Board of Commissioners · Regular Meeting · March 1, 2023

so good morning everybody um I think Wendy just went to get a little coffee or something but if we want to go ahead and get started um so I know that and before we get into questions um commissioner Allam was on the Zoom yesterday and didn't get to answer ask her questions so before we get into questions just check to see if she's on the zoom and if she's got a question that she didn't get to ask yesterday is she there yes she is online she has not immuted herself so I'm not sure if she wants to ask those questions now or if she'll wait if she wants to wait okay just wanted to acknowledge that that since she's not here in person

that um and she had let me know that you had a question to ask okay Keith I'll turn it to you or Keith go ahead and get started talking yes ma'am uh today is a much shorter day we'll be wrapping up at 12 just a reminder yesterday we did some financial highlights from the finance department the tax department the budget Department uh you had a deep dive into some Opera progress and then we had a productive youth home discussion even though it was late in the afternoon and everybody had just about had enough today everybody's back bright and fresh there was food and then we'll uh and The Innovation Center and there will be lunch boxes provided so you can take those and head out when we're done today we're going to talk about uh have a discussion about living wage updates and possible solutions to some questions or options and then we're going to have a discussion about the how the long-time homeowners Relief Fund has been doing

and possible changes to that and then we're going to have an update on the board of election space and preparation for the upcoming National local and national elections and then after that there will be time for board to discuss priorities and or answer any questions and with that we're ready I think to have the living wage discussion and while we're transitioning I will say commissioner Allam did have a question about the youth home she wanted to know what the different phases if that would mean additional beds beyond what we were originally planning to have I told her we'll get an answer to that and send it out to all of you okay can you can you come to the mic thanks so commissioner Allam if you're listening I think um Heather has an answer thank you so repeat the question please so commission alone since we can hear you go ahead and ask your question

um this is about the youth home yes okay yeah I was wondering in um priority three there was an ask for additional beds is that in addition to what we've already approved with the new youth youth no priorities right priority three would be the the youth home fully open so it'd be all the beds that you guys have currently approved it would be all of those beds being occupied so nothing above and beyond what has already been approved okay okay thank you for that clarification great thank you yes it is very good at our job thank you we got quite a few new phases around we just had to get used to familiar with who they are yeah okay who's talking it is I knew I saw Kathy every Kathy Everett Perry yep everybody

ladies and gentlemen Derek Bowens is in the house I just want to say welcome Mr Bowens good to see you yep good morning yes oh no this is better yeah so we're going to spend a few minutes with you this morning discussing our current living wage policy as well as our salaries and how they compare to the federal poverty guidelines we will also give some cost projections for if you should decide to increase our living wage and we'll answer any questions you may have so I will turn it over to Dara good morning good morning so uh first slide we're going to start off with is just talking about setting a living wage basically by having a living wage in place it helps reduce poverty it empowers our employees and it benefits

40 but that's upon you all's review of the policy and how you all want to proceed with the living wage next slide would that include all DPS employees also we actually are going to have a conversation around the DPS employees uh toward the end I think a budget has some information they're going to be sharing on this and I think that this slide dick is a little different from the one that we sent but that's okay um so we're going to roll with it uh so basically the living wage for a full-time salary would be 32 250 we based it on a number of factors but

54 is not a lot in order to be able to take care of a household um on this slide there's one typo on the uh for this that's two 40-hour work weeks it actually should be we have additional work week schedule here at Durham County which is a special schedule we have two

5 hour work week that's where you find most people however we do have some schedules that are 40 Hour Work Week schedules here at Durham County and there's a slight difference in those but those people will still make the same annual salary but their hourly rate would be based different so the individuals who work in mostly public safely safety positions is where you always will find the individuals who have the special schedules that have the required overtime built into them so their salaries may be a lot more and so

when we do when we deal with the living wage and you set that you have to make a special note regarding those individuals because they may see the policy says or the guidelines may say one rate but their rate isn't set that way it's set on their annual salary I I think some of us caught the typo but could we just say on camera for clarification that the 1477 one is the one with the 46 is would I be correct in stating that the 1550 42 hours I'm sorry well 42 excuse me yeah so it's not so that's the 42 hour I just wanted to be said so at least we said what the number was because yes and we can send an updated slide deck over um as a follow-up to this conversation and Dara can you pull the mic just a little closer because the alarm is happening and I just wanted to add that on this slide we're focusing on the fact that the living wage is an annual salary at 32 250 dollars why so one of the one I'm sorry

commissioner what percentage did that increase what what's the increased percentage of increase in terms of last year's of this year so if we go to the 1840 . we having to increase would that be if we have that on a different slide don't we what it would cost to implement the 1840 yes yes okay so this is showing us the employees that we currently have under the 1840. 90 and we have only four employees at that but for the total number of employees that are under the 1840 is 33 employees and so is our recommendation to go from the 1690 to the 1840. correct and moving

those employees forward and so that's a nine percent increase I think budget's going to switch out the slides just give them one moment to do that and so while they are switching it out what I would like for the board to to know is that so we currently do have a living wage policy um what HR is recommending is that we take a look and we're not asking for decision today but that we take a look at that living wage policy and see if we want to adjust it Beyond I think it's a seven and a half percent above the poverty yes correct in some of our research we wanted to make sure we looked at what's currently going on today um in a bigger picture so we just can't the federal poverty guidelines look at looks just at how you feed people and

those guidelines are used in other places on how they determine how to get people Services however it doesn't account certain things like health care and day care costs things that people really have going on to be able to actually function in society successfully and so moving our wage forward would be able to put us in a in a better place to support our citizens and our hard dedicated workers here at Durham County to do so so so that's what we're looking at in a bigger picture um when we get to the implementation you'll see what it looks like to move the individuals forward to to this particular rate and also we want to just talk about some of the things that may happen in doing so we did look at the recommendations that were supplied as well around looking at a 23 hour rate in a 24-hour which we don't recommend because it will cause a lot of other issues it's very very expensive for one and then when the compression that it causes and the rest of the organization will be an issue that we would have to address as we go along as well

and I will add one other thing there was a question about was DPS the DPS employees considering this so what you will see we were not considering giving this to DPS employees now our budget team will come forward and share with you that that is a very exorbitant cost if we were to do that and we would have to make some very different decisions um Keith said it best yesterday when we agree to do one thing it means we agreed not to do something else we would have to agree not to do a lot of things if we were to include all of the DPS employees in this doesn't mean that we can't but if we do we have to make some different decisions about other things and can you just clarify what is the cost for just the 33 um employees to get to get them up to 18. the implementation costs would be twenty nine thousand fifteen dollars so that's pretty affordable today was to make a change I saw the relief come over your face I mean that's Trump change

60 so we've positioned hours just a little more ahead they already have some advantages on us when it comes to um hiring and so we're trying to make sure we position ourselves in order to be able to attract and retain the highest Talent here on this side of the um of the street street well we appreciate that yeah and it's you know we yeah we have the information but it's good to hear you go over it so that helps to ground Us in what those

numbers are yeah thank you so I'll also talk about since we're the slides are up there let me see if we can get through to where we okay so this is what the slide was supposed to be like so there wasn't any confusion in that nice little chart that wasn't supposed to be there but this talks about our looking at a 37 point five hour work week in our full-time salaries we've covered this but on the next slide you'll see the implementation cost if we were to do the 23 dollars an hour and the 24 and that does not include covering compression because when you go to 23 an hour and 24 an hour you're going to have a lot of compression cause that we would have to factor in as noted this does not include EMS in the Sheriff's Office due to the special special schedules that they have on this particular slide when you see that

Keith can you get in the mic so commissioner alone can hear it twenty four dollars an hour at roughly 40 hours is 49 900 we'll call it fifty thousand dollar salary at twenty four dollars remember yesterday you heard from the youth home a recommendation for those employees to be at 52. guess who else heard that it was sitting right over here on the edge the sheriff yeah and he's ready to do that for Detention officers so they're you're working towards 24 directly or indirectly in a number of ways so keep that in the back of your head and it is such an officer classification in the youth home Council certification are ones that are we have the relationship tied to them so they are basically the same type of position but they're just in different areas so they would be looking at receiving anything that they the other individuals

receive the same way is there a timeline um a plan that could be put into place for for making it happen over time so it depends on what you want to make happen over time so the 1840 can be pretty easy to make happen that is something so to get to the 24 so to get to the 24 I would recommend maybe as we review the salaries on an annual basis to make sure that living wage is set where you all feel we should be to get to the 24 and how long that should take so should it take four years for us to get there what can Durham County afford to be able to do each year to work toward that um there's a lot going on we still don't know what's going on with the economy so that's up for you all to determine and advise us on how you want to operate but I would say we would probably have another compensation study by the time we're reaching that point if we were to stagger by years and then of course it

may be a whole different scenario as to where we are and where we need to be I have a question how how does this mesh with the recommendations of the compensation study because we haven't even gotten that yet so I'm also wondering will some of the recommendations in the compensation study actually address the 1840 and even helping us get towards you know closer to the 24 but so that that's one of my questions I do want to note that you know as we heard yesterday 75 of our funding goes basically towards well what was the Personnel cost and education an education which um you know that's taking up most of our funding and so that doesn't leave us with a lot of other money to address other needs in the community so it's just a balancing

act really it's really difficult um but we really have to that's the reality that we face I think you put already estimated the compensation study is going to cost us between 7 and 11 million and then that's a lot that's a menu of items that's a cola potential Cola increase for employees cost of living related to inflation and pay for performance in the mag study so okay between those three things it's going to be anywhere from seven to eleven million dollars and then basically 10 million to which is all you know for DPS staff um most of that so anyway yeah anyway yeah yeah and so commissioner Allam has a question but can you get yeah commissioner alum yeah thank you amen thank you so much uh

for this I am really excited that we are you know pushing and having this conversation I will just put out a disable from the beginning I feel like we should do the 23 still and I know um a cheer Howard didn't ask my first question about uh breaking this out in a timeline of when we can reach that 23 because yeah if we do this planned out for five years down the road the cost of living in five years is going to be higher than 23. and we're just going to be chasing uh down a living wage my other question was in the implementation cost is that how much it will cost to just bring those 33 or 288 employees to that amount or does that also include um starting the people who are already at 23 and lifting them up as well so it does not include the stretch the compression piece it only includes the cost of bringing them up and the fringes that go along with it because we do have the additional costs that it may cost

for our benefits and retirement piece all of those things have been factored in but not the compression piece um I think that answers the question but the 23 dollars would have to be best on a plan that you guys have kind of mentioned before to be able to create a schedule to do that I don't think we addressed your question yet commissioner um Jacobs I will say that the comp study preliminarily does bring the salary up to 18 a little over 18 not quite 1840. I think commissioner alarm bought up a point that I was gonna as commissioner Carter said wait to the end to ask but since it's been brought up I recognize that these numbers only bring us to 23 right and again I'm not an oppositionist to this but anybody who works anybody who has had to manage you all know the chaos that this is going to cause right so I just I think for some people who are watching this

they're not seeing the the internal chaos that it would cause because you might have a person that's been working 10 years somebody who's been working one year and we shoot everybody to 23. and you all who work in HR and anybody in here who's been a manager you know exactly what's going to happen that 10-year person is going to want to know how is it that Jeff just walked in here today and got the same thing that I got so to commissioner Long's Point yes this brings everybody who is below 1840 or below 23 or below 24 but recognize as soon as we do that with DAR your internal audit going to start getting a lot of emails because somebody's going to try to understand why didn't I get this I've been dutiful if if we can make Jeff at 23 then I need to be at 32 or 27. so I do again want to throw that out there because and Kathy you've done this a lot longer than I have correct me if I'm wrong if I have a 10-year employer multiple 10 or 15 year employees that are at let's just say 21

6 million is the base and I don't think that we have art I we didn't put that here but to commissioner Long's point this just brings everybody here that's the base of what we would be asking for and then in six months it would probably double if not quadruple for some people so I did just want to throw that out right but with the comp study we are looking at those compression issues so if we were to go along with those recommendations it will address those long-standing employees and not bring people up and not address them at the same time yeah okay I think she has another side wait and this slide right here is what it looks like if we did include those

special schedules which would greatly increase their salaries as well so there's a slight difference well there's a great difference there in those we don't recommend doing that because as we mentioned before they are guaranteed to make that annual salary and plus more because not only do we have mandatory overtime as you all know these areas have a a huge need right now they have a lot of vacancies so the employees actually work a lot more than that base of mandatory overtime that's set on those schedules time somebody mentioned it yesterday about sometimes you can't yet overtime pay Angela Nunn brought that up it was a little confusing some of our employees didn't quite understand why they weren't getting overtime I don't I'm not sure HR is prepared right now to know the youth home pay schedule but maybe you can I was was not familiar with what Angela was speaking about I was a bit confused

she said she herself was confused so I was confused by her explanation so we probably should speak with her to see what exactly is going on all right thank you and just in general and this is from my 10 years ago HR experience but for people that don't work a traditional 40-hour work week if you're working a 13 18 hour shift my husband's a firefighter he works 24 hours his overtime he can't earn over time like everyone else it's based on the actual number of hours that you physically work so if there is a holiday in a work week and I've worked 13 hours a day I'm at and I worked three days that week I'm 39 hours I may get paid for that holiday but because I didn't physically work I have to work another hour to get to 40 hours and then I can start earning overtime but if the for those those shifts that are not your 40 Hour Work Week shift it's different

and you have to physically work a certain number of hours before it triggers a time and it's really not just over high it's really the pay time and a half is what people are looking to get you can't get time and a half hours if you haven't physically worked a certain number of hours that's where just like our schedule is 37 and a half so individuals who work a week they're not eligible for overtime if they go beyond unless they work that additional what two and a half hours and this is not just youth home employees this is EMS right attention officers almost any 24 7 operation has a unique schedule and it is complicated David Hades in our office is a former firefighter and he's tried to explain it to me I'm still struggling still struggling to to get my head wrapped around at 48-hour weeks and it's all sort of complicated stuff but yeah and they're subject to flsa which drives a lot of that but again this number does not deal with compression issues that

can be brought up in any number of ways including those people who are already above 24 an hour would they go to 28 because the new person just jumped to 23. absolutely all that would have to be taken into account yeah yeah oh this slide is for key yeah I spoke to Paul lessor in DPS I know this may be of interest to several Commissioners that asked about what would happen if we included DPS hourly workers he told me were about 511 that DPS has now they're currently at a average hourly rate of around 17 and a half dollars so to move them to 1840 would cost them and indirectly they would request from us because this would be over and above State levels about 742 thousand dollars to get to 1840. 23 dollars an hour for those 500 plus employees and this is just simple math

3 basically he said it's about 850 825 000 for each dollar increase in hourly remember twenty four dollars an hour is fifty thousand dollars a year our teachers getting hired at fifty thousand dollars a year so you have some real you have some massive compression issues if you start bringing in education salaries that are State driven if you have other types of workers getting fifty thousand in a a year at twenty four dollars an hour and potentially a teacher that's not included in these numbers it's another two or three thousand employees two thousand employees that may be getting hired at State salary levels lower than fifty thousand base salary now I'm sure they may be up above that once you add in the additional funding the

teacher supplement you all pay averages six to seven thousand dollars per teacher some big issues but the number gets significantly larger two plus million dollars for twenty four dollars an hour for County Employees without dealing with compression issues four to five million dollars for DPS related folks without dealing with compression issues commissioner Carter just quickly want to say that um I didn't balk when I looked at the call implementation cost for both our staff and for the 511 employees at DPS at 1840. I was pleasantly surprised that that seems I thought doable um and and I and I think I will still stand by that um I do think would be important for us to see the results of the DPS classification and compensation study so like you're saying Keith um how would 1840 you know affect the

8 million of that was for their comp study preparation for increases related to that in fact 95 percent of their entire

5 so let's just go ahead and make that seven so what we've

36 million to

that other 2 million because that would be our employees and so automatically we're looking at at least a one and a half cent tax increase unless you cut other things remember there's always I just do not do everything but yes I'm just trying to do things being equal your math is getting there yes ma'am I'm done we have not gotten a comp study from school yet have we right so we we this conversation is premature if we don't have their comp study it was more an exploration of the concept and potential cost but yes you are absolutely correct we do not know what their comp study to say it has said or will say yet right okay so and we don't know that other people have watching this or we should have the intelligent conversation about it I just know everybody's watching this one today right so yeah we don't know if we'll have it right before we need to make decisions either so that's why we wanted to bring this before you to give you enough time to kind of ponder where

things would would land with this um so because we know the ask is there I in summary and I just between you all thinking about as commissioner Jacobs made I showed yesterday 30 million dollars in increased costs related to schools in the county six million dollar increase in our funding for salary and benefits changes that were made in this fiscal year we have to pay for for County Employees we showed you 7 to 11 million for potential mag Cola and performance for us and then remember it just said the entire 10 million dollar request from schools is State salary increases plus their consult that's 30 Milli up to 30 million dollars in 2324 for compensation related issues only between schools in Durham County folks it's an expensive business to consider nothing wrong with that just wanted you to understand the numbers just a second let me finish this I'm I'm done thank you please finish this

statement um most of us are are going to be meeting with um the school folks in the next couple of days and their conversation will be around funding so what you're saying is there's such there's uncertainty as to what kind of con what we can have say to them about this this conversation because that's what what I'm getting and you can correct me if I'm wrong is what is there is no certainty that we can have at this point as to how how much funding we can commit to to schools yes you I don't know quite how to answer that question you all are welcome to commit as much funding as you want to give them what there is not certainty of is what their study is going to say it may their Max their version of a compensation study may say that that bus drivers need 19 an hour it may say only

18 an hour what you can say is if you choose to go to 18 and 40 cents an hour you're setting a floor for our employees and then you can decide that you're willing to set that floor for DPS and it may be higher or lower than what they're my their compensation study says but it's higher than what it is now for them which is 1750. what we don't know is of the four million dollars they have asked you all to support remember they have a 10 million dollar request from you guys half of that is for State related salary increases and cost and insurance for those folks that's sort of automatic to them and then the other half of that 10 million let's just call it five is for their compensation study if that compensation study says oh it's 19 an hour and it's paid for in that in that four five million dollars is not even going to cost you 742 if you give

them 10 million dollars okay there are a lot of moving Parts can I also make a comment as well that as the board has that discussion that they just share the decision needs to be made in the context of the horizon and there are many things on the horizon that are coming up we talked about yesterday the cliff that's coming with the arpa dollars no longing being here so we have to plan for that [Laughter] are you talking about the social workers and the nurses are you talking about social workers the nurses any investment that we've made that we feel needs to move forward we've made some Investments related to child care right um so in our modeling we will plan for that DPS has a larger clip they had a larger infusion of dollars and I know they've been planning for that but when their Cliff happens what's the strategy so as

you have those conversations about compensation the board also needs to ponder what's on the horizon for their dollars that's something we'll have to think about as well but it's not necessarily a direct explanation but just want to share that because that's what we will present to you as we get into our budget work sessions we didn't spend time on our five-year Outlook but there are lots of expensive things down the road that we need to put into context as we plan for future pressures on our property tax base and if I can just add to that commissioner long has something too but I would I would advise you all to to really be good listeners as you always are and to try to re refrain from committing to anything because there are a lot of complex and unknown issues right now

that we're going to have to discuss we haven't even talked about the construction costs that have increased that it from six months ago that they said a school would cost x amount and the cost is doubled that they're going to be looking to the county to cover and so there are a lot of additional asks that are going going to be made so it it's within their right and I expect for them to come to you to say hey this is what we would need I have nowhere else right right right right so I would just advise you all to accept all of that to note everything that they're asking for and then we'll come back together and help us all figure this to figure it out and distrust the process I know that um Wendy your hands up but Nida has had hers up quite a while do you mind if we'll just go to okay uh commissioner Allam go ahead thank you chair Howerton yeah station and I understand um you know we are still trying to

figure out what the schools are what the breakdown of their ask actually is whether it includes salary increases I'm just like overarching in this conversation and I think it happens pretty much every year when we have this conversation around salaries uh I get concerned that you know we seem to be looking at it as just dollar figures instead of the fact that these are you know people that we're trying to support uh and provide a living wage to uh making sure that they're able to put food on their tables take care of their children and that's really what I'm seeing when we look I know there's a dollar cost to that but I think our employees and the staff in Durham County and DPS is one of our greatest assets and being able to invest in them to be able to make sure that they're able to live in Durham uh not just barely struggling to make it by but actually being able to survive and provide for their families

um and this is more like a philosophical point that I just wanted to make because I just get concerned when we start looking at people as numbers instead of as human beings okay and I don't think anybody did that yeah um I don't know how long do you want to go next Wendy I was just going to say thank you to commissioner Allam to bring for bringing that up I just want to also share for the board's consideration as we overlay Equity principles into our budgeting process one of the things for your consideration is that as we look at um just salaries and increases that and I'm glad I have director Harris behind me who's has a deep knowledge around just the social services and who actually participates in programs and services and often it may be employees and when you raise certain salaries

um people have to make decisions because they may be receiving housing subsidies um social Child Care subsidies and we you know certain grants for college for their families and that also has to go in to the calculus when we look at Equity of whatever those increases are because I can be knocked out of those benefits that I need to live and Thrive and that may be at a cost of twenty twenty five thousand dollars that is added to whatever I receive it's just a complication that we also have to consider not saying yay nay but when we look at salaries that they could get five extra dollars an hour but are they losing 25 000 per year so just something for your consideration as you um think about all these things and Equity um um I just like to add commission Allam I talked with one of the folks from Cook County Illinois [Music] um

last night and I think I was coherent and we talked about the guaranteed income and what people had what they had to do so that people didn't lose their benefits and they really had to have somebody really figure out and guarantee that people wasn't going to lose their benefits that they already had by giving them the guaranteed income so it gets a little bit complicated yeah thanks Miss Pierce uh yeah I I just wanted to follow up on a few things one is one when will we do you think we're going to get the comp study for for Durham County do we know when that will be completed we have some preliminary findings we have preliminary findings and we're meeting with Department directors with those findings next week and after those conversations there will be some review an additional draft and then it should be ready okay great so definitely for in time for for our discussions

5 Cent tax increase but we will have a tax increase just for the bond um so we we really have to these issues are complicated they are not simple and again I just feel like our job is to always keep in mind obviously our employees are top of mind that's and the schools that's why 70 75 percent of our public funds are going for that purpose and I do think it's very important that we are making sure we are setting an example for equity and having you know our

employees and Durham Public Schools Employees having a living sustainable wage but we're talking about 10 000 people we have 300 about well we this is another topic is the census data but 340 000 people in Durham County and our funds come from you know a lot of people in our community this is public dollars so we also have to be making decisions that benefit everyone in our community and as you know the more and more money that gets absorbed by just our own staff the less we have for programs and services to benefit our community that is the conundrum that we're in that is the conundrum that we have so these these are not easy decisions to make and for me personally that's what I'm thinking about is yes I want to do the best for our staff and and dpsf we need to set an

example for other employers as well but we also have to take care of everyone else in our community too um you know this our our the money the revenues that we get are not just for the benefit of us of our staff and dpsf there they need to benefit everyone as well so that that is the the dance that we have and and these are not easy decisions to make so those are the things that go through my mind and I'm glad that we are going to move forward with I mean I think everyone has consensus here about 1840 um and um doing whatever we we know we're going to need to put a lot of money in into this issue I I also hope we'll have a conversation with our other employers Duke University is the largest employer in the state and in Durham County over 40 000 employees we have we had data that

you all gave us on the biggest employers I'm really curious to know what there is 1840 the bottom line for Duke I don't know um so you know we can also have a really large impact on our community if we can Advocate with the employers that we are in relationships with and even looking at our incentives policy now do we need to go back and revise that policy um I you know because I think right now we're saying it's 15 so that I assume we would need to look at that but looking at that list of top employers the top 10 IBM and Duke and then Durham Public Schools is the third so um yeah so I think there's a lot that we we can also do Beyond just us and the schools I think we're good did you all have any

other thoughts nope that's it thank you thank you all so much and so much to the board now where are our policies I I've never seen like a booklet of County policies I've seen ordinances you know online and I've looked for policies honestly and have had trouble finding even ordinances but I have found ordinances um I didn't know we had that policy I think it's fantastic that we do and I wanted to say also I really support having the policy include a benchmark against a standard that we follow you know so that we don't sort of fall behind um and you all have done that you've put the standard in as the seven and a half percent above the poverty level um one thing we might want to think about if we ever review our policies is would a standard involving a more widespread cost of living make more sense at the MIT calculator for the living wage or something I don't know but anyway I was glad to hear that we

T policies and different policies and different departments so you just click on those departments and check policies so we can get a link policy than a county policy we'll get links yeah thank you and I think it's good that we have a and we did look at the MIT as well okay yes great anything else commissioner Allam are you good no questions for you right now all righty all right great great thanks so we'll move on then to or did you have anything else to add Keith before we move to the homeowner's relief

good alrighty you're just walking it's just [Laughter] yes sir you do it today okay so we'll turn it over to Dwayne Brinson and his team to discuss our homeowner's relief on program [Music] morning Commissioners we have a presentation on the low income homeowner relief program you might remember sorry I'm sorry thank you for saying low because our agenda says long to her and I was like I don't think it's long it's low that's right yes and it was long-term homeowner at one point and it's evolved it's evolved when we

started out it was we were trying to Target homeowners that had lived in Durham County at least 10 years okay and we developed a series of efforts and initiatives in that strategy and it's evolved so thank you for that explanation that's right you might remember one of my first tasks when I came to Durham County was on affordable housing and tax relief and how to protect our most vulnerable and we tried a few different iterations of this program um hit a number of roadblocks the general statutes as you know the general statutes doesn't allow local governments a lot of authority around this subject but we found um found this way to do it through DSS and the DSs board and the presentation today is just a review of where that's been where it is now and some recommendations on how to move that forward as well so I'm going to turn it over to the DSs staff Ms Janine Gordon has put together

this presentation for the board and I'll allow her to introduce herself and her colleagues good morning morning thank you for having us this morning I appreciate this opportunity to talk about this program that you and the tax office have allowed us to partner along with and I also like to have our interim director introduce herself good morning it's good to be here with you I'm Sarah Bradshaw and I know all of you so um the rest of them really might not know I'm the interim DSS director since officially last November uh happy to be supporting Durham DSS wonderful wonderful things happening a lot of a lot of challenges and a lot of opportunities wonderful staff here Kelly Kelly Inman and CEO and Janine specifically for the Asian Adult

Services others like Katherine Williamson Hardy here the deputy director and and others on the leadership team are just awesome leaders a lot of things going on a lot of things that need to go on and and and yes Dr soel anytime we show our faces we're talking about low income probably needs and really that is why I'm still in the this business I guess and and have returned after retiring for after 32 years in Sampson County DSS happy to be here and working with the board and Janine's going to run this show sorry I'm not being Janine is going to run this show but we are here to support and also provide any information if you wish to have us chime in and and answer any questions thank you Maybe

tilt your head to the left I love it Janine there we go there we are all right um so here's an overview of our low-income homeowner relief program and the purpose of this program and if you remember back in FY 22 this program was initially for those homeowners who had been in their home for 10 years and as a priority for those who had an Ami of 30 percent or less however through the course of that program which started in October through January of um from 20 uh October of 2021 to uh January of 2022 we met with the DSs board and the DSs board agreed that we would open up from just

30 percent to up to 80 percent and that um we would look at how those numbers played out for future recommendations so an FY uh 23 we actually have changed the way we look at eligibility including that we reduce the number of years that you would be in your home to five years and that we had a staggered eligibility criteria based on your income at thirty percent sixty percent and 80 percent so if you also recall this is a Naco award-winning program we actually won two Naco awards for this program in 2022. so I wanted to put our program in context of what has been happening with tax assistance for low-income housing over the course of several years most importantly if you look at the amount of

credit or low-income housing credit between 2019 and 2020. that uh year is kind of a little Cliff there and at that point in time in in 2020 uh we had covid relief dollars come into play uh to the tune of 273 thousand dollars for North Carolina and that's under the housing assistance fund and so far as of the date that I pulled this on February 22nd North Carolina had already used approximately 98 million dollars of the 273 000. at the bottom you can kind of see where those housing assistance dollars went and how many of those dollars went towards each category the reason why I'm pointing this out is because while our

4 million dollars um which is considerable amount given that we are also offering a tax assistance program through the homeowner relief program so I I'm just trying to put this kind of in a broader context to see that there are other programs helping our residents and we are still helping hundreds

assistance they are for specifically for homeowners and they also have the cliff right so 2026 the dollars all have to be used and then North Carolina has to um you know basically return the funds any any funds that have not been used of course just like any um funds that are covet funds so here's a look at what our program has done in FY 22 and FY 23. so these are the number of applications that we have received and the number of applications that were approved and funds that have been um paid for funds funds that have been sent into our community and residents have received in our first year our inaugural year keep in mind that we were only open for

just a handful of months we actually dispersed 142 952 dollars so that's approximately 715 dollars per applicant that was approved now in FY 23 we did receive 435 completed applications and so far keeping in mind that this program just ended the 31st of January so all of these numbers that I'm pulling together came from the 22nd of February so so far we had 328 applicants be approved for funds and those funds came to a total of three hundred and two thousand dollars but there are still pending applicants out there as applicants do have the ability to continue to provide documentation until program close out so I just want to put

a caveat out there that some of the information you're going to receiving is incomplete uh but this is the data that we have to provide to you today so we found that it was important to really look at this program and really analyze what were our strengths what are our most uh important uh opportunities but also what are the threats to our program and you know one of the biggest threats that we see is foreclosure and gentrification and obviously you know there there are benefits to having um High property values come into the area those come with high property taxes and that benefits our tax revenue I I understand that but at the same time people who have been in their home and

homes that have been here for a long period of time that also raises their taxes as well so that is one of the threats that we face but at the same time that is also why we see that is so important for this particular program to have and we appreciate this opportunity to serve our community so again looking at the eligibility criteria that we had for FY 23. we had modified things so that it was five years and that we were taking incomes that were greater or less than or equal to 80 percent of Ami if you're curious about what Ami is we we can provide that information to you otherwise it it does relate to our HUD dollars or HUD assistance

so I believe you have seen this slide before this was provided by Kelly in a previous uh in a previous presentation actually we shared this with our DSS board um just a couple of weeks ago as part of our budget presentation so I just wanted to review it quickly here so you'll recall that our budget for 23 was 750 was contributed by the county and 500 000 by the city we have an Ila with the city for this so as Janine mentioned we're right now at approximate spending of three hundred and two thousand with probably about 20 to 25 applications still in that pending and finalization process so if we had to estimate we'd say we'd probably will be about 3 30. uh 330 000 for the year and then you see the split between County and City dollars so um also as part of this program we were able to get three positions that support the tax program and other crisis-based

programs in Janine's area so we would want to maintain that admin support in the program but what we presented to our DSS board was a consideration about how we might right size the program still giving it room for growth in the 24 budget but also potentially reducing those budgeted dollars so we were considering if we basically cut everything in half so if it was a 325 thousand dollar County budget a 250 City budget keeping the admin positions as they are with any growth that will come out of class in comp that that might be a way to continue the program but right size it within our budget and allow for growth next year so part of this program includes program Outreach and [Music]

the first thing that we do each year is we include a flyer about our program in tax bills so that really goes out to everyone who has a tax bill this year we've done television interviews we've done radio interviews we use our traditional methods for getting the information out social media we've worked with our religious organizations we've done Community organization Outreach as well as Community Advocates one of our recommendations you'll see is that we can we'd like to consider perhaps looking at a specific area in Durham that this program could likely benefit the most in that area so one of the things we just wanted to include is how this program is changing

lives we do follow up with our clients who receive this assistance to determine how this info you know how this assistance really has impacted their lives and impacted their ability to retain their home and more importantly [Music] didn't make the difference for them and what we really have found is that you know in in many instances it has and we know with the rate of inflation and the costs of things going up from food to gasoline to energy to essential items you know all of things going up receiving assistance to stay in your home can be critical and we also know from our excuse me our North Carolina Justice Center that families that stay housed have positive

health education and economic outcomes including the ability to have build wealth and oftentimes generational will so this is an an important program that our community relies on and of course we want to point out that we are one of the counties leading the way we have counties reaching out to us to find out things like how are we funded how are we staffed when do we open what is our criteria and um we've been in the news so I just wanted to share those as well and we also want to keep up with our lessons learned so that we're constantly evolving and making sure that we're meeting the need each year and making sure that we are relying on our Community Partners our Advocates and our clients to give feedback so that we know what we're doing well what we need to keep and what

we need to change so as you'll see these are the proposed recommendations at this point by DSS staff since we have not had a chance to vet with our DSS board or with our Community Partners we would recommend continuing the dates from August 1st through the 31st continuing having the staggered amounts of money however we do agree that um perhaps a reduction of half of the total budget would be a benefit and a positive uh positive possibly excuse me um you know narrowing in on a particular neighborhood um for our Outreach efforts great great work thank you commissioners questions

uh thank you Janine and Kelly and Sarah and whole DSS team for making this such a successful program in our community for leading the way across the state as you were saying as helping us figure out how to um help folks build wealth continue to build wealth low-income folks many of whom are people of color and we know there's a very unfair wealth Gap in this nation so we do see this as a program that's trying to help address that inequity um and really appreciate the way in which you've laid out the numbers helping us understand how much money has we've been able to distribute and and your suggestion that we perhaps consider reducing the overall funding I'm I'm open to to doing that um however I would think um that maybe we'd want to keep the funding level where it is uh and just maybe even spend a little

more on Outreach I mean I don't know whether that's a possibility or not but unless we don't think there are low-income homeowners who've been in their homes five years or more that would qualify that we could help still I hesitate to I wouldn't suggest increasing it but I just hesitate to decrease it I'd like to keep the amount there I fear that if we decrease it we may never increase it again so I really like to hold that money in in the kitty for this program and maybe consider spending some of it on additional Outreach maybe we want to try Reddit keeps laughing because since I joke but um yeah those are just my initial thoughts I don't really have any questions um I I I'm glad you said you need to hold on to your Administration dollars because I do fear with all the federal dollars we've had coming in throughout the county but DSS in particular we've really relied on you all for um you know help with getting the rental

assistance dollars out getting these housing dollars out so I I hear you on that and um you know hope County would say to us we actually can't do this without more people um but let's definitely hold on to the ones we have I'm glad you said that anyway those are my thoughts so their question regarding the length you know we started this in the middle of covet and your guys are extraordinary and getting this up and going so my question would be are we going to continue it and increase it or as commissioner Carter are we just going to keep it where it is what what do you see that's happening going forth I may perhaps I need a little bit of

clarity about how you see it keeping it the same yeah I I'm just wondering um what's the the amount of people that are are requesting the help um and where we stand as far as continuing it or increasing it because when we started it was in the middle of covet yes ma'am so what's going to be the what are we going where are we going with it at this point it's I guess that's my question so I think that's what we were looking to do since we started you know your inaugural year as 174 000 we're looking about 330 000 this year about keeping our budget in order to maybe grow the program through Outreach to 500 000 525 so we would still have that contained within those dollars but knowing and you know hearing Keith and talking about a

tight budget year just did want to consider no I understand well and DSs has many other uses if we'd be happy to keep it in our budget and use it until it you know can I make one contextual note as well when we started this originally we had planned to spend as much as three million dollars and what we told the board was that we would budget close to a million and we would come back if we needed more and so um we've watched the patterns and adjusted the budget in the normal budget process so I would offer that during our normal review process over the next couple of months that we come back with a recommendation but we've been sort of recalibrating as we've seen the patterns and as Kelly said with the number of Staff whether people are eligible or not

they're going to call and so that requires staff time that's the same with the staff for the tax department because we increased the number of staff to support that so when you see that big chart and it says um dollars for salaries and benefits those are the services being done and we can't serve as our our families our residents if we don't have the people to do it and so we've had to staff up so that we could be responsive and they could get a call back timely or the technology Investments as well and so the path that DSS has recommended makes a lot of um sense as far as strategy and it continues but I am sure the manager would would desire for us to come back with a more definitive answer once we do a little bit more analytics but I wanted

to remind the board because y'all were here you remember and we even had talked about setting the size of our arpa money to support it but the patterns have not elevated to that point that we needed to do it to reserve Burns hey yeah okay so a couple of things um and I'll be quick one to Dwayne to Janine Wendy to low Siler to Ben Rose thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you there are senior citizens in Durham right now who are in their homes because of this program period they are not homeless because of this program period so I need I I I I I see the Articles written I know where I've seen people who've gotten the checks so thank you thank you thank you I don't want

this program to go anywhere and that decision is up to the folks sitting here uh I will say I want to again add a little bit of context because I get it when we first did it we said you had to be here 10 years you all went back recalibrated said okay well seven and a half or five I personally think I want to keep the money at the same rate for a couple of reasons we've been in covert and we have not been able to go out and perhaps do the Outreach we needed to do so I'm in complete agreement with commissioner Carter I am so happy that somebody has done the research and has figured out maybe we need to go into this neighborhood so whatever neighborhood y'all think that is because I do know that you all got some questions and we got some emails about it and let's beat the pavement if you want commissioner Burns I'll go with you too we can knock on doors together so I don't have no problem with that um this kind of the lean Texas system that North Carolina has where you can't use tax dollars to pay somebody else and then y'all got creative to work with Dwayne and work with Wendy so that we could do it I think it's been huge for this community but I think the biggest

reason why I really want this money to stay and I want to be very careful with how I say this um we don't know if the city is going to raise taxes we don't know about how much we don't know what this board is going to do because again we're talking about class and compensation I know a lot of us are in that space now we got excess costs with Durham Public Schools uh just for not their building but all the buildings like Capital costs so there's going to be a rub somewhere I want to make sure that people who have lived in Durham especially our seniors can stay in place whether it's covered or not every time we raise taxes we put pressure on them a lot of the people who are coming in here making long drawn out speeches currently do not have property taxes the people that we and that's not saying that they're in no way does that say that what they say doesn't matter doesn't value or this six cents seven cents eight cents whatever they're going to get hit with and then in 2025 we do reappraisals that appraisal is going to come down like a hammer a hammer on a 70 year old senior who is in their home and

does not have another income coming in what did we discuss yesterday food stamps ran out yesterday yesterday and now we were so no I don't want this program to go anywhere I hope that we have the votes to keep it and I hope that we can go out and do the additional Outreach and we can expend those dollars I think that really has been one of the things that's hindered us a little bit and so if you need us to come with you you need us to send it out by all means but I really I saw the article in the ending and how many senior citizens were in literal tiers because if we had not sent them this thousand dollars they would be homeless and have absolutely nowhere to go appreciate all of y'all so I first of all I want to Echo um what commissioner Burns did in recognizing the collaboration here I think this is another great example with our tax department and our DSS Department working together on this very Innovative program which is not a mandated service

for DSS this is an extra thing that our uh already overworked staff is taking on and I do want to recognize you Dwayne for because I'll never forget that phone call when you called me and we're like hey I just found a great solution Mecklenburg County is doing this we can do this so um and I appreciate the way you're using the data to help guide decision making I'm I'm going to be having a different perspective here about what we allocate for the budget for this I think what you're doing right now and coming to us and saying hey we don't need to tie up a half a million dollars or no what 750 000 worth of County funding in a program that's not being spent that's where we see that big fund balance the general fund balance the growth in our general fund balance is for money sitting in departments that is

not being spent so this is you are setting an example for what the county managers asked you to do the county manager asked everybody go back and look and see where you're not spending money and that money can be freed up to spend on other needs that we have like increasing the salaries so I actually think that this is showing this is good management effective efficient government to say we don't need these this money sitting here and not being used and then we have to go raise taxes on our residents to meet some need because if you all if we're really lucky and we get more applications then you can come back to us and say hey we need to add more funding to this program and this board will say absolutely yes so I I would say let's go with our staff recommendation

on this which actually first needs to go through the DSs board who will make a recommendation to this board about the funding but and I do agree we need to try to improve engagement every year it's gotten better I want to recognize the partnership we have with the community because people in the community have been Partners in getting the word out and we I think that's the way we have to really build on this is using organizations and networks in the community you know our churches the Durham Center for Senior Life I totally agree with commissioner Burns this is about keeping seniors in their home and helping our seniors age in place protecting wealth but our our single black senior female seniors are the law have a much higher percentage of home ownership than any single group in this County and we need to keep

these are our these women in their homes and age in place so anyway so that's my Spiel on it I just want to understand in your slide you said to focus on the West Side did you mean the what did you mean by West Side did you mean the West sorry West End a West End okay okay good okay um okay well thank you so much commissioner Allam I was Savory was time and say ditto ditto commissioner Burns and commissioner Carter's comments I'm really excited that this program's been successful such a success thank you so much to all the staff and the DSs board for making this happen um it's beneficial not only to Durham residents but as was mentioned you know counties across the state are following leads so we're helping residents all across the state by setting this example so thank you so much to everyone who made this possible possible and I support uh us continuing the program as

is okay all right just apply a little respond a little bit to Wendy's comment about not holding on to tax dollars that we're not spending and that built our fund balance couldn't agree more except in this case I I just do not think where we have a massive fund balance um and and we're going to lay um you know the major attribution for that at the foot of a program that's run by DSS and that's a program that allows us to actually take tax dollars from those who can afford to pay and give it to those who can't afford to pay I'm afraid if we cut or reduce the amount of funding in this program to what we think is the right size based on the past couple of years which have happened during covid that we will manage to that you know I want us to manage to the to the larger amount of money I want us to strive for that larger amount of money rather than okay this is what we have and we're going to try to get to this no let's get to this

you know and I hear the point about they could come back to us you could but we It won't always be us it will be a different board you know in the future and I just think that it's uh it's a little treacherous you know to to reduce funding for a program that we really had trouble getting the funding for in the first place I want to hang on to it here it's it's difficult to find ways to redistribute the wealth this is one of those ways I want to hold on to it yeah it makes me a little uncomfortable too it's like what we do is we manage to what we have and if we cut it it's hard to get it back because there's always going to be something else to take it so it's it's kind of like one and a half dozens the other way um what does this board have and I appetite for when we start to take away

or leave the money there so I think that's just something we need to as I say marinate on okay attorney ma'am chair I just wanted to this is great and this wonderful conversation just wanted to remind that this program needs to stay within DSS I think y'all have been talked to I wasn't here if I suspect you had you can't move this over to the tax department for so just for new folks there's some statutory considerations so as long as you run it through DSS you have authority and Rain to do okay just wanted to mention that yeah great this is great feedback you know as we said at the beginning of this we move at the direction of the board our vision is to execute your vision so this is good feedback but I do want to applaud staff for doing the analysis and modeling the behavior that we all need to to get to

um an approved budget thank you all so much okay Keith thank you well I was going to speak but apparently that's been shut down on aspirational I will say aspirational budgeting budgeting in hopes of spending the money is an expensive choice I hear you all I hear some of you um and I have a limited amount in a limited way of doing it and it's ndss we tie up any given year multiple millions of dollars in a budget that isn't spent I showed you on one of the slides we're spending 92 percent of our operating budget or our general fund budget that leaves millions of dollars on the table unspent pulled out of a taxpayer's pocket metaphorically and sitting there doing nothing and then underestimating Revenue we are doing both of those you are absolutely correct so I'll just end with that all I'm really going to say here is that we are playing we have a break we have some snacks in the in the

Innovation lab we can carry on this conversation in private and then we'll kick in with the last presentation thank you all I really like my flat shoes these days I really like my Flatwoods though I really like my flowers hi Steve who's your son oh no I didn't walk in them I just

so good morning Mr Bowens and Mr mans having us Madam manager you have to talk in that mic there is it can you hear me oh oh that's better all right let me was it now well good morning Amanda manager thanks for having us Madam chair Vice chair and Commissioners I'm happy to give you an update today um with Mr mans On The Board of Elections um preparations for the upcoming election and also things going forward with the shops at Hope Valley um so we have a bit of a narrative here if I know we have some some new folks if you're interested in exactly what the Board of Elections does I know um that all the Commissioners here have a pretty extensive knowledge of of the work that we do um so essentially the Board of Elections is responsible on the North Carolina law for conducting elections all elections

within Durham County's jurisdiction or or Geographic boundaries we have five municipalities that we manage and then of course um the county in general we're the fifth largest elections jurisdiction in the state of North Carolina with approximately 230 000 registered voters and and growing we offer I would say um in comparison to other counties of similar size a lot more uh election Services than most uh which we're we're very proud to do so the board is aware this board is aware of our our long history of uh requests starting back in 2017 with respect to space concerns of the Board of Elections right now we're at 201 North Roxboro Street which is around 14 000 square feet we're also at a separate Warehouse over at South Austin Avenue we

have about 21 000 square feet in total when those two facilities are combined as you know in 2020 we were split across our main facility also that new warehouse location and I want to thank Claudia for her work or excuse me Deputy County Manager Hager um get my manners correct at this table um I want to she she says it's fine but it's not she's the deputy County Manager um so 2020 of course we were spread across multiple buildings over in admin 2 um that new warehouse location that was leased on our behalf and then the main library at the main location at 201 North Roxborough uh the board is aware through a chronology events and various documents a space requests letter submitted to you all on March 13 2021 out outlaying our concerns following the 2020 general election some of you came on facility visits which we appreciate and we're able to discuss with you the

concerns and we appreciate your responsiveness based on the actions that you've taken to consolidate um our offices this is not an anomaly in North Carolina we're seeing this happen uh Wake County for instance moved into a 76 000 square foot facility um we're seeing this in places like Buncombe New Hanover County even smaller counties such as Alamance so we're looking forward to this move we think it'll enhance our services to the community put early voting back at the Board of Elections and not add a in lieu of site um so very very excited and we are grateful that you will not change your mind [Laughter] um in regards to the 2023 election schedule we have two scheduled election events this year um the October uh primary election um in the November general election of course uh the October primary election is specific to the city of Durham they employ a non-partisan uh primary

plurality method of voting so there is a primary and then a subsequent November uh general election uh candidate filing for the 2024 primary will be December 4th through the 15th which will be if you all opt for a re-election that'll be your filing period 2024 is is is the big one and that's our hope is to be in this new location um by 2024 because we expect historical turnout we expect a lot of pressure on Durham County as is always the case in presidential years so we we find it critical that we are in that location we know we have a tight timeline which Mr I think Mr mans will speak to uh but we're very excited a lot of work going on this year we're already starting significant work and planning for uh 2023 um and happy to take any questions on

34 Acres there's basically uh 26 units inside the shops at Hope Valley Shopping Center itself one being the Kroger box which is what the Board of Elections will ultimately house the other remaining spaces are leased out to just various tenants we can certainly provide you a list later some of you all haven't seen that the project goes and so when we think about the project we always separated out into the the we call it the the Board of Elections but you also hear us refer to the Kroger box and so obviously

we want to renovate the the Shale uh the Kroger box itself in the earlier slides it was roughly 54 000 square feet the grocer is basically just what it is it's a grocery store it's basically just a shell it's concrete flooring you have a lot of Plumbing mechanical electrical either in the slab or in the ceiling it's just an empty space so to speak and so that quite honestly that's why it really worked well for Board of Elections operations and being able to potentially upfit the space relatively quickly we often see that old old grocery stores often get repurposed for for governmental uses and that's one of the reasons why Derek mentioned that the newly renovated space will consolidate Board of Elections operation into a single facility that's going to bode well for us the scope of work includes the interior

renovation of the actual Kroger box the exterior facade improvements some Roofing and full Building Systems replacement so that's really for the Kroger box itself second project is going to be just simply to replace the roof and rooftop HVAC units on the remainder of the shopping center and just as a reminder commissioners we just approved the actual design contract with r d on Monday night to allow us to proceed into the to the design and really start to get moving on this project so in terms of a breakdown of a phasing we have it up here obviously we call it phase 1A is the the Kroger box itself that I just mentioned I know um commissioner Carter you asked that during the work session about implementation of sustainable initiatives and things like that and I told you at that time that yes we will be doing the photovoltaic study for the

E potential rain water capture system low flow water closets and and just things like that so there will be a myriad of uh things that we could potentially put in this building will be coming back with more discussion on that once we get further into design the exterior improvements to the building and the building facade now I want to be clear we're separating this out not to get hung up in any regulatory approvals necessary for that work in light of the fact that Board of Elections wants to get in the building as as quickly as possible and then again the phase two breakdown is what I mentioned with the roof and rooftop HVAC units for the balance of the shopping center so in terms of a schedule this is a quick and dirty schedule I thought it

was important to put this up here because this project is going to be very aggressive again we just approved the design contract on Monday we'll be quickly coming to you all with a contract with the construction manager at risk First Step obviously is going to be doing what we call our pre-construction services we're going to get them on board they're going to help us with constructability reviews to determine means and methods and just what sort of makes sense to be cost efficient with what we're putting into the building they'll help us hone in on the schedule some estimating some value analysis things like that and then we'll quickly be coming to you uh it says in May around that time with the furniture purchase uh obviously you know with shattered supply chain issues we're having to uh procure furnaces and furnishings and things like that earlier than normal uh just to meet the the the the deadlines or the timelines that they're

putting on us uh with sort of manufacturing and getting that equipment delivered and so that's just one those are two contracts that will be coming to you quickly that's the Seymour pre-construction as well as the furniture contract and so the phase 1A that we mentioned the construction we're trying to start that in July and so that's going to put us July through December with the interior renovation of the Kroger box some of these subsequent things that are listed on this schedule just sort of is a further breakdown of the second uh phase or phase 1B which is the site Improvement it's in the facade improvements to the Kroger box and then the phase two being the rooftop and rooftop replacement uh we are in the process of closing on the shops at Hope Valley Shopping Center we expect to have that based on my last update or discussion with Nancy Mitchell from our real estate office mid-march and so that's going to allow us to again

uh will be the full outright owner of the building allow us to get in and do some of these preliminary things that need to be done to expedite this whole process um again in light of the fact that we just approved this contract uh Monday night uh we're kind of at the blocking phase that the schematic conceptual design phase is the is the term uh but it's really just block diagrams kind of showing the administrative areas the warehousing areas the voting operation uh volunteer training Board Room just some of those little ancillary things that are required order of Elections operations and consolidation of both the warehousing operations and administrative functions um that really completes the the presentation as an update and so we'll take questions at this time well thank you both for your presentation and you know we're excited

about this I just have one question about the building um the question that I've been hit with quite a bit is will the board election use the entire building um the answers to that question commissioner is no again we remind you that we have uh 25 other units outside of the Kroger box and so right now they're just a myriad there's a DMV office there they're just a myriad of tenants that are actually in those space and some of those have leases that go from three to five years out and so um what we wanted to do was we wanted to table conversations around the broader or the overall use of the balance of the shopping center at our upcoming CIP discussions I think that would give us more time to really take a deep dive and try to get an understand from understanding from the board of what you

all would like to see with that so we can begin some process in terms of determining what we actually want to do with the shopping center itself so no I'm referring to the Kroger oh yes the Kroger yes absolutely the whole entire 54 000 square feet of the Kroger box is going to be used by Board of Elections yes ma'am yeah um we're just looking for some space for the Boys and Girls Club and um they lack your space we're happy to help them find an alternative um but you're good at it okay yeah we're we we work we hope to find this one we're happy to do some research on their behalf so and I had already said to them that I was pretty sure that that whole Space would be used for the board of election but having you confirm it

okay questions from other Commissioners commissioner Jacobs yes I I will note from the plan that a lot of it is storage um and and we are right now some of us have had the joy of being out at the storage facility so this is this is about consolidating all of your all of your stuff in one place um so I think people don't realize that it's not just about where you go to vote but it's you know the storage of of all of your everything related to your operations being one place um so um yeah I just had a question about um what will the process be around the former um when once you move out around the former Board of Elections site is one question and then the funding that's going to be required

34 Acres which was not in our original yeah we're not in our adopted CIP just how what is going to be our strategy around managing the cost because we're taking on a lot more costs not just to buy the property but to renovate it and then we've got the on ongoing maintenance so I I guess you may not have the answer now but I would like to like during our budget process a further discussion about um about that and then also the strategy around um the the other spaces that are available and you know what are the opportunities around that um you know what what you all your thoughts are because I know I've just sent you an email last night Perry about somebody who's interested in you know

renting some of the other space so so I'm not saying you have to answer those things now but those are just some of the things that I am thinking about and I just want to lift up this um what you know Derek your leadership on this your your Innovation and outside the box thinking for this solution to the needs for the Board of Elections because I'm really proud of this you know using the Kroger site specifically as an example of you know environmental sustainability reusing something economic revitalization going into a a strip mall that where a building has been sitting empty for a long time and also and modeling this for the larger community and also this is putting it putting a service in the community where there's also a bus stop so it's accessible to a

3 million dollars and to answer your question about the repurposing the use of where elections would be leaving that's something that we've already had a conversation on our executive leadership team about space utilization so we're going to have a very comprehensive discussion about that we don't want decisions to be made in a silo so we're going to look look at that as a leadership team looks like commissioner burn takes something the there is a placeholder in the CIP of

31 million dollars for the Board of Elections project if you may recall about a year ago they gave us a couple of options one that was lower um that and one that was higher because of the market we are where we are and so we will refine that number along with others other projects in upcoming months that is helpful so commissioner Jacobs did get uh two of my comments I did he said it facetiously but um I I don't know when Derek came to us I'm not saying everybody doesn't advocate for their staff or does not advocate for uh what they need everybody does but Derek did it in a certain way he says well this is what I need and then he came back well this is why I need it well I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna find it myself like he actually went out found property found multiple pieces of property we'll see you in the hallway email you call you and brought us like multiple options and I don't think in a

million years we could have made well let me not say I'll say I don't I don't think that we could have imagined that we would have gotten lucky enough to get a space that was that close to a high school that close to a school we were setting up that close to a neighborhood that you know really wants us to to build a better footprint on that side of Durham outside of downtown so along with like the economic development component and the revitalization and how we can um how we can go back and reuse spaces I'm just thankful that you know you were Forward Thinking I do I did see the timeline my big question at the end of this is going to be you know I know you said it's going to be fast and dirty uh and I do feel like we can do it you know y'all can do anything but what is the contingency plan in the event that we cannot because we do still have this building and I recognize as soon as I saw like I knew you know we're going to use that whole building that storage because we have very sensitive machines that quite frankly another party tries to come over here every six months and

tries to take so I want to make sure that then safest most secure place I'm happy we got that number from Mo because I know just to keep that safe it's going it's going to take some so in the event that we don't do it what's the contingency plan and also before you even answer that you know we are getting inquiries from the community not about Kroger but about the 26 other spaces and I know that we are a long way from that conversation about what we want to do you know we we threw out many ideas because you know this is a really this is a really um industry is bored that's what I will say but until we can do those more industrious things I hope that we as a board as a staff and as a community can model um setting these spaces up and this is just me saying this as a space where business owners or Community owners or non-profit leaders can come and have access to Affordable uh retail space so I don't know what all we're going to do I do know that there's a lot in there you all gave us the list DMV there's a beauty salon there's a restaurant and

they have long-term leases but as some of these spaces I think four or five of them are empty right now I do hope that that's something that we can model and nobody has to answer that now and get themselves in trouble but but I know that you know we just got ddi's report from the code and 97 of the space downtown is taking and we have this Advent of entrepreneurs that are bursting at the seams I'm sure we got Tammy Hall in here today I knew she can tell you how many companies she's certified at the Hub office in Durham and entrepreneurs are looking for space so I do hope that we can think about them but again what's the contingency plan if I don't know we don't have no Steel in America in the next three months thank you madam commissioner that's a great question so um of course we we still have 201 North Roxborough obviously and we also still can have our contract with Aspire properties for the South Austin location so in the event we can't meet the December deadline we can maintain in the current kind of bifurcated system

through the primary of March so we'd still be in not not preferred operations but we'd be in stand and continue as we have and relatively in a secure setting all eyes are on you for presidential s bring them on Christian Carter yes I concur with my colleagues and their statements of praise for this project and Leadership from our team and from use in particular Derek and the board the Board of Elections um I couldn't help but think about this new and Consolidated front for our Board of Elections when I was driving down Fernway Street the other day do you all remember when the Board of Elections was there that little teeny hole in a wall it's just hard to believe I mean it will be it will be a proud day for us all when we have a board of elections that can can shoulder the

weight of the importance of the service that that you're providing and then this really will do that so it's going to be great one question just I'm interested in um is Roxboro Road street is it ever going to go beyond you know how that dead ends there sort of beside the Kroger and I had always heard it was going to cut through eventually does anybody else know what I'm talking about okay uh Commissioners I don't know if anybody from the county can answer that okay it's either the city or ncdot that's something that we could certainly investigate for you I'm just curious as much as anything I thought you I think you all know everything so I figured you'd know thank you any questions from you commissioner alum

thank you so much Eric for being so forward thinking I'm I'm excited to see how we continue with those things yeah and please extend our thanks and our appreciation to your board because I don't know if you gave them a task or they just took on the task of going out finding a bill day and uh they did a great job and when once they found it they made sure we knew that that was the building that they wanted and I will definitely um our our board chair is one that says do this and we do um you know y'all are familiar with Don baxton so that was the charge and and we moved forward so they were instrumental obviously and kind of prompting thank you thank you all right if there are no other questions thank you so much all right well guess

we'll guess the end of the official or formal presentations we have oh my goodness Grace is we moving of board discussion now okay and so um we'll see what we're at 11 20 so we were scheduled to end at 12 but we'll check in at 12 to see where we are and if if we need to extend time we'll just ask the board for permission to do that so before one I want to make sure um we did get to each of our commissioners a copy of the um board policy submissions that you all had provided to us so I do want to allow time for each of you to speak from those perspectives but before we go there Keith is there anything that you feel like we you need it from us today to get some kind of consensus on to move forward that we haven't gotten no ma'am I just put up a slide that I think I just want to remind the commissioners

just strategic application of resources to meet current president growing and new needs while also maintaining long-term operational resiliency covered a lot of ground over the last two days and a lot of needs obviously last thing I'll say I'll remind you we have on the books right now 60 million dollars in additional funding requests for upcoming year and only 28 million dollars and that's a relative only only 28 million dollars in new Revenue without a tax rate increase so we've got to do something to get those numbers to zero equal or equal expenditure new expenditures to equal new Revenue that's my sad reminder what a downer down a great he wants us to suggest more ways to spend money

that's what I heard commissioner um I think he's he's saying if if we go if we go to spend more money we just got to be more efficient is that what you're saying absolutely I would love to see attempts and we've already talked about that better efficiency of our services reallocation of existing dollars is a wonderful way of moving money existing Dollars around to support many of the things you all want to support remember the hula hoop girl from yesterday we don't do everything well you know the thing that the thing that has been really really great is for the county and the city when we do when we partner and do things together we're so able to do more um and I hope that those kinds of relationships will continue [Music] um you know I'm thankful for the county

uh for staff being able to push the black maternal health to be able to move that along that was one of the thing that was my top one safe communities I I know that's a conversation that we're in right now um assessment of affordable housing we are looking at supporting more affordable housing expanding mental health um we are we will be having a conversation at our work session about Mental Health and um and also looking at funding not just from the county but from State and Duke so these Partnerships are I think is so important that we do these so that we can get more bang for our buck um

prenatal Pre-K and prenatal those that was my fifth one and we are doing things around that as well so I think all the things that was on my list has been touched upon moving forward and I can come up with another list oh my goodness that's the way I can do it I come with some MO Keith you didn't mention that that if we are you know meeting the needs that they have put on the table it doesn't mean that they come up with more needs okay oh he didn't tell we couldn't come up with no mole but can't can I address you mentioned affordable housing and there is a discussion that we want to bring before the board we're not quite ready yet but do want to give you a preview of what it will be so we had given I may have mentioned this quickly before but we we have been given four projects from the city for you all to consider funding

with arpa dollars right um it appears now that some members of city council have asked that the city appropriates another 10 million dollars towards affordable housing projects and so it appears they may be able to fund the first two of those projects if they were ranked right and so now I think the ask is that the the Commissioners now just look to fund those last two affordable projects and then there is also an opportunity for a permanent Supportive Housing project to come before you to be considered as well so wanted to make you aware of that we'll bring that to the board very very soon but wanted you to know that the affordable housing piece that it's moving and we have some very good opportunities to consider all right commissioner Burns I just want to say to staff thank you

for giving me everything I asked for it's clear that I'm the favorite [Laughter] so you're all aces in my book no for real they did so a couple of things my I want to be quick because um if you noticed if you really noticed you know the majority of the boards actually asked for the same three things on maternal Health y'all gave us that yesterday so thank you uh three of us asked for housing like that's across this is five things like three folks asked for housing so the manager just hit on it I didn't even have to you know because we know that that's the issue and we are in a position based on what you stated yesterday about where we're at with Broadband we do have some wiggle room in our Opera dollars so again that we're kind of sorting a good place with what you all brought us the third thing um that you um the third thing that was brought up uh that everybody agreed on to a certain extent and the manager elevated one of my priorities was the finalization and the broadening of these

mapping projects which doesn't seem like that's something that costs any money but what I'm trying to do is figure out where we shouldn't be possibly expending money so we can pay for other things and the manager and Wendy brought that up today like if this is a space where we're consistently seeing that we can't throw it down and we saw that in the first slide we spent 92 percent of what we were going to spend and we got 107 of it back so again you gave me everything I asked for except for my young men of color initiative I am going to be unbearable in the budget in the event I know look Claudia already moved to Mike yes she said I'm ready commissioner so you know everything else think about it like we got lucky we did not do this together we were in a silo Brendan and I didn't talk about maternal health and never did and this is just something that we care about and y'all brought it to us we didn't have to talk to each other about affordable housing that was something that we wasn't we do talk about that and so that that's something we're working on and I I like the projects that the city is bringing

forth you know they had a 90 million dollar bond in her Infinite Wisdom one manager page and the mayor went out got another 40 million dollars this board before I was on here put 20 million dollars down now in a position to do 10 I think it's going to take those consistent Investments uh because the community everybody talks about what's down on the novice that's being built on Main Street and I always had to tell the community come up four blocks and look exactly what this board did 200 300 500 East Main Street so you can walk and chew gum at the same time it just takes us a little bit longer so we're probably not going to catch up but I want to consistently keep making these investments in affordable housing as far as the young men of color initiative what I would like to see and it's not going to take us expanding a bunch of dollars the same way the city council can come up with a bunch of task force and maybe I need to put that pressure on myself because they did come up with their their own ideas about what they wanted to look like I would love for us to have a task force in a committee and I would love for us to give them anywhere from 100 to 250 000 so that they could manage and expend These funds

on their own that to me is a very small ask out of a billion dollar budget to set up a new board that's it and I know I you know nobody wants to hear this in the public is five women sitting up here I can sit here and talk about women's issues all day I can pontificate about a black man's issues all day I don't walk in a black man's shoes I don't and I don't have the expectation that we have all the answers sitting on this board of sitting in this room so we need to create a table because one has not been created and I don't think that that cost anybody in this room any money I don't think that the taxpayers are going to be upset about it but I do think we need to have some other folks at the table as we seek to solve these issues so that every year we're not going to Hillside High School and watching young girls and young boys talk about how they're getting shot at home and then we're kind of like hands tied about it so that's the only one that we didn't go to and the same way they came up the safety and wellness Task Force if I got to sit down and put pen to paper

with a couple of people in this room and figure out who the 11 people are or the 15 people are or the 17 people are I have absolutely no problem doing that and I would hope that my board well I noted my board would support me in creating a task force like that so that's my only one so if y'all just give me my last thing we can all go home thank y'all and not to put anyone on the spot but I will ask Miss Crystal Harris to get with our new director of My Brother's Keeper and I'm sure that they will figure out a way to to make this happen did you want to say something general manager I mean I'm County Manager peers is that in the arpa funding there were some programs that were targeted for young men of color and when we come back to share with the board um the Dollar allocations by category whether it was for programming for mentoring or educational support will also Elevate that as well oh I'm and now

I see Andy Miracle back I don't know how you're so short I didn't see you Andy's sitting back there the last thing I asked for was a more a bit more of an expense everybody doesn't get to sit in on the economic development conversations that we get to have in closed session but we we have expanded some of the things this has been a really creative board and what we asked for and as you saw with Kim power we got a lot of those things it's not even really my idea it was the ideal commissioner Carters and I don't even know if she remembers it but since she don't I don't say it was mine I would love I would love if we would just develop a fund I don't know how we would do it Andy I know we got to work with you but a lot of these tax incentives that we set aside it would be really cool if we could set aside a fund and say all right we'll give you an additional tax incentive if you pay 10 or 15 000 into this and then that's what we use to fund the Bulls initiative that's what I would love to do to uh to feed this Workforce Development Pipeline and there are other counties who are doing it so if we could add some type of fund

um or set up a fund without Economic Development incentives and then that will be a way for us to fund the Workforce Development that's being done by the Bulls initiative as we expand it so see my work like not costing anything at all I'm trying to build money else thank you for that idea commissioner Carter that is no longer yours who wants to go next Wendy you got something um I just wanted to say uh commissioner Burns I'm wondering if you were in meetings with director Harrison uh um one of the parts of the pieces of the work for the My Brother's Keeper position is walking out that Equity plan the My Brother's Keeper Alliance Equity plan which requires a coalition of uh organizations um that are serving males of color and so that potential potentially in essence

would be this group or task force that would be focused on the issues the structural systemic issues that face males of color and the strategies and eight-pronged approach to really ensuring that those currently are achieving better outcomes but then also addressing issues across the board so that is already happening just want to let you know that and you're right it doesn't cost very much to do however there might be you know some cost associated with that so thank you yeah so before I focus on my priorities I just wanted to share kind of where my head is at just after you know spending this day and a half just trying to focus on where

we're at and I really I just want to thank the staff for all the information that you all have provided to us and all the work that you obviously put into making this a really um you know helpful you know informative day you know just the day and a half the food everything was so beautiful the way it was decorated with the tablecloths just just everything really appreciate everybody um you know my takeaways from just everything I've heard and looking at all the information is you know that we're again so lucky with Durham County in terms of our our high GDP um we're you know making progress on reducing the poverty rate for adults and children but I think where we really for me that I think for me the essential thing is

our our challenge is creating Equitable shared prosperity I mean we're still seeing that even though we have the highest GDP our wages our actual wages average wages are still not where they should be for the for the GDP that we are creating so in other words for me it's like our residents we still have a real disparity with not all of our residents benefiting from the great jobs that we are creating in this County and the amount of wealth that we're generating so when I think about what are our priorities for me it's it's going back to okay how can we address this underlying the underlying issues around share Equitable shared prosperity um and the other thing I wanted to say is that one thing we haven't talked today is about Medicaid expansion and I think that we should talk about it

because first of all it's going to have an impact on our budget we're going to need a lot of positions in DSS to process the applications if we have which thank pray to God that we have Medicaid expansion but it's gonna you know we're going to have at least estimates are 30 000 more people applications to process so I just want to put that out there that we should have a discussion in the future about that what does that really look like and this is something that we're talking about on the DSs board and it's being talked about Statewide because we need resources from the state but also to think about the opportunities when we look at gaps in our system of care our health disparities like oh my gosh there's like there's going to be so many opportunities now when we really have everybody having access to physical

mental health care how does impact mental health substance use our criminal justice system so I I just hope we can set aside time to talk about that and and plan for that um but so for me when I think about if what are our priorities like I am so proud like all of the things that I've I just feel like our staff you are just knocking it out of the park with the work that you all are doing and what's what I see reflected back is really getting into systems work and you know whether it's reaching back out into the community or partnering with our larger Partners like duke or whatever it just it just like really feels to me like it's really happening and we have to keep working it away we'll keep chipping away at this approach because we just don't have all the resources here and we also don't necessarily have

the capacity or are the best people to deliver the resources so the way that we're approaching things you know um but so when I think about again getting back to how do we do share Prosperity I think the most important thing is our education to work pipeline because that is the way we're going to change people's lives is through education and getting them into the good paying jobs so they can afford housing and food and child care so I think we're on the right track with the bulls initiative and we need to think of ways to strengthen that whether it's the mous or go you know creating more tracks developing the pipeline commissioner long brought up about having pipelines into the jobs that we need for Durham with apprenticeships and internships but how do we really think about that idea of the work education the work Pipeline

and you know Pre-K is part of it because that's where it all starts there was a Washington Post article last night about the human brain and it really oh my gosh like if we don't get these kids early on with the brain development I mean it's just really hard so so really and but I really want to understand where we're at with our Durham Pre-K with the child care issue because that's preventing women from being in the workforce I share that article the New York Times piece about the chips incentives but it's all around child care because women can't get into the workforce if we don't have the child care and I think we did a great first step with chem power they're doing Child Care like how do we really it can't just be us doing child care it need we need the businesses in our community doing it so so so anyway education but that includes

Pre-K for me um and maternal health because that's where we have the healthy babies um the second thing I would say is um is is around housing we have to have housing for every type of person in our community because we can't deal with you can't even have a good education or deal with substance use Mental Health anything if you don't have housing and so I do think the county has a role to play with housing when we've analyzed our system of care that's the thing that's came up with the update for the sequential intercept map that we need you know transitional housing we need Supportive Housing some of it for our familiar faces initiative that I'm working on nationally we we that is who is sitting on our streets that is sitting in our jails in our ERS they are people who need permanent support and we have to invest in that

it's it's for me it's like a human rights issue um so um and then I want to go back to things that Dwayne had suggested years ago which is community Land Trust model and investing in housing repair how we keep people in their homes and then because you would ask for three things so I'm trying to honor that um the third the third my third thing is around system of care um is really looking at our crisis response how people are getting access to mental physical health and we're really starting to understand that and I would like to see US expand the heart program to be countywide I'm sorry the sheriff isn't here but I actually discuss this with him he supports it um so that we um so I hope that we'll follow up with him on that because that will free up his staff to really work on

you know the things that they need to focus on so those are my three big things well I also want to say thanks to our staff I I have really felt heard first of all I feel like we are good listeners and I've really tried to listen intently and have learned so much from your presentations and one of the things I learned is that you are listening to us too I truly really do feel like you're understanding what our priorities are and are are working so hard to enact those and I appreciate the manager for having that kind of mindset and I really appreciate our staff too for for making it happen um I am organizing my thoughts at this time in a similar way maybe to Wendy in that

she said you know her priorities somehow or another rest on how can we achieve shared prosperity for all across Durham you know that when we whenever there's a campaign that's what people talk about because that is what we want in Durham um and it's just like how to get there and for me I always come back to what I think of as the Magic Triangle you know if we have good education outcomes then you have good health outcomes and then that also leads to good wealth outcomes and so you know how to invest in those three areas they're all very interconnected and so at a very high level I think a lot about that I also think a lot about investing in education because I really do believe the jobs the education of jobs pipeline is is critical for Prosperity starting at least at pre-k actually before and it just seems like that is a system through which we can work it's another

public system the public school system through which we can work and we can reach lots of children over thirty three thousand and their families so I that is one reason I tend to gravitate towards education Investments um so but having said all that I think that basically my top priority comes down to policies programs Investments that will strengthen economic support for families so families and children um and there are that's a broad category right and and I think I mentioned this at our Retreat that I just really would like for us to knock that completely out of the parking Durham we can really get prenatal to three right in Durham and you know includes the young people and their families and in order to do so um I mean it's really important to do so because Wendy mentioned this too the brain you know all the development is happening in those first three years

over a million neurons a second are being formed and if they're not then you're not going to have a chance later and you know Heckman and other economists have shown that Investments at these early years are the they pay off the best there's the biggest payoff there so I just really hope that we will get together with our staff that's working on this prenatal to age three they were here yesterday you know from The Cooperative Extension and K D Lander and Jess bousquet I think from the health department who's working on the aces did I get her name right I think anyway y'all know who I'm talking about um that Superstar you know to to do some more of this um collaborative thinking and then bringing recommendations to us for what would be the prenatal of three Investments that you all would recommend um there is a prenatal age three policy road map that is for the nation and it has a whole section for North Carolina and I can pull out some things that I

think makes sense but I'd really like to know from you know staff what you guys think would be the the biggest payoffs for us um and I think we're doing a lot of it already you know the Durham Pre-K I we don't have to do a whole bunch of new stuff necessarily we could continue to invest in what we're already doing that we you know has been so important to us in the past because we know that it has the potential to affect so many areas of child's trajectory as they become an adult and so we can continue to invest in those things um the home visitings that we do and assessments on on with assessments of the families current situation and what they need when a child is born you know like getting making that assessment happen in that or in that early window and that we have a comprehensive system of care for families of children between birth and age three I just I think we

can do a better job there um and really though this brings me back to in a in a more concrete tangible way the my policy priority which is compensation and I say employee compensation and it does start there as a county commissioner thinking about well what are we paying our Durham County Employees what are we paying our public employees you know including the those in the school system because that's a concrete way to put money in people's pockets and so to me that I just consider any decision we make to be within the framework that it's a human right for a person who works hard 40 hours a week to be able to afford to pay rent or a mortgage to be able to afford food to afford Child Care Transportation you know all these things medicine medical care so you know we shouldn't have to think about whether we're going to pay a living wage that should be a decision that is understood

and and we move forward you know within that framework um so that's why that's my top priority um and I think in other ways besides wages this greater the guaranteed basic income that Nita and Brenda are sort of championing for us I think that's a way to you know make concrete contributions to a family's Economic Security and that when we're considering how to implement that I hope we will consider you know families as part of the sort of Target population for whom the guaranteed basic income might be eligible and I think that we should take a look at the Coalition for affordable housing and transits proposal around that you know they are now suggesting that we consider a cash payment to our most cost burdened renters and that might be a way

to go about the selection of the population for the guaranteed basic income it could be our most cost burden family renters thought um so I mean I'm just going to hold that up that's my main priority is economic support for families and you know various ways we can do that I'd like to ask our staff for feedback and I'd like to move forward with the guaranteed basic income and I'd like for us to get a real solid plan that will take you know five years for how to pay public employees a wage that would allow them to live in Durham as calculated either by the MIT Co you know living wage in in the calculator or the um the federal poverty guidelines but those are so bismally loads but I understand why we well maybe we want to use that then some other questions oh and so that

just I just want to say there I want to re-emphasize that I think it's really important that we have a plan I know we cannot pay 23 or 24 or more dollars an hour next year but we can start and what we need is a comprehensive plan for how to get there and it needs to include um you know how we will address all these things you all mentioned today the compression issues et cetera et cetera they're going to increase the cost Beyond just what it costs to pay that actual living wage to X number of employees um and so I'm hoping that with the Consol the the comp and the compensation classification study and further discussion about how to pay living wages that we will be presented with a real plan that we can enact over time and then some things that we didn't talk about that I hope that will come up at some point during budget are the storm water utility fee discussion and you guys probably have all this on your list but I just want to make sure that we're it's coming forward still

um the issue of benefits for jointly appointed appointed board and commission members I mentioned the Coalition for affordable housing and transits proposals about around most cost burdened renters this idea of the farm campus you know I hope we'll talk about that some more during budget um and any money that is missing I don't mean missing really I don't really quite know how to any money that might still be out there that we're not thinking about because either I forgot we forgot or maybe we don't even understand enough to know about it and so like some fun balance you know is there some money and fund balance somewhere that we really should be investing in our community or maybe there's additional arbit dollars or Grant dollars or maybe it's FEMA money you know that we haven't seen yet or um those are the main things that come to

mind but just wondering about that because we're always looking for more ways to invest in our people and then I guess my last question point is how the heck are we learning how to hula hoop you know what what are we doing to figure out a way to Sunset what's not working how are we identifying those things are we having the discussion at all and you know I hope I hope our staff is and that you'll bring those things forward for you know concern considering not funding you may say no sort of like today happened right I said I really don't want to defund something and that may happen but I do think that that those are really important conversations for us to have it's almost like a zero-based budgeting approach that no one really does I don't think but um something you know along those lines okay that's it for me that's a lot thanks you need a nap now

it's in two days of information I am really excited about a couple things and then there's some things I think things that we have more budget discussions I hope that they come up during their salary here allow Ed behind me I am for space so they keep having planes fly by um but one of my one of the things I'm uh still really excited about is you know I'm very cool that staff came forward with the 1840 increase for our County Employees I do hope and uh I will be pushing for us to get that for our DPS employees as well depending on you know what their budget asks how much of it is already like what increase they're already asking for in their budget ass um some of the things Wendy mentioned it like yeah the pipeline program that I have brought up I really hope that we can have further discussion about how to create that program because you know I think that'll address some of the last

salaries discussion that we were having in the fund balance that keeps coming back to fund balance um it's great to have money coming back to fund balance but also we need to get filled especially in um our Public Health sphere in our Emergency Services like our EMS and Fire Marshals if we can figure out a program as soon as possible with Durham Tech I know president Buxton is interested in partnering with us uh to fill these roles and train Durham County residents for these roles and provide them with living salaries through this way um I know we're going to have further discussion around the housing piece uh one thing that I hope will be part of that conversation I'm assuming it will because I know manager slow it's always on top of everything is um I know when we had the policy retreat at Duke we talked about housing and one of the things that Perry raised to us that hasn't been lost on me is the fact

that this is a very heavy lift for our County staff to take on uh in housing and we all want to support housing and our staff want to support housing but how can we have a better collaboration with this city because they have much larger staff capacity to handle these projects um and whether that means that the county is able to financially support these projects but taking that weight off of our staff and you know providing the financial support to the city to manage those projects um I hope that's part of our housing discussion the another thing that we haven't gotten a chat a chance to talk about and it's more of a long-term discussion I think that can help us stretching our budget and looking for more ways uh to be efficient like Keith likes is the county City research study I think I don't know where we're at with this manager so I know we've talked about it

a little bit of doing the study of County and City government functions and see where is their overlap between the two of us and trying to you know merge areas where we can to save residents money and saving the county and city government money by not having two people two entities working on the same work um other two areas that we did not discuss during this but I hope it comes up um as we keep discovering the discussing the budget is the reproductive care and I apologize I should have brought this up during you know our it's kind of connected to maternal care uh yesterday of the reproductive care fund or services that we could potentially provide through Durham County um I hope we can have a conversation about that because I think that's really important I know there's concerns about whether we'll still be a state that

provides that has abortion being legal or remind everyone that we still have enough votes to protect the governor's veto so I hope that we keep that in mind as we have this conversation and then the last item I know moving fast unless you guys want me to go slower I can pick up more time the last item was the Immigrant Refugee Services um and slash Welcome Center this is something that you know we talked about last year that we didn't see expanding the program last year as plausible because we were still working on we had lost the coordinator they had left the county and now we hired nayo and I would love to bring him in uh to get a formal presentation from Cooperative Extension and I O to talk about what services they've been able to to provide our Refugee and immigrant communities what services they still see a gap for

that we should be providing in our line actually do have one last one but it's more just a comment is I'm really excited for this grant coordinator position I know it's uh kind of outside of I don't know if it's really this funny but just in general because this is something that managers well really really grateful for you for stepping in and bringing this role on because it's like the first conversation we had when you came was we need a grant coordinator and I just love how like in sync we were and how forward thinking you were when we had that discussion about how much money you can bring into the county if we have someone who's there to apply for Grants and in so many different areas within County Government and that is it for me well uh we want all of that oh it's it's one of my form one of my former Commissioners across the state it

says all that all that and mo not more MO so you know I want to also thank the staff for all the incredible work that you do I mean this week we put out so much stuff and and and you just go to work and we appreciate it you know one of the things that I am so appreciative of is the Hayti Reborn in the investment that was put into that this year to work with our most neglected most cast out people in this community to help them to be able to get their lives back on on even Keel and be able to get jobs to be get trained and be able to work and make a living and I am so appreciative that that is in operation today

people are working in that and I just I I really appreciate that because when you lift up the least of thee you lift up the entire community so we and that also helps with crime you know we talk about crime prevention and if we're not it's reaching to the people that are in need the most um we're just we're just talking so that I am real I really appreciate we've talked about so many things today um Mental Health is one of the things that come we will be having a conversation um at a work session about Community Mental Health um so we'll know more about that and how we'll get that funded uh we've talked about the guaranteed income that's a conversation that we got to have go off going forth um

when we talk about zero to five or zero to three prenatal I I believe that we have to start before Pre-K and commissioner Carter talked about that we've got to start before Pre-K and there is evidence to show that and there's a lot of work go being go that's going on across the state and nationally around those areas um with the housing piece the the city is really wanting to work with us around affordable house not it's not a lift that we have to take on as by ourselves for the county so we've got a lot of stuff on our plate here and I the other thing that I appreciate is the support that we gave the boys and girls club and there is more coming that in collaboration with the city that we'll need to look to see what we need to do for the boys and

girls club because all of the things that we're talking about right now is about families if parents cannot thrive children cannot thrive so we have to work with the families to make sure that they have what they need so that they can take care of the children um transportation Regional Transit that's a huge conversation that we all have to be drilled down and and see what we can do to make sure that we've got Regional Transit going forth and that's a long-range conversation uh let's see what else that uh water quality and the environment I mean we've gotten a lot of conversations a lot of concern about what's going on in our environment without water uh that's a conversation that we're not having a whole lot but we need to have

more so all of these things and we talk about equity we talk a lot about equity but do we do a lot about equity and that's a conversation that we have to ask ourselves and system system-wide not individually but system wise the person the speaker at the health Summit at the Naco conference said individually we're not healthy if our county is not healthy so how healthy is our County when we don't have clean water or clean air and babies can't eat and mental health is a problem

when our little kids are getting guns and shooting people how healthy are we and I'll leave it right there thank you anything else for anybody else commissioner Jacobs I've had a question there were a lot of slide presentations over the past few days that weren't necessarily in our legislar um so if we they should be yes ma'am they're they're broken out individually um amongst the the different there's like seven different I didn't so like for instance the DSs one was not in mine so we can upload some of the individual folks who presented um I didn't have I can I can let you know which ones I'm missing the yes ma'am using that one too actually yeah there were some that we didn't have well mine wouldn't open the

one that from you yesterday Keith and then the um Derek Bowens wouldn't open for me today you said not found or something yeah I can let you know which ones I sent you a copy and I tried it opened for me in Legend star but by all means I'll take a run through and look through but legendstar I know I loaded last night both of the presentations from yesterday and today that had literally everything you've seen so those are uploaded Plus in each one of the slides for different portions there should be broken out extra specific slide presentations and all of it should be PDF but we'll take a look and make sure all of it works and is available to you yeah and if they're any that you can't open let us know yeah well I'll let you know yeah I have one more question that just okay I just wanted to list three things after listening to everybody just for future conversations one is um looking at potential additional Revenue sources for the county one was you know

obviously the grants but we've also we are going to need to increase our our Transit tax to pay for a lot of things that's in our our transportation plan that we're adopting I mean the 2050 plan that we've adopted says that we're going to have one and a half cent sales tax the other is the the quarter Cent prepared meal tax which we tried once but so I'm just saying what what I would love to hear from staff about ideas about other potential Revenue sources for the county that was alluded to by by both Brenda and Heidi also um and commissioner Allam referenced this in a certain way but I think one of the biggest assets that we have is our publicly owned land so City County and school land how can we do a study or an assessment

of what we all have together and a policy about how we use that to leverage Community benefits again looking at what what are we what do we have to work with and the third is around what are areas for real collaboration with others we're doing that with the um Bull City United are you know that's something the county is running you know with the city and the county the long-term homeowner tax credits in E County doing but you know we've talked about recreational opportunities which is opportunities for youth is a way we can work together the schools the city and the County gun safety you know all of these unlocked you know guns and unlocked cars things what are what are more ways that we can work together to achieve some of our goals so that those were just three things I'd like to hear more ideas about

veterans I haven't heard that conversation lifted up to the last two days veterans hey Lois was veterans is there anything in our budget that you're asking for around veterans come on to the table now we haven't heard anything about our veterans that's right I will say one of the one of the housing projects that were the city is bringing us is for veterans for today about um Derek's project I certainly hope I know you wasn't ready for this but I certainly hope you all will entertain relocating Veterans Services where we are is not ideal for our

veterans it is difficult for them in terms of Mobility they're challenged having to walk from the parking lot and we're on the very end of the building they're exhausted and frustrated by the time they get to us so we were certainly like you all to entertain moving us to a place that is much more accessible wheelchair accessible for our veterans so I hope you all will entertain that as you consider that space we have available we are asking this year for um three ft's two new vsos and admin person last well I guess it was earlier this week or last Thursday when I knew ACM wanted to meet with us and I had a vso that was out so you know I'm on Deck I hold the title as director but I'm a BSO Carolina Arbors had an event had a BSO that was out I'm on Deck we were out

there all day taking claims I can never do What My Title designed me to do and I'm cool with that I love doing what I do and that surgeon serving our nation veteran so we're having to be on deck all the time we're a small departments but yet we're tasks we're doing everything else the large departments are having to do and we don't have the human capital to do that with and I know you guys gave us a person last year we're grateful for that we offer the position person accepted on the 13th Hour they took a offer someplace else we're due to have a new person come on board on their 20th so I hear Keith when he talks about money is not being used it is a process our vehicle being wrapped um went to a company for four months they helped me out I had to go back to the other company that I left because they helped me out the year before so

hopefully we'll have our vehicle wrap a contract done hopefully by the end of March but we we do need the folks and every year we ask for staff and you all will give us one when we need two and we're tired of playing catch-up I have a staff that has been with me since I hired them unfortunately I had to help one person find their happy home someplace else but I have longevity with that staff and I'm sure we like to have more money but that's not where what I'm about right now it's about having the enough staff to meet the needs of of our veterans here is the oxymoron when we go out and do uh Outreach or we do more advertisement folks come in but then we are here you all know I don't just work because we always overwork I work because I like working late at night but I want to do what I'm designed to do and that's not always being on the front line and I absolutely love it because it's difficult to say no as a veteran

myself I want to be treated well and so I treat our veterans well so I don't put out that well I got other duties to do unfortunately that's not how a leader should be doing I should be leading and not always on the front line so I'm asking you all to give it grave consideration this year when we come before you all you see our budget um please accommodate us because I know there are other departments I just have to say this since I have you all as an audience when I hear about money is being turned in the year I asked for 35 000 for a vehicle and I didn't get it and public health had to buy it from me that shouldn't have happened so I hope you guys will think about us this time and let us meet our needs we have a young lady that's um our PA processing assistant she's bilingual I certainly like to advance her um so we're asking for a receptionist we provide curbside service I don't know if any other department that does that what

we provide curbside service and that's me and my five inch heel I'm maybe not running down the stairs but catching the elevator down the steps we have those folks that keep them from having to navigate that parking and not just because of the parking I think we would do it anyway as a result of covet we had to find another way to set this by those needs so we provide that curbside service call us up you need something why make them track all the way from the parking lot just to get a signature assigned or something like that so we tell them call us tell us what you're making more of your car is and we'll be downstairs to meet you so we're doing what we can to meet those needs now we're going to be asking you all to help us continue to meet those needs so that we can get out in the community and do what we need to do I don't care what building we're in or where we're located we should not be sitting behind the desk waiting for them to come to us we should be out in the community doing what we're supposed to do and what you all have passed us to do and what the community is paying our

salaries to do is serving our nation's veterans Commissioners you heard that passed the plate we got it thank you thank you all right I don't have anything else that's it all righty well that concludes our day and a half Retreat thank you all so much for investing the time in this yeah wonderful thank you everyone thank you commissioner alum well I did it don't forget we have box lunches over in the Innovation lab oh I love it because you're too professional to bite I will continue to test yours uh