and it'll help us you know get a little closer to trying to understand what the board of education has to understand about its complicated budget and I do

think that the school systems across you know North Carolina their budgets are some of the most complex because there multiple sources of funding that have to be taken into account there's dollar allotments from the state there's teacher allotments from from the state there's effort to try to work with those in such a way to maximize the use of the State dollars I I just remember thinking it was incredibly difficult to um understand the school district's budget um and I know that there have been some grave hum errors made this past year related to wages and this work is intensely uh it's a human endeavor and so you know mistakes will be made and now we're really trying to work together to correct and I appreciate all the that's been done to date by the Board of Education and by the interim Administration to um to write to reset and and to try to right size um I really appreciate honestly hearing having you start with some

accolades those were those were wonderful points of information for us that we should all be lifting up to celebrate our public schools to to to try to build faith and confidence in our Public Schools um because that's that's what we want we I we I really think we all want this every single one of us want Durham to be um the county that has we want to be known for having the best schools not just you know having great food in our restaurants and playing the best basketball we want to have the best schools um and and I believe that we are on a trajectory to get there um so it's also incredible the reductions in spending that you've recommended the 15% operating reductions um the the the one that amounted to $6 million um and not only that but the Deferred needs and I I did want to ask about that because I do believe that facility needs have been deferred for almost a decade

um I remember in 2016 um that there was a need close to I think a half a billion dollars then for Capital maintenance needs and and in building new schools kinds of projects and the bond that went forward at that time was only 91 million and so these things do compound over time um and that and that is what I think contributed to some of the comments we heard about 90 days of no air conditioning and that is something that none of us want to have I know you all don't want to have it we don't want to have it and so when I see deferred HVAC needs and things it worries me um will we be fixing schools when they come forward and say our you know air conditioning is broken and my child doesn't have water in the water fountain and these kinds of things that we're hearing those aren't going to be deferred we're triaging you're triaging we're triaging so um I could give you a list right now of five million dollars

worth of thing things that have been designed and are ready to go and we don't have the funds for okay and I could give you another list of about we anticipate being another $5 million worth of needs that are priorities right behind it but they haven't been designed yet but there's five million has already been designed ready to go um I just I asked for all of that after I got here okay so um when I got here and I saw where we were headed and what might be part of the budget development process I was like I need I need numbers I need order of schools I need what our most critical areas of needs are and you have some a little bit of document that's a few years old actually in the back of your document as well but I've asked for some updated information to see because some work has been done since those documents were created that are at the back of your packet um there you know there's over $16 Million worth of work that's been done in schools through the Esser funds there's a chart that you have in your in your materials that shows that um it's a big need and um but we are triaging right now which means

that if something goes out we're going we're we go and figure out what it needs to to happen to be fixed we have a few projects that we do every year that are life cycle type things but everything is past its actual life for the most part and um our our buildings have way gone beyond their their life expectancy and the equipment and supplies and so forth in there as well um the other thing when buildings are this old if you need a part that's not made anymore you we actually Source the part from an ered unit in another County about a month ago where we sort of had to um I had I had to be engaged because I had to sign paperwork to to allow it to expedite it and move it through the budget process so that we could drive to whatever County this was in to pick up

the piece that they had in an ER Chiller unit or something along those lines to bring back to a school here because those parts and those units aren't even made anymore that is becoming all too common um in terms of how we have to find the parts in order to repair existing facilities equipment um and and that is why a plan to move forward that prioritizes our highest needs that starts that is ready to go um when funds are available um that it's in place and i' just like to say thank you to commissioner Burton because we got to ask so and and so um hearing all that you know was great to know that you know you're being a triage doctor now and trying to figure out what what needs to be um maintained first um Can Can we I don't know can we have some understanding I guess from our staff and

from um the DPS Administration about how we'll work together to address all these Capital needs that are feeling so urgent now like using the general obligation Bond funding that we have using our ability to leverage limited obligation bonds any arpa funding any you know just and I think we even received something about some some ideas but um not asking for you know the exact process or procedure or plan right now but we I would like some reassurance that we have one or that we're going to have one soon so that we can take care of our schools Capital needs the schools that I think have an average age of 50 years old I I'll just say that I have asked the board chair to reach out um I did reach out via email to the county manager about a week ago or so to say at some point can we get a meeting together to talk about some of these things so hopefully something will be calendared soon um on my side on our side for the

school system side we're working on getting the information that's necessary to understand how much we're talking about what the priorities are and and then to to be ready for the conversation on how how do we partner to move forward and one thing I don't really understand is if there's 5 million of planned and designed projects ready to move forward could any of the general obligation Bond money be used for that would you want to do that would that set you you know off off off of a of a you know pathway that you're already on that you that is you know the policy decision of the board is its best to keep going that way just wondering about well I don't I don't think we have contemplated changing and and you've got some documents um that let you know sort of what the current status is of the CIP and the implementation and where those dollars are implemented are allocated right now what's already been spent in different areas I I would say that I have certainly not had the conversation about reallocating those dollars to help meet

some of those needs I'm perfectly comfortable having that conversation um but I I I need to have it I need to I need to know where we are already obligated what where we are already moving forward on different kinds of things and whether or not that rearranging is something you know what the cost is you know just the pros and cons of it right the pros and cons exactly which I would have no idea what those are um without having you know the opportunity to to study that kind of thing in detail and nor do I as a commissioner want to be accountable for that for the decisions that you have all the information on um people have asked us to be about some of these Capital things and I I I I think we need to respect the the boundaries of authority there um doesn't mean we can't ask a lot of questions clearly which we do like to do but we are always we are collaboratively we must be good stewards of the public dollar exactly okay that's all for me for right now thanks um I I just well let me just say I wanted to piggy back on Wendy's I want to be clear that I understand the

8 million for implementation of the classified um salary study will put the put DPS on the trajectory to be market rate competitive including Durham County as a market partner um it it'll achieve the market rate base pay that was the goal of the compensation study and I just I almost hate stepping into this but I want to be completely transparent that is not the same as a living wage is it is it the same as the calculated living wage that Durham County has for its employees it is not it is not and and so those are I see those as parallel paths but they are not the same in this particular case um that number would be much higher if we were talking about a living wage based on Durham um and dealing with what would likely be

8 million if if I think it's just shy of 18 it's just shy of 18 so we had the fight for 15 and then we had the fight

for 17 and we're up to 18 are we moving we would I I would hope that as a community we want to move towards the fight for living wage you know whatever it is calculated as um and think about that collectively between the city the school district and the county and we all pay this we all have the same living wage and we have our living wage policies and we adhere to them as a community so if we could work on that too as a plan going forward if it can't happen this year and it's feeling really uh dismal that that's a possibility um I would at least like a a multiyear plan for how to be sure that Durham public school's lowest paid staff are making the same lowest minimum wage that Durham County is making thank you before we go to commissioner Howton I want to go to the manager she has something she wanted to ask yes ma'am I just wanted to respond to commissioner Carter's question about are we looking at doing things differently and so just want to recall that that was the when we first got the

$26 million ask it's one of the things that I said to this board is we are going to have to make a seismic shift in how we receive review and make decisions about funding the schools we cannot continue to operate this way it is not productive um our kids deserve better our community deserves better and so the suggestion that I brought forward was that we now meet with the school system on a regular basis to have these types of conversations to ask the questions that you have asked because that may have very well been the place where things came up to say hey we have an hva system that is down I know our staff DCM Hager has said that is something we want to make sure we immediately address and so that is what we are proposing we are looking to meet um on Wednesday we are looking hopefully looking at 9:30 in the

morning I've already spoken with cherum she said that she will be in person so um my administrative my um executive assistant is looking to get that calendar she's going to work with the um clerk staff to hopefully get that calendared I've spoken with Vice chair Burton about it she said that she will be available so we're looking to have our first of those conversations on this coming Wednesday June 5th if that time doesn't work we will look to make sure it happens within this week that is what we are trying to do and I know you got a question that's like zil her but I want to be fair commissioner Howton go ahead thank you um so where do I start um superintendent uh more you know there's so much that's going on in my head and um Financial confidence

is uh a question for me Financial confidence in our leaders you know most of these conversations that I'm hearing today I've heard them before and before and before this is not new information that I'm hearing when we talk about the things the mang is the services that needs to be happening at the schools I've heard them every year we do bonds we give the money the last three years that I was a chair we fully funded DPS every year for what they ask so this is not new information when you say the air conditioning units or the whatever is not working I I the question for me is

financial what is happening financially in DPS that every year we get the same questions and this year is compounded it's double what we've been hearing I've been on this board for 16 years and I've heard the same question the same concerns we're not moving we're not moving forward we are in a position of even going backward um you know I'm I'm I'm I'm really perplexed when Commissioner Burton says she's talked to most of the board B talk to me because I have questions that the financial stability of how it's being managed a DPS and you haven't been here I understand that you're here trying to

manage an emergency that has happened I get that but these questions and mean we talked the last three years we had before this manager we had another manager asked for accountability they fire they run him out of DM because he ask for accountability of what's going on without tax dollars so anytime someone from this board a began to ask those questions they get fired or they get unelected well I don't have to worry about that I've served my time so I'm asking the questions that everybody every citizen in this County because the more we raise taxes the more seniors that will be out of their homes because they can't afford

it but when I talk to some of the people that I've talked to over the last few few weeks about the money and raising taxes even more what they tell me is that's not their concern well it is my concern our children are my concern and see iors are my concern I can't say it's not my concern cuz they seniors have invested their lives in this community and in their homes and we're saying okay too bad we gonna raise your taxes because DPS demands that they get more money or people will leave Durham do you know how many times I've heard that crap and I G say what it what it really is to me I've heard that over and over again

5 million we are cutting all of our dep departments by 10% we are deal we are just cutting everything we can to try and give DPS money I don't think that's fair to the rest of our Community I really I I'm just struggling with that because it's it's just totally not fair to the rest of the

5 this year what will be the acts next year to ask on to that and the citizens in this community has to pay for that and not only that but when you we talk about the schools and if if we're having problems with the maintenance in our schools what's happening to the bonds What's happen we we do a bond what every we've been doing it every what four or five years went years did we go nine years okay so we did one the last year now we're getting ready to do another one so I'm just really struggling with the

8 million this is the second year and so it is about completing the work that started in the past year that is costing more than what was modeled that and

that's we're reporting what it will cost um Durham has a Cadence over the last few years of asking for support for teacher salaries one year classified salary the next year and alternating that um so this year for the request for 2425 would have been a request for support for Teacher compensation certified staff compensation and not classified so in this particular case because of the compensation study and the classified salary schedules being botched in the last school year and a commitment to try to see that work through you see both in the requests this year where normally it's only been one or the other um I do think it it it you know of note the 6 million that is provided every year for uh Capital has been 6 million for a while now and that is um that is what funds daily upkeep and needs not

deferred needs of of capital needs um so so increasing that amount is is just recognizing that the 6 million is your day-to-day putting out the fire and maintenance that's needed cutting grass that sort of thing um it is not the number of chillers that are going down the number of hbac units that need to be replaced that sort of thing and um I I do think that how a bond is is allocated if there is space for that negotiation um and and whatever the the process is that the Commissioners or the school system have in place to make changes in in that is something that we need to do if we haven't already done that um and that's I mean that suggestion was made earlier and that's something I'm taking out of here and and going back with to see okay what what is the space that's there in terms of where we're committed and where there might be space to rearrange that so let me let me ask one other thing um so if you've got schools that are in

trouble that are having maintenance issues why do you why do we build new schools and the schools that we have are in trouble need maintenance and we're building new schools and the other thing is we're losing students so we're losing students but we're building new schools and the the ones that we have in trouble so how do you how do you explain that yeah so I think that is the community that has come together to what whatever the the messaging on the last bond proposal for new schools it from my understanding um has to do with both anticipated growth um that's based on how residential permits are being there's there's a science to geoca where a new school is needed based on what's happening with residential growth and

where current schools exist that is the work that what I am used to happens in the background prior to citing new schools and determining where new school needs to be built um the County does not have the kind of growth in its overall numbers over the last few years that that seems to indicate that need but there must be some future modeling that has happened that indicated that need that is what was presented and approved um as a part of what was put forth before the voters so that I I don't if I could speak fully to that but I was wondering when one of y'all was going to come up here and help this woman I just first let me say thank you um this collaboration does take transparency and honesty and uh accountability so this is conversation is important for us to know where y'all are what you're thinking the questions that you have so we can chart a path forward um I've been appreciative of Dr so Well's uh openness to the collaboration between us and more regular meetings so that we can have more of this conversation uh and I've

asked too for a multi-year budget because we have to be planning more intentionally around these increased asss especially the ones that we might know we we anticipate coming um so to your question around over we have schools in South Durham that are overcrowded we have students in trailers they are busting at the seams and the population growth in durm is mostly in the South and then the East so the new schools the new elementary schools that we've built are in South Durham to help relieve overcrowding and some of those schools in the whole County in the whole DPS though yes enrollment is decreasing but we've seen booms in certain areas in those School schools were overflowing with students um some of that happened in redistricting moving some students around and opening the new schools have allowed to alleviate the overcrowding that's mostly in the South where we see that happening some of the projections for where future neighborhoods are coming we can see that in the East we're watching closely around um where new developments are coming so if those schools become overcrowded how are we

going to move students around and make sure that the buildings aren't overflowing we see in North durm we don't have as much of a boom but you got a South and North are very far apart so how are we making sure we're building schools for capacity for those students so but that still doesn't un doesn't explain the lack of strategy and planning for what's happening to your other buildings you know is there a fiveyear plan is there plan for to do all these things that you're saying that's going to be done and where's the accountability of any of this I mean the more we give money the L the less accountability there is so I I'll just say that there is a plan on paper there's just not funding behind the plan and when I've looked at the last few

years worth of budget requests that have come from the system I was trying to get a Cadence for how requests are made and and how they're divided up there has been increased requests for funds 10 million two years in a row but those requests did not include dollar specifically targeted towards Capital needs um they were about compensation or other needs in the district not for Capital needs this is the first budget in several years that I saw that includes anything in capital as a part of its request um which is why the suggestion made earlier about visiting what's in the the CIP to see if there's space there is if there's a mechanism to do that I think that's an important look next look but the district has not been requesting dollars targeted towards maintenance operations Capital needs so I remember there was a a request for Chillers um that we provided the resources for I I don't have the list of

5 and any work moving forward is about is applying strategy to looking longterm what those needs are and prioritizing and asking for the funds wherever they might need to come from in order to do the work that the work the need is not going to go away so you're saying that that had up till now there has not been included in the budget process uh it well it I think it's been discussed every year and it's been deferred every year in deference to the work that's been done around salaries and other needs in the district that Rose above these Capital needs and and so I think what's important about this one but come to this board it did what now it did not come to no it did not come to this board I do not believe that I have seen it come to this board unless it was a one-off like you mentioned yeah yeah I

I'm just and I'll just also say that for this I also say that for the for the last three years anyway it probably would not have come to this board because of the availability of the yeser funds right and so there was you know $16 million of the the most recent Sr funds have gone into school type facilities in terms of needs um and so HVAC chillers that sort of work um air quality things um that were allowable expenses so you probably wouldn't have seen it for at least the last three years because of the availability of Sr funds you know I I I'm G say this and I'm GNA be finished uh uh Vice chair um I was just at a meeting a board of directors meeting for the State Association of all County Commissioners and we had speakers there that talked about some of our representative talked about increasing in taxes for

education and and these were not just Republicans these were Democrats as well so because you know we so and they both said no and you've got 50 Commissioners across the state that are struggling with the same issue struggling with how do they fund their Public Schools it is not an easy question everybody's struggling with it and it's I just think it's it's really irresponsible and I'll use that term to put this kind of tax burden on the citizens inur I'm finished okay and we I know that I do want to clarify a couple of things that were thrown out and I'm G give it to commissioner uh Wendy Jacobs so and not picking on nobody I just the manager we didn't we have made Cuts here it wasn't a 10%

cut that was we want to make so we have made Cuts you're correct commissioner how it wasn't 10 across the board and we will just since the media is here we want to make sure that we get that clarified but she is correct last year a million this year two and a half million we raised ambulance fees we have raised taxes in some unincorporated areas these individuals over here will be paying most likely for their insurance for the first time there are a myriad of things that we have done on this side every time in difference to the schools every single solitary time the first time I met with you um superintendent uh superintendent Moore I told you I said what happens once a year is that a group of seven people comes over here with a brown paper bag and a pistol and we always tell everybody else let's wait until we get this because we're going to have to then readjust everybody else's budget and that has indeed been the case since I've been on the Spore it's like we made $30 million okay the schools want 15 all right to every other department to all the 2,000 people to Social Services to gerontology to Public

Safety to Emergency Management to fire to minority business recruitment to special projects to facilities y'all got to split this 50% because we got to put 50% over here so I do want to make that clear that was I I want to make that clear but you also brought up a very valid point you yes we did stuff for classification uh we did stuff for classified staff and we did stuff for um for certified staff and it was every other year and so we were looking forward and this is where the divisiveness comes in we were looking forward to doing Master's pay this year because if I've said my sisters left and I'd like for them to come back to dur public school they're over in Orange County right now uh working on becoming principles but last year and this is where we were all duped and lied to and there's no other way to say it but nobody sent out an email said I'm disgusted by lur but y'all show were disgusted by the black man the same black man that came to me and bring before we even started a bond hearing you know how I was sold on the Bond Dr M came to me and said these schools are disc Justus I want my kids to live in ecstatically pleasing learning

9 million for classified study proposed salary increases so let me tell y'all something I will never forget when Dr mbing sit right there and lur was sitting his behind there I asked the manager before we came here is that the amount money we going to need she said that's what they said I said you done met with them she said I done met with them and I said okay I'mma ask him again on camera she said go go for I said right there and the emails at w pull that man knew he

was lying I don't know how y'all have not pressed charges on it but I know why cuz he your boy he's your boy and you don't want him to go to jail I can't wait till I'm a private citizen so I can go after him myself for sitting here and lying to us time and time again about this dog on budget and that girl that he got working in California who I hope is fired and I'm going do a public records request to find out I also want to throw out here I see some folks in here worried about DSA I tend to agree with my colleague commissioner um commissioner um Carter on this one I think y'all have more information on us the same way we have more Medica more information on Medicaid fraud we have more information on small business y'all know more information about what y'all need to build so I know what the ask is but what I do want to throw out I recognize that the 160 plus million that y'all got in ERS I I had a lot of questions about it Dr minger set me down and he said well some of it is lined item for specific things once that brother told me that I didn't go after the s's money some of it was for laptops some of it was to find this little oated kids so I was like I can't use this as a catch off much like arpa but let me tell

this to some of the people sitting in here who have not been peaked to game number one we have given you all with with 2,000 less children in the school system over the past decade we've given you all an additional 50 million dang near $60 million if this was Microsoft all y'all would be fired by now because ain't no way in the world you would have less people less operational cost and and no additional programmatic expansion that I can see less after school program and you all continue to need additional money on top of that we gave you $423 million for a bond we give you $3 to $400 million every year you get out don't know how many grants I don't know from the state and you got some M kenas Scott money there's all this money and then it's just it's never enough and I just I'm saying it because I want the community to hear me you would not run your household like this somebody asked one day why you think Congress broke I said cu the people in Congress broke why you think the school board broke cu the people who are over it don't know how to do nothing with money and I can tell it from the questions you answer and to be honest I hate that you got to sit here ma'am I really seriously do cuz you've

been here three months and thank you so much for everything you given us I thought your Finance staff was here but you were true leader because you said you know what I'm not going to line them up in the line of fire but I'm looking at y'all I can't believe y'all wouldn't sit up here I remember when we was going through the comprehensive plan they were tearing Sarah and that staff a new one I got up I was like you not gonna come after my staff like that when we were trying to rebuild them libraries and they was ripping Tammy bag of the new one I went right in public hearings and I stood up I can't believe y'all not standing up here with these people right now it's it's I to Dae this is their usual posture take a picture of it and know for the next four years it will maintain the same way I had I'mma move on right now because I know you have some questions that book in the hers um but again the trust issue over $700 million and every year y'all need more it it makes no mathematical sense at all but I'm going to find y'all's money I'm going to find the capital Improvement because I ain't going to Scorch the Earth cuz that's what y'all want black folks to do I'mma leave fertile ground and I'm going support this budget because I know that this the

only thing black kids got to go to in this community it ain't because of y'all it's because of the kids that you all been crapping on for four years and I ain't going to let them get crapped on the last year I'm in office so I want to go back to um the question uh regarding needing $5 million for some immediate Capital needs I don't think we can talk about this without understanding first of all really understanding about being able to use the bond money because there are literally you know hundreds I don't know the exact number right now but available to be used over aund million do at least that we've already approved that are sitting in some account somewhere but I don't think we can talk about this without talking about DSA I mean there's just no way all of these issues are related you know we I

know I need to understand the decision making around DSA and I think the community needs to understand because within this context of a financial budgetary crisis of urgent needs for health and well-being at existing schools and then having facing you know a you know incredible new school state-of-the-art school that is going to be Way Beyond what was expected it requires a pause I mean it's just like you know within your own household if something happens there's a crisis and things aren't you know you have to stop and re-evaluate um and that is really critical I I can't I really need to understand this um the decision making at this point in time

not 2022 but 2024 about what is the best decision at this moment I understand costs have been sunk into you know the uh design I don't know exactly you know the details it's going to be very important for us and for the community to have that information I have been involved personally in projects where I've been very personally invested and we're we've spent substantial public dollars the Light Rail and we've had we had to change course so I it just doesn't make sense to me to on the one hand have this urgency about $5 million but on the other other hand not blinking about spending a huge amount of money on what I know will be an incredible stateof art facility um and so I I I really would like for us to get um all of the

information about any of the studies including um any um I see John hoders cople sitting in the back here but any anything uh done independ an independent assessment we really need an independent assessment of even what the different options are um and and there really needs to be a pause on this I I just uh it it's also really undermining public confidence and the prospects for future bonds for for the for us to not have a pause not have to have real due diligence and understanding where we are at this moment in time I'm not questioning the decisions that were made in the past but where we are right now and I just want to lift up the responsibility that we do have for how County dollars are spent um thanks to John uh Chief uh John where who's I

don't know if he's still here AR Grand person oh there dear John okay you're trying to hide but yeah okay who's actually I did I didn't realize he'd come from the Department of Public Instruction but he shared with us you know General statute 115 C- 429c that the board of County Commissioners has the authority to call for and the Board of Education shall have the duty to make available to the board of County Commissioners upon request all books records audit reports and other information bearing on the financial operation of the school administrative unit that includes any information required as part of the budget development process so so this is within our responsibilities as County Commissioners and I I just want to say we have jointly failed both of our boards on following through with our memorandum of understanding we we signed

anou back in 2017 and we we've just dropped the ball on it and I I really hope that um ma Madam manager and interim superintendent and whoever is gathering for the start of these meetings of working together that we will go back and look at theou from 2017 and really think about how we can deliver on what what is in here for instance number five says that um I'm sorry not number five number 11 talks about joint planning prior to the purchase of school sites and prior to finan fin finalizing the AR architectural specifications for school buildings I mean we we've just never done that we just haven't you know we we you know we get information but it's not joint working together staffs working

together jointly and Leadership um and also there's a lot of in here about data sharing and but on both sides and what I would recommend again is that our staff comes up with a schedule when we have our quarterly meetings which are these data points that we are going to report on and share information on and that we are really making datab based decisions um and and um you know there's just a lot that we that we aren't doing and that we need to really do um and I'm again I say that on both sides that I think there's a lot in here for us to work on moving forward also related to Durham prek um I see Linda Chappelle sitting here um if I could say one thing about the I think um I think a good place to start with your questions might be to take a look at theou and have staff you know take a look at what is

happening or not happening there are some joint meetings happening I'm not sure who's who's in who's in those meetings and what they're deciding or what the roles are but I know there are joint meetings happening and and so I think relying on what's in theou and providing an update on what the status of that implementation and partnership looks like to see can it be improved can it be modified or or are things working and perhaps the flow of information isn't flowing the way that it should I I don't know which one it is but um but I think we could start with theou to see to the extent to which it is being implemented and provide an update there I do believe that as part of your um the the quarterly joint meetings that you have a that includes um a CIP or Bond update that provides the data points that you're talking about that's a meeting that's already happening that would be something that I believe I'm I think most superintendant would have some familiarity with that being the setting in which those kinds of things happen and those those kinds of updates

are jointly planned between staff at the county and staff in the school system so I think that's that's a place to go with that and I just wanted mention those are great suggestions thank you um and I just also want to lift up you know what we've already talked about in our budget work sessions are for instance directly funding the prek at Murray massenberg um you know how to how to address we're trying to come up with creative ways to address these things but I will say that for me I really want to know how we can again Implement some type of anou Ila related to the specific asks that we've gotten from from our um Early Childhood coordinator mat Tom Barack who's sitting right here and also from Linda um and there were you know three or four basic points one is around the data sharing that we need to do uh we need to have that critical um and

then number two is around a plan for getting all of the durm um DPS licensed yes credential and certified um and about the RP care like so so I know it's not something we can get in place by the time we're going to need to improve the budget but we really need a commitment um from you that this is something that uh we will you know that it that will be done and it intersects with the capital planning because this will you know the especially the certification of classrooms I absolutely and I know that you were in here when that discussion was going on right can I just again and not like there are so many other conversations that go on that I feel like our teachers don't know about this woman she have to come in here the other day when um JB buckson was present or when Dr Chappelle was in here but she sat in here and when each one of them got done I watched her she

was in community with both of them and she heard our request and that was mainly because we sat and we were talking and we said we don't want to leave any money on the table that the state might have because we have these these higher higher standards than what the state has right but who else was in here same thing it was the teacher was up there she was talking about how much she didn't like the auditorium at CC spa and I never would stop a public hearing because I told him in the beginning that I wouldn't but we moved that $2 million to set that a couple of months ago I just feel like we do so there's a lot that we doing here we're not looking to be patted on the back but God knows y'all got to start passing this information on so I do appreciate you being in here I'm happy that you brought to be honest I'm I'm literally happy you brought it up on camera so that I could just say we do do this we do do this and people do show certain people they don't but certain people do and and and that's how we gonna move these kids forward and that's how we gonna be successful from uh top to bottom but yeah some of the stuff there there are things that y'all have asked for and I would like to see

that $5 million list I know I'm it and don't mean I can do anything about tomorrow but if you triage the list don't wait for them to tell you to give it to me they never going to tell you that send it to me now I've publicly asked for don't know how much of a dent we can make in it but we'll try right I do have two more follow-up questions we we on time we over time okay all right we are over time one one is um I I would really like and this is not something that I know can answer no I do really want to understand though about decision making around with decreasing enrollments but we've got population growth in other areas was any thinking or decision making around looking at with the growing together evaluation of how to save money by possibly close shutting down a school I mean again we we it it just we're in a different time we know that we are going to have to be locally funding so much of this stuff

and everything has to be on the table I I also want to uh understand around um Staffing because one thing I didn't see in your fiscal measures are around vacancies and how like I know for instance we're we're having a hiring free except with um some of the very critical departments like EMS or DSS um whether I I didn't see I see that you have like same number of FTE basically so I I'm trying to I would like to understand that again same thing yep um how that is factoring of of when you've got how you're not looking at utilizing some vacancies or reducing FTE at this point within this so I just say I'll just say that two I'm G do two I'll first let me talk about the pre because I did a cost Miss Chappelle after her presentation last week and we just whispered back and

forth a bit so that I could get a little bit of clarity on some of the comments that were made and some of the questions that were asked um and then went back and talked to staff that very same afternoon so I want to go ahead and tell you what we've already talked about and what our current plan is moving forward um first there's there's actually already some work happening around data sharing an agreement that would that would move forward and so what I went back and said to my folks is we need to bring this to the Finish Line what you know figure out what the questions are that they're still hanging out there and solidify that um I I did speak a little bit with Mr pel about the overarching vision of what that looks like um we serve you know the the different programs in the district that in Durham County that exist whether you know it's Head Start or private uh providers or Durham Public School System there should be a collaboration around and everybody wants to know what the ROI is there are a lot of studies that tell us how important prek is let's show us in the

data I don't I don't have an issue with that so I think that we will get to where we need to be with that data agreement because some work has actually already happened we just need to get across the fish Finish Line um the second piece about the licensed classrooms you know I will just say in a previous life I did the same exact thing somewhere else where I said we have got to have more of our classrooms be license so that we have full flexibility and ability to advocate for and receive the dollars that are available for the most number of slots for the to serve the most number of students some of the barriers around um I don't if barriers is the right word but there are impacts associated with licensing classrooms um the biggest one is facility Renovations um there are likely to be millions of dollars worth of facility needs whether it's things like sinks or water temperature or playground anything else big that I'm missing um that are a financial impact I

in all transparency I served on the board of Smart Start for the last 10 years in neighboring County so and that's where sort of my passion around getting this done and getting classrooms licensed and how important it was started and so what I've have brought to this District in my short time here is a request that we provide the community the Commissioners the board a Like A Five-Year Plan or a multi-year plan that says okay so we have a vision that we will have prek in every school what's our Cadence for that how many are we adding per year when is that expected to happen what's the cost associated with that based on the number of seats parallel to that what is the impact the cost and what needs to happen in order to have our classrooms licensed what are the facility costs how much is it going to take how much time how many can we do per year um and bring that information as well so that it's part of A Five-Year Plan also um there are some other pieces with license that are Personnel costs the number of hours that the I serve the rate at which they have to be paid that

is different right now now than the rate at which IAS and DPS are paid right now so there are costs associated with doing that but until we model those costs and show what it would look like in a multi-year plan you're not making a decision one way or another from an informed perspective so all of that that I just talked about is already started and happening and I have asked our staff and the same with the wraparound care and I actually through transportation in the mix as well because sometimes transportation is a is a barrier for families in terms of of where programs are located and being able to access them so I've said to the staff go back and work on a plan that includes all of those pieces you know get the data sharing agreement across the line what is the actual impact cost and a multi-year plan for getting our classrooms licensed something that is doable and reasonable and makes that impact um what does WRA care look like and and how do we advance that what is what are the barriers because I think that's happening in private providers as well as in DPS there are some needs

there um and then Transportation package all of that into a comprehensive multi-year plan that shows the barriers the pros the cons what it would take to get there I have asked staff to have that ready for a joint meeting of the Commissioners if not this August then the next one whenever that is so they're already working on it and I just so I want you to know we don't I don't have the answers to all of it but but I went back after that meeting and met with staff to make sure that we were ready to bring that because that is a goal that I think we all have in common that we need to to move forward on in terms of at least understanding what it would take to get there and then we can make informed decisions that sounds great my only request is that we include mall and and Linda because again this is about us collaborating and at the end of the day we're going to pay for it so well and I mean you know I think the thing that um yeah I don't know if stung is the right word would be not being able to fully answer a question about the support that is

provided by NC by the Durham prek staff for licensing and other things and the extent to which that is or is not being accessed so I think it is a collaborative effort 100% agree okay and then um yeah the second piece you asked about was just about had there been looking at the vacancies oh yeah so the FTE so um number one I think baked into the static number of FTE is the K3 class side reduction over the last few years so as we had to increase the number of teachers in K3 those FTE we have more teachers in K3 than we had five years ago and so that has been part of of that FTE remaining the same um I think when you look at overall per pupil funding I you know and I I don't I don't want to split hairs here but to assume that 10 years ago what it cost to educate a student in terms of per people funding and what it might cost now should remain

2 right but but that needs to be part of what's in the budget process and in the numbers that you see um because the

cost of a per pupil is going to be going up same as I'll give you another sort of silly example uh I've asked the board chair just about this last week um I asked whether or not the Commissioners had ever seen an an increase request in the budget book for utility rate increases right certainly the cost of utilities has not been the same for the last 10 years but that's not ever been called out specifically separately in the budget either as an ask that was needed or as a cost that was being covered by reductions in other areas and I think that sort of level of need transparency and how how a budget book is developed can help explain all of that because from what I can tell is there's not been an ask for utility rate increase but those rates have gone up and so those costs have been absorbed from within the district and other places right um but I think that's the kind of the changes that that we're sort of talking about so in in terms of the FTE I think K3 class SI has more to a

lot to do with it um I do also think that um that is why the allotment manual that spells out how we utilize the resources that come from the state the federal government and what we're carving out of local is going to be really important moving forward I know Linda's her her Mantra is you know local dollars in first and maximizing the federal and the state um so and and just my last comment I I completely recognize the crisis that we are in right now and the critical need for us to provide the funding for you know the salaries um and they're all important critical areas um I it is clear to me that we are at a really pivotal moment uh in during public schools and the and the crisis moment that that we are in and so I know that you know um many members of our board we

are we are looking at how can we create be creative working with staff on some creative approaches to really do our best because we we do recognize how important it is and um but we also at the same time know that like this can't be a regular occurrence um this is not something that we can do I mean it's just not possible to do to do every year and so that's why the changes the policies and the structures and all of that are going to be equally as important the two have to happen uh together at the same time um and so I I look forward to um the work that we can do together um and I appreciate the some of the foundation that you're helping with and the work that's going to start together on Wednesday thank you any closing words for you um I'll I'll let I'll go first and I'll let the

chair go I just I I do want to thank the Commissioners for the opportunity um and I can take it is what I want to say right you shouldn't have to that's the ISS because I think it's that important right um uh to have the transparency that's needed for the most most effective collaboration to happen um you know wherever this number lands we the board we'll have to we'll deal we will deal with where it is and we will look at how we prioritize those requests and be transparent about why what is prioritized and move forward um we should not shy away from the questions difficult or easy um I'm a fan of of wanting to see the arrows that are being shot at me so that I can address them um I think that that is that is part of the the Cadence that that that I'm I'm working to set in this interim role as we prepare for the next superintendent um I I value and have

seen the commitment of the Commissioners over the last few years with funding the requests that the districts the district has made I mean I I did I did my homework there so I've seen it um and and this request I I understand is I think I've called it a bold ask when I've been asked about folk About It by folks um but it I i' I'd like to think that I'm able to explain and that we can make sense of why the request is what it is um I also feel that um you know I I mean I could I could tell you that you know we we obviously go through an audit every year we have clean audits this year we had a couple little findings about um management and reconciliations of some things which was to be expected you might see it again next year um but but generally speaking the management of the funds is above board the disposition and the choices

that are made and how Str a strategic lens is applied to where the funds go I believe there's space for greater transparency and collaboration around that work so um I you know I won't be here when it happens but I look forward to reading about it uh inner superintendent Moore you took some of the words right out of my mouth I I do want to say thank you in the joint meeting looking at that graph of where we have grown and our ask I think that only happens through collaboration through transparency showing of data talking about how we're moving students what are the initiatives that we're putting in place um the restorative practices wasn't ask from you all having office of equity was an Ask supporting our multilingual Resource Center was an ask and you all were able to meet those needs for our students and our our building I think we've invested a lot in our people and now we're realizing we need to do a lot more investment in the capital needs and I want to on the behalf of the board also say we are open and want to be transparent so when there are questions and there are concerns

please do not hesitate to reach out to me get the right people in the right place so we can have the conversation the only way this works is if both of us have faith that we're going to be able to do what we need to do with the funds that are being expended and I want to be the partner that shows yes this is it ask me the questions we can find the answers we going to figure figure it out uh cuz our students as y'all have already lifted up deserve that right our students deserve us working together to figure this thing out and I add we might want to you know do a joint visit to the legislator in this short session to talk about this seven million that's legislated which is really good but also know our state should be covering some of these needs that we have and so I would love to figure out what that advocacy could look like together as well um because of all 50 or in that meeting all counties are dealing with this issue we know that this is something that the state needs to be working on as well so just thank you all again for your work thank you so much I know we're overtime on this I do appreciate everybody for sitting back um I hope people are having a conversations I know

we have some UPC me and we are going to move for uh corporative extension thank you so much superintendent Moore and I will be handling the Reigns over to commissioner Carter thank you so much for so graciously taking over I appreciate you come on down d it was nice of you to offer Vice chair Burton listen everybody gets to be in leadership this this year everybody and good luck with your sister alrighty so that brings us to The Cooperative Extension budget discussion and we have Donna rewalt and matal Barack with us and really look forward to hearing from you and yes you do have us with us good afternoon Commissioners um today we will be sharing the requested budget updates in particular within Cooperative Extension for early childhood and food security though if you have any questions about the budget or reductions for any other Cooperative Extension areas I will be happy to address any of those during the

discussion afterwards um of course we have Mattel Barack our early childhood coordinator she will share the early childhood and I will share on food security while our new food security coordinator fresh off world hunger day yesterday uh flew to DC today for to attend the anti-hunger policy conference this week and we're really excited that she could attend that and but we're going to formally introduce her to all of you um at an upcoming board meeting and that of course is Raina Goldstein bog so we're really excited to have her on board I am very excited to have her on board um we would like to begin though by thanking each of you and County Manager soel for your leadership and your vision um you support families with young children and you think about feeding the people who are most in need of being fed but also making changes that are systemic and long-term in nature and your support and leadership in those areas is just um tremendous and really appreciated um we also respect and understand that there are difficult choices that must be made this year and we appreciate your work in leadership as

well as leadership of our budget team um to lead us through this process so with that Spirit we are here so I'll let myel dive in and just push thank you thank you all um excited to be here today and I Echo um Donis words of gratitude for your vision um and bold support for our youngest residents um in terms of systems I wanted uh us to start with this space you've all have enabled durm County to have the foundation for this ecosystem uh we have a robust Early Childhood system of care for children and their families in our County because of your commitment and funding um ensuring that these programs and services are available to our community um especially throughout the years um you have supported the

nonprofit sector and Community Based uh Community rooted partners that are focusing on helping families in our community um you can see in this graph uh institutional Community nonprofit and parent partners are part of this ecosystem as well as County staff in Public Health and Social Services the corporative extension of course and our libraries that are continuously engaged with families in this space one of our biggest and most proud moments was our early child action plan as you know Duram County was the first adopter in uh developing this plan alongside Community leaders and uh the five to thrive as we call the key priority areas for this work um was the result of three years of planning and now we're at on to implementing um this

recommendations around welcoming spaces and cash assistance and I'll get into that in a minute because Deco thrives is part of the work that now the county is leading in our community um child campaign and advocacy as well as inclusive approaches to child care and social emotional health for Children and Families um I would like to hi um highlight as well that there was an update to the North Carolina a child action plan that came out in March and some of those goals are also aligned with our to thrive that are locally happening in our community which is wonderful um so as part of the implementation that has been happening in the past year we have been able to reconvene uh Community leaders who led the guaranteed Inc compilot report as part of our early child action plan and we have ensured a long-term engagement with Deco Thrive to provide the guidance

for for that uh program that is soon to roll out um hopefully this summer we are excited to continue to be part of that conversation um we we have been able to host several um child care and professional uh professionals around advocacy for the work that is happening in our community as well as providing uh support for Community rooted groups that are creating the safe spaces as you all know uh a couple of months ago unfortunately we received some threats in our community library in our County Library sorry during our rainbow Story Time and rainbow Collective for change is one of the nonprofits that we support through the Early Childhood um office to ensure that our children and families continue to feel safe in our community um our early T Investments for this year as we've just mentioned are the implementation for our Early Child

hard action plan as well as um operating funds for the a chard office the nonprofit Investments have been huge um in the past year around infant and maternal Health with Mame and hearts leading that work in our community and supporting our black and brown uh parents and birthing people as well as Refugee Community Partnership um supporting our Refugee and migrant communities especially around uh language Justice work the diaper Bank of course is another recipient of the funding and supports we provide and other early chah nonprofits um that work around early literacy in our community like rard and Reed and book Harvest with the proposed uh budget um we are um seeing um a big reduction this year uh

of a 50% and that of course will impact all of the nonprofit work that I just mentioned um with that um line being removed um it will also limit some of the support with this community based organizations um I mentioned before with book Harvest and and Reed the story times the distribution of books and ready for school supports that they provide to our community as well as the work that rainbow Collective for change leads in our community uh providing workshops for educ ators and family sorry did we want to add anything to yeah and I think so we may have a we have a slight repri because between myself and David in our copious emailing this weekend we discovered a what I would term as a mistake a mistake it's a mistake the budget office made a mistake um and I wanted to bring this to your attention we strive for near Perfection

and what happened in this case is we had identified some funding that was in last year's budget is one-time funding which is different than recurring right we had identified it as just needed this last year so as part of our work through this year's budget we reduced $107,500 that actually was recurring funding was basically intended to stay in Cooperative Extension and early childhood's budget this happens every year we always have these relatively minor so what we're proposing at this point and we I've talked through with um Donna and Keith is to put on the ad Elite list $107,500 to restore that recurring funding it's the Board of Commissioners prerogative if you will because it's your budget at this point but it's a it's a basically an administrative error that we are putting in place a fix that would then lead to instead of a 50% reduction a 16% reduction in operating budget which may still be significant

I'm not going to get into that but it's not the 50% that unfortunately we put forward as part of the manager's recommended budget and if it helps that would bring that money back to ecap implementation that's kind of where that left it would still leave the the the remaining part that's been cut the 16% would be cut directly from those nonprofit is directly cut from the counting nonprofit program line you may remember at some point a couple of years ago um different departments were assigned buckets of the County nonprofit program funds and that's just that amount of money there can I ask a quick followup are any of the ones that are not getting the County nonprofit funding getting funding through the arpa funds yes um I believe in in Claudia and I will will reconvene around this um I believe and Reed is one example of of recipients of arpa they are

receiving our but we can we can double check and I think they're is slightly different they're in a general funding line within within Early Childhood they are not part of the ones that are in the County nonprofit program are the ones that were listed on the previous Slide m Harts Refugee Community Partnership and the diaper Bank um so those are directly Affiliated historically with the um County nonprofit program so that's the line that was removed I mean some of this is we'll have to go back and look once we know what the bottom line is it's kind of reassessing what's priority that's like 50 53,000 yeah yeah it's not yeah I think what's key is we want to make sure that I mean if something's getting funded through arpa then they'll be okay for the next two years but we want to make sure that if they aren't that we can we don't want to cut somebody totally out that hasn't been funded so that I guess that would

be conf us to enough yeah yeah and I would say too like the diaper bank for examp example we are the largest distributor Durham County through the welcome baby program is the largest distributor of diapers in the state um for the the diaper bank so um a point of Pride but also a a real partnership there um that's represented in those funds and um just to um finish I I want to again reiterate my gratitude to all of you doing this very hard work especially during this season and highlight also the collaboration that Donna just mentioned with the budget office and again looking forward to our collaboration with Eco thrives I think that's the way that we can move forward that work for our children and families thank you okay now we're going to take a brief tour of um let's see the world of food security um I think you all know some of this data well but it's always good to kind of start with where we kind of live and that is with again kind of an overall 12% uh food insecurity rate in

Durham but we know this significantly disproportionately impacts Brown families and particularly our children at with a 20% rate um and also a little bit more older adults as well and that's a a group we've really been challenged by um we know from our community health assessment that we have families who reflect a greater percentage than even those in official food insecurity rates of skipping meals or being concerned about being able to afford um a meal or choosing not to eat um in order to save funds we also know nationally the picture hasn't gotten any prettier and I think we know this um intuitively um food in security has increased for Americans in recent years um with families with children most significantly impacted I think we know that there's these economic impacts from covid um decre they recently decreased federal assistance has certainly been the been a part of this um and just simply The increased food and housing costs I think we probably individually in this room

even notice that in our own budgets and certainly when you're on the margin you noticed it even more um kind of looking forward we are very pay we're paying very close attention to the farm bill and a lot of people forget the farm bill is where snap lives and that's where this food assistance that is the largest assistance program that we can offer our families um and we are actually looking at strategies to get more families involved but the farm bill there's some scary conversations that are happening at the federal level where we really want to Advocate strongly around that those SNAP benefits um covid assistance to communities of course ending we know that even when arpa ends in a few years thinking ahead to that um in our continued housing crisis so just um there are just some things that are here that are going to cause some ongoing food insecurity challenges as they cause economic security challenges you know our response to this has been kind of two-pronged um one is very simply to enhance the social safety net to meet current needs that kind of charitable food um let's fill in that Gap but we want to do more than that and so the other prong of that approach for the county has been to work toward

Equitable systemic change to improve our long-term um food security and so even when we do charitable food work we we pair that with some longer term uh strategies but there is a lot to celebrate I do appreciate uh that that some of you were able to be with us at world hunger day I know some of you wished you could be with us at world hunger day it was a beautiful day um outside um we had a lot of families and attendance um we had some wonderful Community Partners giving away fresh produce um and just a whole bunch of wonderful Community collaboration celebration so there is a lot to celebrate in terms of the progress we've made um we have this wonderful County food security network of people who come together and that was enforced yesterday for sure um we have some wonderful opportunities and Investments where we just talked about managing Grant where we'll talk about managing grants and contracts that meet urgent food needs um we've definitely started to leverage County resources um for for looking at outside funding um and we are definitely starting to contribute to Regional

efforts we know that durm couldn't feed itself right if if if if if something happened um we are never going to be able to provide all the food that this community needs within the county so we've got to look in a regional basis and we've started to do that as well so we're really excited about the directions that we're going in okay so taking a look quick snapshot at where we are right now in food security um we provide um some targeted nonprofit support to meet some of our most pressing needs we focus those uh dollars in ways that are addressing specific community either Community areas by geography or particular groups um we also are trying to uh one of the biggest challenges we have is around the home delivered meals and hom delivered food piece um for people who are unable to access food outside of their homes easily and so we've certainly made investments in nonprofits and with Partners to try to address that um and we see that as an ongoing um challenge

uh we have certainly used these funds to coordinate and collaborate our local food security efforts with our County food security network um we still have on the books the local um food system assessment and plan which I want to update you on it is in the RFP process we are not going to get to contract by June 30 so it will move into the next fiscal year we're going to roll those funds over part of this was was that we didn't want to put that on top of the farm uh campus assessment that's a little bit much for a community to absorb even though when we're talking about a food system assessment we're really talking about from growing to eating and everything in between suppliers all of that so that will cover a much broader and deeper um well of information I think that is going to help inform us for many years to come so we look forward to having that um launch I know we've been waiting for it and I'm excited that that it's coming um also our regional food system support and we're hoping that there will be some movements there that we can talk about in more detail um and of course our world hunger Day event and upbring funds

for the food Security Office of course the US USDA Farm campus Grant lives in this space as well um and that isn't really affected so much by the budget um but that is also um part of the work that we've done through the budget um I will note that our nonprofit support that I mention here is a combination of the durm County nonprofit program funds and then also some targeted investments just from the food Security fund Center so it's a combination of both of those things so for next year what oops this has some notes oh let's see oh and we have arpa I did want to mention arpa funds do not want to forget this because we do have some really awesome things that you all have uh um decided to do which are funded through arpa and one is our community food security grants so that is actually um we submitted uh the vendor we've been through the RP process we should be bringing a contract um forward to you all um soon um for that that's about $520,000 and that's our larger grants um

you might have noticed on the earlier slide have the micro grants kind of those small organizations that need $500 or $1,000 this is much more um larger grants that also have some maybe Capital aspects to them they may have some systemic approaches involved in those grants so it's a it's a much it's a larger kind of Grant um and so the vendor for that will be bringing to you soon um our eastm grocery so our community accountable grocery pilot um and that is underway if you haven't been out out to East to check check that out I I would encourage you to go um and then of course the support that you all decided on last year after the benefits cut on the benefits cliff in 2023 um that we're sending through the Interfaith Food shuttle and the Food Bank of North Carolina that's going very well um some of the things we built into that on the systemic side were things like surveying and talking with the food pantries and the food service organizations so that we learn more about what we're doing what is needed

and we make sure that those the types of resources that are targeted so the the pantries themselves are also able to tell the food bank and the food shuttle what are the kinds of things they their folks need in the community and you can imagine a lot of it was about fresh food so our proposed food security budget uh this year um so after um our food security budget uh we've gone through this process there's a 35% reduction in operating funds um of 49,000 um that uh 50% of that is a 50% reduction to the County nonprofit program funds so that those um that's approximately $888,000 of that um the rest of it are General um food security funds and so that will just mean uh you know we've been talking about the choices that we could make if that if those reductions stay um that could obviously include reducing and would include certainly reducing targeted support for Community needs through nonprofit Partners um um we might have

to change the world hunger Day event we may not be able to do a larger scale event um or reducing some of our support for a regional food initiative so we have you know kind of a menu of choices we've been looking at um we have some strategies in mind if this is the reduction that stays um within this within the center but this is kind of what where we're thinking and what's happening right now um we have some additional commitments for fy2 as well we did slate a portion of the livestock agent services that we're now able to provide to our farmers in Durham County to come out of food security because that is very integral to food security um and we wanted to do a little bit more with our regional partnership and of course um this is kind of our foundation for some of our farm campus work we'll of course be working through the capital process that you all already have in the budget um that will move that work forward um on the capital side but we may be looking in some other ways at small grants um and some things that we can start to do to move the needle on Farm campus um so that is that is kind of where we are with the food security

budget and we would be happy to answer any questions I do sorry I do want to add that there you have some supplemental slides uh for during prek U Dr Chappelle presented beautifully last week so there's just added information um there as well great it's wonderful to have those slides and and um thank you very much for your presentation you are a a mighty Department small and mighty and frankly I think that you your work centers on some of the board's top priority areas um so thank you for that now I'll just see who would like to start with questions Brenda Wendy I I just have a quick one so thank you as uh Heidi just said Mighty but you do a lot small but you do a lot I had the question about after care can you

tell me where that is the Aftercare conversation after conversation yes yes and I know I owe you an email on that commissioner Harton um yes um the uh researcher has been ill so that actually we were hoping to bring that to you in June um at probably what would have been today's work session and I've asked um if we'll be able to bring that back to you um in July so I'm waiting to hear back from that so we're we're ready to to talk about it there have also been some additional um movement from North Kina state where they have gotten some additional funding so what might be needed in order for us to participate in the study would not be as great so this is the could you share could you share a little bit more so the board knows what we're talking about yes um so this is the after care study that Wake County is participating in and that is happening through North State um through um one of their extension professors in this field and they are looking at what happens

with children in out of school time so that's before school after school we've had a lot of concern in our community both commissioner Harton and myself probably some of you have been approached by families uh around what the gaps are um and it maybe some of them are gaps maybe they perceive the school system has the community has we we need to know more about what those gaps are um in order to begin to address them and to look at what might be needed um and this study also includes some mapping um aspects to it where we would locate also the existing resources so it involves a component both of interviewing and um surveying parents and what their experiences are and what their needs are and consequently also interviewing and surveying the provider so we actually get data from the providers in terms of their capacities interests and focus um too so it's a really U it's a really neat study and it would be easy for us to kind of join in on that in a fairly kind of lowcost way it's just been getting our our our th our things align to be able to bring Dr SAR to you um to

have that conversation I mean I can present it but she does a much better job thank you for following up on that and I look forward to hear more about because if they were uh you know she was doing such a great job for way County I just for us to tap into that I think would be would save us a lot of money rather than going out getting our own uh consultant so thank you I agree thank you yeah thanks ly yeah well first of all I would say yes yes yes we should definitely join in the study um and I have full confident if it's if anything is going to be done through Cooperative Extension I know it's going to be done well um but you know just all of the ways that you meet people where they are in the community and you know it would just but we have to yeah we've got to understand what are the resources I mean I actually asked for this to be on the agenda for our

joint City County meeting on Wednesday I don't know if it will be but um we have to understand what are the resources that we do have first of all and what the need is for um you know actually in your your um packet that you gave gave us that Keith sent out Linda which actually showed how many children we have in each age group in Durham and how many what percentage have working parents like I've never even seen that data before so like we have to even first understand what the resources are what the gaps and then a real coordinated strategy between the city and the county to make sure all of our kids are engaged I mean I know you know commissioner Howton talks about this a lot but this is how we are going to address you know keep keeping our kids out of joining gangs and and getting shot I mean seriously so yes I I mean

whatever just tell us what we need to do you know okay just like you even need a presentation we'll bring we'll bring it we'll bring it back I'll make sure we bring it back to you in one form so I'm really concerned about these cuts for Early Childhood budget and the food security because this is something that our board has invested in having these cross system in approach to both of these issues and investing in having coordinators and so I just I want to make sure when I see that you know so I I hear the recommendation from staff about um budget staff David said about putting uh at least 1075 back in and then us understanding if there's anything that's not getting ARA funding that we want to keep supporting but then with food security saying that we're not going to have like can you go back to that slide uh yeah we want to make I didn't say for sure what we would wouldn't have let's see can I

go backwards well I just yeah we don't I just want to make sure we're not GNA okay yeah let let me just say and and of course we're fine with you all voting to put it back in but what we're saying was is um departments have the ability to be flexible in their budget and where we can move and shift things if we don't want to cut anything out of that budget of course we can put it back in but we don't want we W do want it to look like that we said we are cutting food Security Programs that is not what we're saying we will work out what the priorities are and certainly if you want to put the funds back in there we can we just felt like we we didn't want to pick and choose there are some departments we know that are mission critical and that are you know first responder related those we have to keep intact but we didn't want to pick and choose which departments don't get cut because all of

our Departments of course would we would prefer to keep funding at the same level for all of our departments so certainly understand your concerns yeah and you you all direct us in how you would like for us to move but we don't if if you don't restore the funding we can find a way to make sure we can still cover some of those critical needs that you want to make sure we cover well I I feel I I I feel very concerned about the reductions too I mean I was thinking back to our um budget Retreat and I think we were supposed to list priorities as Commissioners and I think my only priority was the Early Childhood years and boy I wish I'd brought what I wrote down because it was very eloquent now I don't remember what I said but you know basically I want us here again again to be to be known for our support in the early years of Children and Families um and I want us to be known for serving the best food to all people from an equitable environmentally sustainable

food system you know and so that's what this work does and the budgets are relatively small um so this is actually so we had two versions of these slides and I think Monica somehow we got we had we just show we just walked through one version and then now an old version has popped up so well the other thing I was curious about was we asked our departments to submit 5% 10% reduction scenarios um I I think I read somewhere in answers that were coming back to Wendy's questions which were great by the way Wendy thank you for compiling those very thoughtful questions I've appreciated reading the information that's come forward um from our amazing budget team um but one of the pieces of information was we as for these reductions but we really have reduced spending $1 million yes so you know this is a big chunk of that 1 million it feels like um so actual the total amount that we would

7 million I think so we didn't go as far as the 10% cut but we did go to 1 million Keith you can elaborate I think and our and our other the rest of the fun centers in our department took 10% so we're 10% across the board except for these two and it's pain you know even the 10% for us is painful because you know small stuff that's right tends to Hur a little more everyone needs to pause on using 10% and 5% those were scenarios that were requested by the manager that is not what was in Cut 10% would have been a $9 million cut we cut we didn't cut we reduced 1 million so we're not even in the ballpark of 5% reduction of operational closer to one% however it is the second year in a row that we have asked departments and found operating reductions that is a whole another story

about how many years you can continue to cut operational budgets even by small amounts I hear you but I do want to be clear 10% is not even on the board as a what actually happened to any Department including Cooper Keith actually our lines I think are cut by 10% ma'am our lines are cut by 10% yes some might be cut by 10% overall right overall they are each one is still cut by 10 I i' be yeah yeah I'm just so let's take a look at let's take a look at that yes please please take a look take a look at that because that was that was not the intent so we'll take a look at that I mean if across the County organization it's closer to let's say 2% which is is more than it is um in Cooperative Extension line items were cut 10% or 35% you know the the budget book says it's an overall 25% reduction for Cooperative Extension okay so the math yeah it just that feels bad to

me so that was an estimate we were making in a previous version of this slide um where we were trying to give a little bit more Contex for how we would reduce and ultimately like if you took if you spread the cut across those different sources we would probably have to because as a department director I still have to protect training and and those kinds of other things so I have to think about what what we would spend the remaining money on and so I have to spend it on you know kind of staff and certain things before I send it out to the community so that just might shift a 50% reduction a little bit in a different direction so we were just were kind of ballparking a scenario I had pulled that out and the slide that I showed you during the presentation a few minutes ago was a different slide so I hav no idea what magic happened here today um but the one you have that's attached the agenda um just talks about um the just the very specific 50% reduction in the nonprofit funds that was on the line item what one reason

investment in these areas I think also makes sense is we have very solid uh Community dri developed programs you know the the early childhood action plan and um lots of strategy around food security as well that um D you know drives from the work of a coalition of Community Partners and players and both of these topic areas um within during the past eight years have risen to the top as priorities you know for this board and I don't feel like that's changed any yes no it hasn't changed you're look at your phone commission C is like I need response response that was not a rhetorical question okay so I hear you that that this is an important priority that we want to protect yes I would say that is well said so gotcha all right well with that

then I think um that probably concludes this agenda item you have any further comments for us today no just thank you apologies for the uh confusion on the slides here uh but yeah we just appreciate your thoughtfulness um and your work and you know we are really great at making do and Cooperative Extension and we will do that we will look for funds we will uh and you do anyway we'll make our own food we will we'll do whatever we need to do just you just got that Duke and down Grant right yeah we did do we did do that so we're good at looking for money so we will do that as well so don't you know we we always are looking for opportunities um and we will respond to whatever the need is in the county we do understand the challenges so and we thank you all right thank you both so much so that we have one more topic and then board discussion that will not last 90 minutes I'm sure right good point and so next we have the CIP process update a very very important

agenda item bu and we we can pause for a minute for water yes I love those chairs so

I should know how to use this um good afternoon we will share some highlights on the capital improvement process and um I will kick it off and pass it over to my colleagues Julio and Perry uh we'll give quick overview and the main Crux of the conversation is to talk about guiding principles as the board thinks about how to proceed and we'll talk a little bit about timeline as you know these we have these slides the importance of capital planning and those elements they are essential your B board policy and your financial model sets a framework for that um it's a multi-year process as you know up to to 10 years um there's a prioritization process involved um there's strong emphasis on timing um and there's the whole issue of how you pay for all of it there are more

opportunities for projects that there are funds and there's lots of iterative processes as we look at how we fund it whether it's pay as you go or if we're borrowing the dollars um but throughout the process we we try to make sure we strike the B right balance and we refine it often um we try try to make sure we utilize dedicated Capital owning resources and uh our affordability modeling which is our Capital Finance plan helps us to pay for um the long-term debt associated with it uh we try to make sure there's a separation of operating and capital resources and sometimes we do a better job than that than others with that we will bring on buildings and then we need to make sure we have the resources to to support it and so um that's a a part of it as well so we'll not go into all the other components but this is another

familiar slide um the key steps the needs assessment prioritization sequencing evaluating affordability and um then ultimately you update that plan here's a de draft calendar uh again draft is real important I there were initial requests for CIP um projects back in the fall and some refinement early winter um the board had a policy conversation about CIP and as you may recall conversations on the projects in um uh ACM Delgado and Perry we'll sort of bring you back to um some of those highlights there today's conversation we'll talk about the framing and guiding principles the hope is to get your feedback on that process um from now through July and then when we come back in

August this is again all draft um hopefully giving you some initial updates uh about the the projects hoping that um if the board as that you refine process there is um we can come back in September with some preliminary discussions um with some additional recommendations early October and hopeful that our fa can also look at um the what we've put forth affordability and sequencing of projects go hand inand but we always have our fa vetted with us as we try to figure out well how do we cover this and what does it do to our rating and then the ultimate goal of of having some um preliminary Capital Improvement um projects for the board to look like early November with hopeful some

adoption in um November at the November 11th me now this is very inessive and ambitious I'm sure Keith is back there like oh my goodness I'm sure he is I don't even see it but I feel it in the back I feel it feel it in the back of my hand but um so this is very aggressive and it's but but we know we need to move with intentionality I know there's a desire to look at a referendum in 2026 so we need to have that locked up in 2025 and so um the these parts move fast and um for some of us on the finance ins side that have to have these conversations ations with the LGC and others we also recognize what's involved on the other parts of this and so I'm going to turn it now to the most important part of the

conversation which is the guiding principles and um just talking about what that looks like as we uh figure refine our framework and getting it done thank you m uh ACM Delgado here if you recall back in November 23rd we had a retreat and we spoke about um uh guiding principle for CIP and to me I mean just throughout the last few weeks for Budget discussions especially today CIP is becoming should be at the top of of of our thinking okay looking for data driven decisions uh scope doing analys return of Investments all those things right I spoken to Keith the other day and when you have money it's okay but when you don't have money you have to make smart

decisions so in front of you you should have two documents the one is the first one is the guiding principles that we discussed today what I really want to concentrate is come on push that's something that we disc discussed back in November but the second part okay is how do we take guiding principles and make it a policy step by step how do we evaluate look at CIP look at how we spend money okay how do we measure what metrics do we use okay again this is a draft this is work in progress thanks to the team for their assistance uh we've been doing a lot of research see how other cities and counties are doing it it could be done okay it could be done it just takes a lot of teamwork a lot of effort a lot of uh intentional uh actions okay so again the purpose is

it's on the slide uh one area that I am proposing or we are proposing is creating a capital Improvement program review and advisory committee okay for for future CIP projects so before a project comes to the Commissioners you have a committee that looks at all the details okay the needs the the wants how much it's going to cost the timetable all those things that way when you have to make a decision everything is there okay the homework was done okay uh the second part is something that we are we are proposing is Define the CIP process by assets are we are talking about new buildings about libraries how are we going to measure because every asset has a is going to have a different metric okay do we need it now can it wait okay uh Claudia was

nice enough yesterday to send me a reminder 45% of the money that we get we spend it on the school CIP or some type of so getting with the schools to see how we link on the CIP process that way there's no oh surprise okay so I think the M you mentioned something about having those meetings and and I'm so glad to hear that because we Al be in the same boat so when we are talking about this today and your with with your presentations to us today can we assume that when we say the CIP process we are really referring to an integrated process of our Capital needs as a county and also DPS as cap Capital needs that we're thinking about this holistically or is it two separate parallel processes which is more what I feel like it has been in the past which which one is it that CL and I'm gonna say both in okay because we because we are going to have

to have separate conversation with them but then once we are all agreed upon you know what the best approach should be then when we present it to you I feel like we should present the the county projects as well as the schools projects for you to see so when we're thinking about funding and when we're thinking about our ability to take on debt have to think about it all yeah it's it's integrated yeah the challenge is often the syncing up yes processes so for instance if you may recall a couple of years ago when we were planning for the bond referendum we had already finished our facility Master Plan update and Keith can correct me if my if I'm I'm not right but we had to we had finished ours they were in process they finished in the fall so we adopted it in one year and then we adopted it again the next year because of sinking of the timing and so it may take us a while to get synced up um but

I know um working towards something that is more formal and owned by both governing bodies will help us because it makes it difficult for us who are facilitating conversations well how do you pay for this and so um but it is a u that's Dr soel said both both ways thank you oh thank you again it's I'm new to the county but I think about this way it's the same it's the same money okay it's the same money so just move money from left pocket to a right pocket is still the same money how to best use that money okay and get the results that we need to get the results the last part that I would like to touch uh briefly is we have 20 how many uh very how many projects do we have on

CIP 13 active projects so how do we decide which one is going to be first because not everything could be first we don't have enough money to do everything at the same time matter of fact even if we have the money it would not make sense because you're not going to be able to finish and I mean it's going to be too much so how do we say this project is going to be first okay and that's the decision you will make the Commissioners if you look on from the B on the page of the big pamphlet well we are drawing a table okay where we are dividing the factors and the assets that we have okay the committee will get together with the metrics and go one by one okay it's like it's a lot of reading and my apologies by the time we finish was too late and and that's why we decided to make copies for it but it's a lot of detail on this and this is work in progress again the intent is to bring something to to the

to the board that is our suggestions okay listening to the public getting to the the input from the Commissioners from the manager from the the new strategic plan that we're going to develop okay how we're going to uh approach this projects does that make sense I'm yes ma'am yes okay the whole CH when you the in order to understand the sh you got to read the the page that's why right you mentioned it when I thought it was real what you were telling us no no no this what we did or the research that we did was to look for each asset okay

and figure out okay what is important on that asset to be a CIP okay so if imagine that you're going to do groceries and you say okay what do I need first are you going to go by Price urgency I mean like if a project doesn't have anything on energy conservation that project should not come to the board every project that comes to the board should have something on energy conservation okay if the project doesn't have money assigned or funded that's a discussion that we should have but again in order for us for you to understand the chart you have to read the whole package okay which would make it more difficult at this time of the day yes so that's it couple things so good afternoon Commissioners I I do want to say that I

kind of look at this as um one we have a track and great idea to to adopt a policy a process uh create the committee but um just like we talked about earlier today at the work session when we actually um discussed the Emergency Operations Center there are going to be a few projects that sort of are are one-offs or things that drive us to sort of act a little faster um to deliver those projects and there are a few that I want to just highlight to you uh so you can be thinking about those when you're reading the document and sort of um how the policy sort of impacts those projects so we have a new uh issue that has surfaced the um EMS Fleet Maintenance Garage over on Stone Park Creek um you guys know that that property was bought by um NC Railroad and they have directed us that we have to be out of there by January 2025 which means we don't have anywhere

to service our EMS ambulatory Fleet and so that's one that is surfaced as a priority so what we're doing is we're looking at um evaluating properties that the county owns IE the seeden road uh fire station that we got back uh from the city uh we're also looking at what's available on the market and we'll have a we're having conversations with mrio Julio um Emergency Management EMS and others we'll make a a decision about how we sort of move forward based on you know what what makes sense what's what's the most economical thing for us to do right now um there are a few others that are in this same uh category that I'm calling top priorities uh one of them is the Justice Services Department's transition house you know we have arpa dollars associated with that there was a $500,000 arpa set aside that we have to have that funding encumbered by the end of December 2024 so we need to be moving

forward with that um another one you know uh we can look at it how you want to but every time that um preserve rural Durham comes up here they talk about the lack of Public Safety Service delivery in East Durham we have been in discussions with the city for some time now about a fire and EMS collocation on City owned property on Kemp road that is a top priority for both the city and the county and we're trying to align our cips up such that they fit for for both organizations and so just just keep that in mind and there are a few other projects that were approved in the 2020 CIP that we starting to lose traction on that we need to keep moving certainly I don't want to bog it down but the the sheriff's training facility uh that's a project you all know we did several uh land Acquisitions associated with that one um we can have a offline

conversation about how you guys want to move forward but we were ready to actually bid that project and we were kind of put the braks were put on us so um just keep that in mind uh the city and the county are also moving forward with fire and ems1 19 that is going to be the collocation to serve RTP at the intersection of 54 and Davis Drive uh there are a few other projects I know the board has interest in things we certainly can talk about those commissioner Wendy Jacobs you've mentioned the animal shelter multiple times I'd like to second that yeah the fleet maintenance facility is a new one uh that's out there but I I mentioned that because that's going to be cited adjacent to the animal shelter out at Junction Road so if if we move forward with the animal shelter it makes sense to put in utility infrastructure for the fleet maintenance facility um just taking advantage of the economics there and then there are some studies that we're doing that that absolutely make sense you know we're getting ready to update the um counties

space needs analysis and facility master plan we're doing an update to the EMS long range space plan in alignment with the city to continue the collocation model and make sure that we're um you know providing service delivery in tandem with that group and we're also doing a Regional Library Master Plan update and another project that I've talked to upper management about is we're doing a Space Management efficiency improvements in on call services what we're doing is we're taking a post-pandemic look a post-pandemic assessment of the County's space and how we're utilizing it and see if we can I guess just be more efficient because it's not all about building new projects it's also about being wise with what you have and so that's a project where we've done an RFQ we're waiting on a proposal from a consultant that's going to help us with that and so that will be coming to you sometime in the near future so um that's just my list of projects that uh you can certainly think

about as you think about um how the policy uh impacts you know those so just don't forget there's a $3 million EPA Grant in order to renovate the convenience site at Ro roor that'll be coming to see don't do do not get into a discussion of the CIP commissioner Howton has a question yes go ahead what's the conversation around the um fire station that the citizens have been asking about for quite some time EMS or fire station yes ma'am that's the one I mentioned we we're calling that in in the CIP is called the Far East station okay but it's actually the uh fire and EMS collocation that we're going to put on Kemp Road okay that's City owned property the city and county

have been in discussions for some time now so you got a fancy a name for for it than I do yes ma'am but yes absolutely we we know it's high on your list we hear the citizens and so uh we're ahead of it so it's it's a top priority for both the city and the county thank you yes ma'am and commissioner Wendy Jacobs has questions comments thank you Julio and I look forward to reading this um definitely need to have a policy and a rubric and all that thank you so much um just thinking about what you were just listing Perry first of all I want to say about cemp Road how much money has the city asked from developers when they've been doing their res zonings in that area to go towards the um EMS station how much do we have in that pot of money commissioner you know I I can't answer that question yes cu the answer is zero yeah the answer is zero so that that is not for him to answer yeah I

know so you know we that we really have to deal we have to address that you know that that is you know that's very frustrating to me um you know okay um so I so two things one I want to respond that about project build I know that was we got information back from Keith we def definitely need to move forward with project build they they have been operating out of the basement of um Justice Services Center and so I'm sorry if anything I did interfered with that part of things because that needs to so pre please bring that part back to us asap those people they work so hard they do such a good job and they need to get their space renovated and lo relocated over there so I just want to be clear about that's my position on that I I'm glad to hear that as you could tell

we're scared to touch it uh since what happened sorry yeah sometimes we don't realize our unintended consequences but we we're going to package it all together and bring it to you but thank you forting that okay well I don't want that to be part of the old the former Boys and Girls Club I think that needs to be separated out it will be um yeah and then animal shelter I really want to move forward with that animal shelter and so uh especially before Heidi leaves this board she has worked so hard as a liaison to that board and we are going to do it in honor of Heidi does that to be my legacy yeah so I I want to know how we can because you know we can chew gum and walk and talk at the same time so I I do want to know how we can move forward with that and and it yes if we're going to make if we're going to be doing something at our Junction Road Site then that makes sense to look at you know planning for what

else needs to go there um so I'll just say that those um and the Justice Services transition home we should definitely move forward with that if that's going to be funded with arpa funding a small portion 500,000 oh it won't cover the whole thing oh okay all right but that's still really important is still really important look she she is doing what I was hoping we didn't do but okay okay sorry we will allow you if I can though ask um DCM Hager to go back to the timeline because I heard you say you know you want us to move forward I whenever you need to bring it back to us but I'm just I'm just giving feedback um but okay yeah can can we wait until August cuz that's what we're looking to do okay okay well maybe not on the I see his face not on remember we have a a deadline to have the arpa funding encumbered by December 2024 not the not

the arpa project I'm just saying bringing back because you know rightly so commissioner Wendy Jacobs is listing like these are my top priorities I got but project build if you need to bring that back we we don't have to wait till so that's what I wanted to wait until August to bring everything back so that we're not cherry picking again we we want to honor the request of staff and look at how we can prioritize okay we he you we hear you okay thank you all so much cuz we'll get into I want this and I want this yeah well yeah yeah okay I hear you and Perry I really it's I was really excited to hear about the plans that you said you're working on um I missed you said the library one the P post pandemic space the EMS and what was the other one uh uh the Library Regional master plan and just an update to the space needs and now that's all County Department's operational

administrative storage and parkings so yes ma'am so was those three it's actually Four I I missed the fourth EMS did you get EMS okay EMS Library EMS library to Space Management efficiency and then the overall update to the space uh needs assessment those are two different things oh okay and if we have if we have anything else can we get it we get it in there what's that now if we have something else can we get it in there as well I don't I think that goes against what the manager wanted to do so yeah can we can we put something else well thank you so much for this presentation at a rather high level um I I do uh think it's good not to go with the cherry-picking approach and um look forward to the policy and the r brick to run our different projects through uh and so see how they land in the priority list um and the timeline looks

aggressive but it looks uh feasible so hopefully we'll be able to to do that to accomplish that and um also looking forward to a more comprehensive look at all of Duram County's needs together including the schools so that we know what the total cost is and we know what the Total Resource Source dollar figure is to address the cost okay thank you thank you for your time and that brings us to board discussion is someone leading that ask David team to come up team dynamic duo I don't know how long this is going to last but 5 o'clock I got to be out the door yeah pretty much turn into a I think I'm already may be a I already am a vegetable right for good afternoon Commissioners good afternoon there's no presentation there's going to be the ad delete list let me say it clearly now

the hard work begins I hear vegetable States and people ready to go but at some point all of this policy has to turn into numerical decisions so we can push towards an approved budget in theory on June the 10th we have one more day tomorrow half a day to the fourth was the reserve day I was it is we have only one group coming to talk and then we talk but there's a lot to talk about numerically and decisions need to be made or a decision needs to be made to put off approving the budget till later in June and then you can I I I have to point out that that is a possibility if it's not one that I think need we have confidence that the board will make decisions today and tomorrow to get us towards an approval of the budget different than what is or the same that the managers recommended what

we are showing uh right now let's start at the top thank you David's running it over there so we'll be mixing between the two of us we talked about the $107,000 we're adding back to Cooperative Extension for that misunderstanding mistake on our part of a cut to their budget for um Early Childhood uh support that's not costing the county anything we have money in a reserve and we can move from that Reserve to pay for this I mean what is the reserve trying to get your hands on it already I heard your your interest perk up that we have we well we have we reserve a little bit of money just in case we have mistakes over there this isn't a massive amount of money a couple hundred, it's not going to save the day whatever we Define as saving the day but it saved this from being additional funding I just want to point out that this is paid for with the movement of those funds but

we have some big ticket tidy already knows you so she already planned on the fact that you put something you squirrel something you know early on he said he we had a little bit and he said about 300,000 or something but it was not much several hundred, we passed it um we've passed it all that being said we still have some major decisions to move forward on you heard uh on May the 30th from dtcc they requested an additional $54,000 that would fully fund their full request of over 700,000 the manager's recommended budget is giving them 220,000 most of that 500,000 is to pay for some upfit of some rental space remember they have it office but that's a decision you have to make to give them all that they requested none something in the middle during prek there was an adjustment for $1 million $115,000 for two additional credential

8 million commissioner Carter is getting me then we talk about the teacher salary

5 million in additional current capital funding that current capital would be on top of the $6 million we give them annually you heard the superintendent talk about that a number of times that number would not be built into the per pupil amount so you would not a portion of it would not go to Charter Schools

73 million request that they have asked for now we're going to go through and then the final ad I want to show you at the bottom so far is the hati reborn it's a two up to a $2 million increase that that is up for discussion now I also know that uh you all said that you were concerned about um Cooperative Extension here the last folks that were up here just a few minutes ago and some additional funding for I'm not quite sure what we Quantified as a number additional I don't think I've added it up here yet if you if there isn't we will find out from them probably can go back to that secret Reserve account that you aren't allowed to touch but I am and we could pay for that just kidding but you if it's 50,000 or 100,000 to work and we'll double

check the arpa funding so for instance reach out and Reed received $200,000 M received 280,000 and our and there are a couple others that are also supported so we'll get that list to you so that you can have that information now if you do with some creative discussions that Claudia and our office has had and I assume she's had it with management as well let me talk about how we can subsidize some of the increases related to DPS Claudia has talked with John kefir and I think they have they are confident that that arpa dollars at least for one year $4 million could be used to support some of the current that $6 million request for current capital remember every year we give them $6 million four million of arpa dollars could be used to pay for that and you could use four million move to

5 million request yes so that would give actually give schools $8 million of arpa money for one year or at least until they spend it for current capital where they have six million right now but with no additional cost to the county does that make sense we're giving them 8 million at arpa we're moving $4 million because we're giving them $8 million

95 million that the manager recommended and the 27 million so if you do the difference between 13 million and 27 it's 14 million it's really only about 10 million plus because we have 4 million offsetting I know this sounds complicated but you can actually we would we wouldn't have to raise taxes you wait wait I'm not done yet you would have to raise taxes potentially not as much but it depends on how much you want to give schools over and above and how much you want to give he Tai and how much you want to give um prek and how much you want to give dtcc all of these things add up David has tried over here to to give an well not tried he's done a good job at least we understand it I

5 so go

1 million of arpit that we could use so yeah we we we do and so what what we're saying is and I need to go back we we're I think we're saying the same thing so the 4 million

8 no no I'm not sorry not certified the teacher supp I'm not sure 13 covers all that I'd like to see that it okay so let's make sure that the 13 covered that um and

7 a more um and we haven't even talked about our benefits for our staff and all these other things so so I I just think that

that like like I'm saying for me it's the things that the manager already said plus the classified staff and then pulling out the prek stuff and I don't know like that's if we can get that done that's a lot well and the capital now they and the capital if we can get that done that is almost everything and and we haven't even talked about the needs of any of our own staff and departments so I I just I don't want to get too deep into this when we haven't had you know what I'm saying yes well said in other words delete all the other stuff ma'am in other words delete all the other stuff leave leave everything but take one I hear from commissioner Wendy Jacobs a proposal to take out the late ad of one point that was shown at the last a quarterly Retreat and that's the only time it's been shown but it's the Board of Education approved by budget request I'm hearing commissioner Wendy Jacobs proposed

6 million that you could take out of how much you're deciding you could all agree but that we could always add it back in but we haven't even talked about our own staff yet I think Wendy's saying it's lower on the priority list you don't have to delete it forever we never see it our cons right this is helpful we will push this off because I will say though about that um this category of funding request it's it's like the classified and the certified they've all been coming forward every year you know as a request it's just they've staggered it we haven't done it all I mean this is EC funding that you know for exceptional children's teachers that you you they've been we've been reading about the need for additional funding there for as long as I can remember um but it's very difficult work and it's very competitive to fill the positions

8 absolutely can I yes go ahead question about the uh charter school so each each time we give an amount we have to add another 20% to the DPS we have to add 20% we don't have to we do this because we're not punishing during Public Schools they'll have to give it to every time we give money to during public schools for

the current expense line item that we have budgeted there's roughly 20% of our students public school students go to Charter Schools and every dollar per pupil that we add to 20% of that has to go to Charter School so every time you add a dollar to the Durham County Durham Public School current expense line item basically 20 cents of that dollar has to go to Charter schools that effectively takes 20 cents away from DPS but the board over the last number of years has chosen to upcharge itself 20 cents so it's not as much punishment to DPS so now DPS gets a120 cents and 22 cents goes to so Char school and we don't have to do that with the capital funding no ma'am we don't have to add the 20% no ma'am yeah or the prek depending on where we locate it and how we deal with that which is what Claudia is talking about doing some things and ilas and

4 million that we've allocated for that and so if the board so chooses to do it that we we handle it that way we that's for the prek but you also had was it four million that we had that could cover current capital that is a whole it will cover 24 25 when that arpa funding runs out which it will in 2526 you're going to be staring at

needing to you apply 4 million more County dollars just to get the current capital back to six or more than 4 million to go above that to eight or seven whatever the number is and I would also like to add that in our communication to the board we noted that we also as the manager shared like like to get with DPS to identify what are those most pressing Capital project issues so that if it's appropriate we could bundle them as we've done in the past into a project that's you know potentially funded with lobs um so uh again we've we've done this over the years they do get Bond funding but we've also offset we have at least 150 some we have quite a bit of lobs funded we've done a lot you know fairly the past few years so that's that's the companion piece to this so just tell me

6 million 4 million

7 million I'm just saying that's the maximum amount if you all said this is this has got us

7 million that we would have to find and that discussion tomorrow where we're going going to learn some some more details about uh about the benefits and and uh whether or not we have concerns that let's not do that today no I know it's not today I was like is that tomorrow is what I was asking is that the presentation for tomorrow well there was a lot of responses that were sent to the board yes and we were hopeful that information would help satisfy the outstanding questions okay um um I know we talked about potentially looking at subsidy amounts for for um positions at certain levels and what that break even

number is um this this benefit conversation is complex we'll have to read some more on we'll have to read all the detailed um information you've sent us I've scanned it but I haven't I haven't digested it there are different costs depending on whether you buy the buy up plan or not whether it's a family buy up SP versus it's a children program make your head swim forever and ever and the information I think that HR provided really was the worst case scenario that's correct so if everyone selected the buy up plan buy up family plan buy up family then it showed that you had to have a break even salary of 80 some odd, a year and if I'm doing my math and by memory I think that's like 1,400 employees out of 2,000 make less than that but that to your point Dr so well was the worst case scenario if it's just an employee and a spouse it's a different Break Even point but that all has ramifications depending on the choices you make there Wendy yeah I I I am still

concerned about the possible implications of the um because even employees who for instance I know some of our lower paid employees even with the cola when they do the buy up plan it's actually amounting to a salary cut correct so I I do I do I would like to know what the options are for addressing those particular employees um you know what would that look like if it was a certain fund that they could apply to or you know I don't know whatever different scenarios that you all recommend but I I am concerned about that especially when we're making these very intentional decisions to increase the salaries of our Durham Public School workers I don't want to do it on the backs of our Durham County staff like I don't think that's a good Dynamic to

39 million lower priority for commissioner Jacob plus the charter you're still at a almost a 5cent tax rate increase yeah how could you lower that not do anything for employees for

4 million

4 yeah yeah yeah and and the thing that we discussed again she really helped me sleep last night but what we won't what we want to make sure we don't do is go so far outside of our fund

8 by appropriating a little bit more fund balance yeah I mean again my personal opinion about he Tai is they're going to get 2 million from the city and the county which is what they had last year was their $2 million budget they're just going to get half of it now from the

4 million in staff and salaries I I just can't justify it with the kind of challenges that we're looking at here well wend do you you know that standing up an organization it takes more money to stand it up they've already cut and passed over to the city a lot of the employees now an meeting with the mayor last night he's not sure it's going to H it's going to go through that budget so it's it's been proposed and he's not sure what's going to happen with that so we started this organization and it makes no sense to start working with our young people and getting them to durm Tech and then cut their legs out m i that would just be so

bad for us to do that I mean two years at least we can do what we need to do to keep this organization going and it's not that much money compared to what we're doing with other in other places I actually thought they had only come to us for onetime funding I was barely surprised that they were asking for another2 million dolls so I I um I feel like we give them a half a million dollar we're giving them a lot based on the fact that most of their money was spent on salaries and not on services is I just there was a lot about their presentation I was uncomfortable with and you know it was like I said that day I do approve their model and um their their goals you know I think we all do um it does feel like the return on the investment is is is low it was low this year the number of students served per dollar given you know it was like $50,000 a person um we can't afford that I don't think so tell me of another

organization that has created the kind of results for our young people that are would be out there in the street creating habit or being killed that this organization is doing tell me one well there weren't that many doing it this wasn't that many there weren't that many humans that were you know actually served that was that's the problem um they've had how many graduations now actually their their fourth one I think is this week they had four graduations they had literally there were it was it was um 40 people 40 people had graduated um and had been you know referred for a POS you know some sort of a position a job um have been Prov you know I know anyway it and how did they just start it comes to $50,000 a person they haven't even been in operation for a year it's been like six months or so I know but I thought they were going to be getting funding from outside sources is

39 million plus the charter schools for that was taken out of this number this does include $1 million more for prek funding direct to ccsa this includes an additional $500,000 roughly 504 for

85 so you know again this is really hard because we have never had a tax increase like this in the history of durh and commissioner Wendy Jacobs I'll I'll remind you on one of those um many response to questions you had asked verbally I believe it was you yes for a detail of the city and county rates over the last 20 years thanks to Jonathan on our staff yes he put a table together it's at the back of one of those documents it was very interesting and we are higher than we've ever been this would be higher but only for a year

substantially higher when K and the tax office Implement a revaluation the tax rate will drop that does not mean tax valuations versus the tax bill for many many residents will not drop even at a revenue neutral rate but the tax rate will drop I will remind you that some of the choices you're making as part of this tax rate increase will put us in the hole to start with next year the4 million of arpa funding to limit the tax rate increas this year is going to be there next year I dare say once we talk about the CIP a little bit plus what I already know is coming with some of the 22 geobond that we're going to need a tax rate increase for the CIP next year for debt related payments so there are pressures next year coming 25 26 if you're concerned I have a question since this is kind of like Bare Bones it doesn't include our staff if we take the hay tie down to million because again this is we are in a crisis here what does that do to the tax rate he'll put

35 million so if you take a million you take a 20th of it so two10 of a cent away you basically reduced it by $450,000 if you add a million dollar to fun balance appropriated take that to 2 million and you might get another tenth and a half cent off and so that's a question how much can we go to to fund balance to get it down a little bit right fund balance is is there is no perfect answer to that I I know there is only how we end up this fiscal year what next would you do this at home would you say okay I've maxed out the credit card to go on a trip and I still really want to stay at some fancy hotel so I'm going to go into my savings account for my kids college education I'm just going to do it once

surely we'll pay it back what if something happens and you can't pay it back that's the only and it's a what if there is no the difference is it feels like we're taking money out of the kids' College account that they actually don't need because there is plenty money it's ample right without it that's what it feels like I mean my question would be how much can we take out of fund balance and still be within our fiscal policy that's it's a moving number literally every day it's cash in in terms of Revenue it you know I don't know today tomorrow what I guess tell me tomorrow afternoon tomorrow we we'll have some scenarios tomorrow where we feel comfortable we're still yes fetting and scrubbing a lot um for sales taxes are still not where they were last year and there and so there but there are places when we look at for instance encumbrances and this is where I felt

comfortable in that some encumbrance our philosophy of strategy has been a little bit more generous in in the purchase orders we carry over because of supply chain issues and so we'll see that number go down this year compared to Prior so there are some places there when we project out where do we think we're land um it has been a while it has been a while we had three fabulous years of Revenue growth and we all had a wonderful time choosing where to apply those dollars and it's just simply tightened up we're still growing just slower Revenue but we have many many expenditure choices that we want to fund love to tell the story [Music] commissioner Carter if I may you're you're asking a great question what is

the amount the problem is if we could come up with that amount and give you that today tomorrow or the next day we would problem is fund balance isn't settled until the AER is settled the AER isn't going to be settled until September October November so when they say it's a moving Target it's it's it is so much there's so many other moving pieces to it is there a number that's more comfortable honestly we reduced it this year because of our lack of comfort in looking at projections for the end of this year so is there a difference between a million or two million I'm not we'll do that the range is what we that's what I was about to say can we work on a range I think Claudia could come up with that we'll go back and and it would help if if you all because there are a lot of decisions to be made what are your highest priorities so if you can tell us that and we can get to a number that we can find then we'll be

better able to come back and say here's what we would propose in funding this yes I just want to thank you guys I just really want to thank you for for the being willing to look at creative approaches um everyone John and Claudia Keith the manager everyone who's been trying to problem solve around this um to try to really address the needs of our schools I really appreciate that everyone we're on the same team we are we are the same team we are we are and even consider it's not that we have to do this but if there are things that you all want to fund but we feel like we shouldn't do it right now would you trust us that as we're moving to 2425 that we would be looking for ways

to fund it even if it's not in the adopted budget trust us that we would be looking for ways as we settle with the fund balance looking for ways to fund something that was important to you that we didn't get in the adopted budget but we would be looking for where could we find available funds once we're in that year to cover that it it depends that's that's fair but but that's another conversation that we've had that that could help us okay I agree I wanted to say the same thing Wendy said I mean I I truly feel like you know we we um come to this with our own thoughts about what are our priorities you all are valued loyal advisers you know we we hear your caution um but you're not dug in with your caution right you are willing to roll with us and I really appreciate that um I appreciate the fact that you're you know we feel heard it's

good to feel heard and um we hear you I hope you hope you feel heard I hope you feel like we listened to your cautionary words of wisdom um yeah um is there anything else for the order of the day I don't think so if not we're Jed yep good