Board of Commissioners · Regular Meeting · October 6, 2025

Back to meeting

Board of County Commissioners

October 6, 2025 · Full Transcript

>> Yes. Thank you so much. As we convene for the Durham Board of County Commissioners meeting, it's crucial to recognize the painful truth of history. We stand on the stolen ancestral lands of the Kataba, Enino, Okanichi, Shakori, and Toscaror's peoples whose deep connection to this land predates our arrival. Excuse me. We acknowledge with humility the unjust displacement and violence that occurred leading to this dispossession of indigenous peoples from their homelands. Their resilience in the face of such adversity is a testament to their strength and spirit.

May we humbly honor the ancestors and elders of these nations, both past and present, by committing ourselves to fostering understanding, healing and justice for all who inhabit this land. Let us walk forward together with open hearts, acknowledging the past, and embracing a future guided by compassion, respect, and unity. >> Thank you, Commissioner Burton. We'll now move to our resident comments and we have one individual signed up., Nida Allam, if you can come to this microphone over on the left and please remember to turn on the microphone and you'll have three minutes to speak.

Good morning. My name is Antonette Haw. I live at 5610 Catskill Court. I've been a Durham resident all my life and I started paying county taxes September 25th, 1997. So when I say I'm not happy that my taxes went up $1,254, I'm not happy. And I'm not happy with the quality of service that the community is getting from this board and its leadership. We were kicked out as a community of the Durham County Director's Social Services Board meeting which Valentine was conveniently unpresent. I feel like we were set up and I feel like you have misrepresented yourself to the community and we can show you but then we can tell you. I want to let you know that everybody sitting on this board better look at that seat and find some kind of understanding that we the people are fed up and we are getting pushed at both sides and we not going to take it and you are here at the pleasure of the people and if you cannot.

Serve your community then we don't need you here. Let me say it again. You are here at the pleasure of the people and if you do not serve the citizens of Durham County, you can go do something else with somebody else. Thank you. I will not be staying for the remainder of the meeting because I feel like what you say and what you do are two different things and the community is empowered and and we're going to make sure that we have representation that we need for everyone in this community.

>> Thank you. I will pass it to Manager Hager for our.

So, now we are to our discussion items. Do we have I don't think she's here yet. >> And the public defender was planning to be here a few minutes later. So, we can are all of the planning staff available? Can y'all do your item now? Yeah. So, we'll start with Do you want to start with the Durham to Roxboro Rail Trail or do you want to start with the planning items? >> We can start with the planning items. >> So, we'll go to 25-0536formational to consolidated annexation Hamlin Reserve. And you can come sit here at the table since it's presentation, right?

>> Yeah. And we have 20 minutes allocated for this one. Do you think 10 minutes presentation, 10 minutes questions? >> Okay, perfect. >> Awesome. Thank you. Yep. All right. Technology works., good morning. My name is Andy Lester, with the planning and development department., I'm here to present the annexation case for you, Hamlin Reserve, and it's good to be with you all this morning. And as a reminder, on September 4th, 2024, the joint city county planning committee directed staff to present annexation cases that are outside the urban growth boundary to the board of county commissioners both before the requests are acted upon by city council. The intent of the presentation is just to inform the BOCC of such requests and to receive their comments so that they can be incorporated into the staff report for city council.

Some particulars of the case. this is an annexation for 253 and 2523 Hamlin Road. two acres consisting of 42.68 acres or 61 acres. The request is to resone residential rural county jurisdiction to residential rural city jurisdiction. The proposal is actually for 81 single family residences. My apologies for the error in the presentation. but those 81 single family residences would be built through the use of a conservation subdivision through the city of Durham. With this map it shows the existing zoning. this is a direct translational zoning of residential rural from the county to the city. A direct translational zoning is one in which the existing Durham County zoning is translated into the identical Durham city zoning district upon the annexation of the property into the city limits. A translational zoning does not and cannot include a development plan and any future development may proceed according to what the zoning would allow.

This aerial map shows the general location of the project. The site fronts Hamlin Road and is generally generally surrounded by agricultural uses to the east, west, and south. To the north is the Army Corps of Engineer property. The properties are currently designated rural and agricultural reserve on the place type map and are outside the urban growth boundary of the comprehensive plan. The annexation outside the UGB is inconsistent with the comprehensive plan. If the proposed zoning is approved, staff recommends a change to the place type map to designate this property as mixed residential neighborhood. If the proposal is approved, the comprehensive plan would be automatically amended to extend the urban growth boundary to incorporate the parcel. That extension of the UGB would also include a portion of the Army Corps of Engine engineers parcel with read 1691 168 that is not part of the proposal.

Neighborhood meetings were held in accordance with the neighborhood meeting guidelines on May 13, 2025 and July 14th, 2025. The attendees of those many meetings were 11 and zero respectively. Six comments have been received by staff in relation to the case on the Durham Reszoning Explorer. All comments have been against the proposal. The proposal is inconsistent with the place type map designation of rural and agricultural reserve because the place type is not intended to be located within the urban growth boundary. If the proposal is approved, the comprehensive plan would be automatically amended to extend the UGB to incorporate the parcel.

If the if the proposal is approved, staff recommends a change to the place type map designation to a mixed residential neighborhood. The proposal could accommodate various housing types if the conservation subdivision is utilized, which makes the recommended MRN place type the most appropriate for the site. the proposal is consistent with three of the seven applicable comprehensive plan policies and on August 12th, 2025, the Durham Planning Commission recommended denial by a vote of 11 to zero. And regarding next steps, commissioners may provide comments on the proposed annexation that will be incorporated into the staff report and staff will need those written comments by October 13th. And the case is tentively scheduled for the November 17th city council meeting. And with that, the presentation is concluded and staff and I believe hopefully the applicant is here for any questions.

>> Thank you so much. I see we have hands going up. So just for clarification, so it's going to November 17 to the City Council. This is not going to come to the commissioners for a vote. We just provide our comments, right? >> Correct. Yes. Okay. >> Thank you, Commissioner Burton. >> Yes. thank you, Chair Alam. the question. I didn't have a chance to d drive down that road yesterday. I live not too far from that area. I wanted to know from this location, how far is it from the DPS transportation lots in the elementary not elementary schools, the middle school school of creative studies.

>> I'm sorry, I do not know that right off the hand. >> Oh, you don't? Is it like right down the street or is it >> Should be right between the two. It should be like almost dead center between the two of those. >> Okay. All right. >> Based on based on this map. >> Okay. Yeah. I'm just trying to get my bearings straight. Sure. Thank you. And then another question I had was is that what commission of do we know how for this size of development since it's outside of the urban growth boundary and we'll obviously have to connect to city and county resources for this amount of like population growth.

How much our resources in providing police or sheriff's protection, EMS services would need to grow because and how that's included in the application. >> Yeah. So, there's a fiscal impact analysis that's done for all annexations. I would need to look at the actual FIA regarding that but that is taken into account in regards to how police can serve this site along with fire, solid waste, planning, transportation and such. >> Thank you. >> So we can I can send you that. I can send you the FIA to show you those numbers.

>> That'd be great. Thank you. >> Sure. >> Commissioner Valentine. >> Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, I had talked and I'm actually talking to my colleagues right now regarding this matter. I've talked extensively about the planning department and the need for this body to consider the county taking back its its equities and authorities. And so, here's an example where a case is coming before us for basically information purposes. Yes, it's true that we can provide information but we have people that we represent in the county and so these these decisions are primarily being handed over to the city and I am 100 100% against that and I think we should consider our current arrangement as it relates particularly to annexations and our abil our inability to speak directly to this question. Now I have a a question for you and thank you for your presentation today.

>> Sure. >> so this is this project is outside the urban growth boundary. Is that correct? >> Correct. >> And so that means that if this project is approved by the city that that that will become the norm. Is that correct? >> not necessarily. Each annexation resoning is on a case-byase basis. >> Okay. So not necessarily is your answer. I mean because you're setting the precedence I believe that more projects will be approved down the road that are outside the urban growth boundary which is inconsistent with the comprehensive plan if my understanding is correct.

>> no I I guess I don't agree with that. The each decision is ultimately done by the City Council. Yes. We cannot reject any application that comes forward. So we will still accept applications and review against the comprehensive pan plan policies and we provide that information to city council and it's their discretion that sort of sets the precedent. >> Thank you. Sure you and just to provide a clarification because of listening to the presentation I didn't so the planning commission has voted against this 11 to zero but staff hasn't made a recommendation >> we don't make formal recommendations for annexations >> or resonings >> commissioner Jacobs >> yes I do want to emphasize the staff report states very clearly that this proposed resoning is not consistent with our comprehensive land use plan, our future place type map and is inconsistent with three out of seven of the comprehensive land use policies and the staff report is very clear about that.

And so first of all I want to just speak in a broader sense that this I agree with what you were saying Commissioner Valentine. We just created a new comprehensive land use plan two years ago and this was an outcome of many years of community input. the first time we revised our plan in more than 20 years. And it is very important that we stick to our comprehensive land use plan. So when we don't uphold the plan and we don't uphold our urban growth growth boundary, we are undermining the validity of our entire plan to your point, Commissioner Valentine.

So this is very serious. It is not just a oneoff and if we're going to be serious about sticking to what we said that we were going to do, it is really critical that we uphold our plan. And I will be very strongly opposing this in my comments. We have we have made a decision in this community that we are going to densely develop within the urban growth boundary and the tradeoff is that we are going to respect and uphold our urban growth boundary unless there is a rationale for public health reasons or environmental reasons. That is the policy that guidelines that we have for not upholding the urban growth boundary.

And it's a slippery slope. A slippery slope. if we do not honor that this property can be developed, it can be developed within the current zoning for 40 units. It can be developed as a conservation subdivision within the current zoning., and I I really value the comments we got from the planning commission members. Also looking at the policies, I appreciate the staff report., looking at all of the comp plan policies. Really appreciate that. I found that extremely helpful., and, I do want to raise to follow up on a comment that Chair Law made. and this is the first time that we are actually getting our opportunity to review resonings outside of the urban growth boundary. So I also appreciate this being brought to us at least for input.

But in the future I would like to make sure that we get the costbenefit analysis that was done. I'm also concerned though that that doesn't necessarily impact impact to county services which would be EMS. I know the schools are included which is county funding but could you clarify is EMS included in that costbenefit analysis? >> Currently they are not. I know that staff has had preliminary conversations with EMS. that's to that extent. >> Okay. So I'd like to ask our county manager if we could help to facilitate that because this has been an ongoing issue for quite a while. I know that our planning staff has been trying to collaborate collaborate with EMS on this and so we we need to make sure that that information is included in for the planning staff to do that analysis and I don't know any other pertinent county services would be EMS that I can think of but certainly that we will follow up to enjoy Yes. Yes. Okay., thank you so much,.

>> Commissioner Burton. Then, Vice Chair, Dr. Lee. >> Yeah. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to know where the because I've traveled that road so long, so many times, you know, having this discussion, where it was in relation to the school and to the transfer, the DPS transportation because I know that's a pretty rural road. and thinking about I know my colleagues as the questions really eloquently thinking about travel time EMS sheriff if it's in the city you know police all those things to get out there to do this the things that needs to be done the the sewer and all those things and I appreciate you Commissioner Jacobs and Chair Alam articulating that because you know being a visual person having to see things and where they are in relation realizing what would need to be done to get those services out there. So, thank you so much for that.

>> I I agree with my colleagues here, but my my question is more on a kind of slightly different as we as these things come to us. what what authorities do we have in advocating for infrastructure changes for like these new new projects and so forth? Hamlin road is a very thin road. It is like it's two lanes right all the way out to where creative studies is. Yeah red red Mill road. Yeah. And and you know, Commissioner Valentine knows that very well because he lives right off of Hamlin Road.

But in this proposal and I and I do appreciate the comments from the planning commission and so forth, but do we have any input on if this was approved you know by the City Council the improvements to infrastructure out there because it seems there's a lot of places in Durham where building has happened but infrastructure changes are not happening. There's I live off of Danu Dan Lane out by the Independence Park and there's been a lot of apartment complexes and town homes and things but none of the streets have been extended, you know, widened., the only really improvement has been the traffic circle right there at Carver and Danube. But so traffic I've I've been in been in that house since 90 since 2006 and the number of dwellings has increased tenfold over there but the infrastructure hasn't changed. What input do we have on infrastructure improvements as these type of projects are being considered proposals being considered or do we have any input on that?

>> Sure. I guess let me address there's there's two main points. when it comes to infrastructure improvements the majority of them are driven by private investment. So when should this if this is approved and then there is a site plan that comes in to the planning staff the applicant would be required to make road improvements only to the adjacent portions of their property. So whatever NC do requires of them regarding Hamlin Road in front of their property the applicant would be required to make that investment.

To your larger concern of just sort of infra infrastructure projects in general, I believe most of that is either taken through this the state step process which is sort of larger projects infrastructure and there's a public engagement regarding that but I think NCDOT dictates sort of the priorities of those infrastructure projects within the city. There are CIP processes, capital improvement projects that are debated on by city council and that's another avenue in in which infrastructure could be upgraded over time. so you have all those things working at once.

In the step projects there is engagement for input and I believe in the CIP process there's engagement. So hopefully that helps the context. Thank you, >> Commissioner Jacobs. And then this is the last comment. >> I just wanted to follow up on Vice Chair Dr. Lee's comments. You know, for quite a while there's been the there was originally request when Matthew Palmer was over facilities at Durham Public Schools. He had asked that we form a workg group with staff between the city, the county, and Durham Public Schools to really co to work together and collaborate and coordinate around this issue of infrastructure.

And I I mean I completely agree with you that we see this is the big issue that we hear about especially people in East Durham where there's been a lot of new development that there isn't people feel like there isn't the infrastructure to support it. So, I do think it's really important that we get that group going and to see how we can all work together and coordinate around this issue. because it's a chicken and egg situation. as we implement our new UDO and our comprehensive land use plan, we want to have denser development within the urban growth boundary and we want to create more walkable transit friendly communities, but how do we do that when we're building new housing and the infrastructure is not there? I knew we did at you know our joint city county meeting last week, we looked at some of the new road crosssections which are really exciting which developers will be required to implement that will have complete streets. but it's going to be kind of.

Like a peace meal. We'll end up with how we have these sidewalk apps and now we're going to have that with streets. So I I guess this is all to say to your point, which is a really important point, that we we really need to get that infrastructure group going between all of us. So yeah, thank you. >> Yeah. And I believe I've I've talked to Sarah about this. If we could also I don't know if the planning department has been able to get together that table of like how our population grows yearbyear and how our service the our ability to provide services is growing and to show are we able to keep up with the growth that we have here in Durham at the same time of like our police and sheriff's services our EMS our school seats so we can map that out to show and that's not just on planning department but that's also How are we as city and county funding these programs at the same rate at our growth?

I guess I'll give that as a follow-up to manager Hager. She can get that back to us. And >> yeah, we we will definitely follow up on that. And I will say in some spaces we've not kept up with growth. that one example is in this past budget we funded a new EMS group and a new and so we had not done that in about seven years but we've been growing increment incrementally over that time period at least 1 to 2% from a population perspective per year so those are areas that we all need to think about as we plan for our budgets and in these areas where there's an intersection with the overall growth process that there's more intentionality.

>> Yeah. And definitely bringing the city into those conversations because they are the ones who approve a lot of these. Well, thank you so much. Appreciate it. And I know since we have Chief Don Burton here, Chief Defender, can we are we okay with planning staff if we move back to that presentation? So, Miss >> No, because we have like three and they're going to be long. So, you unless you like talking about zoning and >> this worked out perfect because I knew the other ones were long. So,.

Oh, you have to press the button. And Michelle Burton, so we have 45 minutes allocated for this. Do you think 30 minutes presentation, 15 minutes questions will be good? >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Righty. Good morning. Thank you for having me. So, I will get right into it because I understand you guys are very busy. So, we're going to try this. So, just to give you a little history of the Durham County Public Defenders Office, it was created in 1990 with eight public defenders. Since its creation, there have been three chief public defenders in the history of that office. The first being Mr. Robert Brown Jr., Lawrence Campbell being the second and myself being appointed as the third public defender. The public defender is appointed to a four-year term by the senior resident superior court judge.

In terms of funding for the public defenders office, pursuant to North Carolina General Statute 78302, the county is responsible for providing the fiscal facilities for the public defenders office since 1990. The public defender's office has been housed in the courthouse of Durham County. That duty also extends to providing adequate storage space for the confidential files that are required to be retained under the rules of professional responsibility. Another source of SP funding is the North Carolina General Assembly. It created the inent defense services in 2001 to oversee representation of indigent persons throughout the state of North Carolina. And it is this body that advocates for adequate funding for existing public defenders office for the creation of new public defender offices in areas where there is a need as well as advocating for an increased rate to have pack attorneys adequately compensated for their services.

Currently the structure of the public defender office under me I have myself and then I have two senior assistants one assigned to look over superior court and the other for district court. The superior court senior assistant is responsible for supervising the superior court attorneys, the investigators, the interpreter and the social worker and the district court senior assistant is responsible for supervising the district court attorneys and the legal assistants. In terms of staffing, currently we have 22 assistant public defenders that is funded by North Carolina and then we have two assistant public defenders that is funded by the county. We have six legal assistants, two investigators, one interpreter and one social worker that is dedicated to the attorneys that handle our abuse, neglect, and dependency cases.

In terms of the areas that we are tasked with representing persons, we represent persons charged with all traffic offenses where there's a possibility of exposure to incarceration. That includes those cases like driving while license revoked, DWI, and drive by license revoked impaired driving. We also represent persons in all misdemeanors and felony offenses where there is exposure to incarceration. Juvenile cases. We have two attorneys that are dedicated to that specifically. We also have two attorneys that are dedicated to representing parents in abuse, neglect, and dependency cases. We also have an attorney that is assigned in addition to their regular criminal work to representing persons who have been involuntarily committed. We assist when called upon by the court to represent those parents in military child support cases, civil domestic matters, generally contempt of a parent when they have not been following the rules of the court and cannot afford a lawyer and postrelease violations.

We also have a presence at first appearance. Although it's not a considered to be in some areas an important process, we consider it to be very important in representing the client. So we have been at first appearances and that presence is funded by the county. We also have an attorney who is assigned to mental health court, one who is assigned to drug treatment court, and we have an attorney who works in collaboration with the stakeholders for safe babies court. We also are responsible for maintaining a list of private assigned counsel that can represent persons in special proceedings, child support proceedings, estates, family law contempt, conflict cases, and criminal, juvenile, and abuse, neglect, dependency court, and motions for appropriate relief when the court deems that person should be assigned an attorney for that purpose.

Some of the challenges that we are currently facing with the implementation of ecourts, it has caused the workspace for our support staff to no longer be adequate based on the extra equipment that is needed for them to perform their tasks adequately. We continue to struggle with having sufficient physical and digital storage space for the files that we are required to maintain under law. And we are bracing for how we are going to deal with effectively and efficiently representing clients that will be incarcerated longer likely due to the implementation of the new crime bill.

Questions? >> Wow, even better. Thanks so much. I have one question before I come to the commissioners around the the shortage in staffing that you were mentioning earlier. We hear a lot about you know the cases around child welfare cases and I know you and I have talked about this extensively. How does that, obviously we know it anecdotally, but how does that impact the timeline of how these cases are heard and how long families are waiting to have their day and how long how it impacts how long it takes to reunify a family.

>> It takes too long in Durham County to reunify families. The cases take a very long time to work its way through court. The dockets are heavy. There's not enough sessions to cover all of the cases that are pending before the court. The parents have to go through a lot of things to try to get their children back. One of the issues with safe babies while we are collaborating is that it's supposed to assist in reunifying parents with their children sooner by making sure the parents are getting the resources they need to become a better parent and be reunified with their child. But we still have a problem with not enough time to deal with all the cases which results in children being away from their parents way too long.

>> Yeah. And in addition to obviously more staffing to handle these cases, are there any other best practices you've seen in other communities that have been able to really improve the timeline of family reunification within the court systems? >> Yes. Prior to me becoming chief public defender some years ago, there used to be a family drug treatment court that dealt with those cases. And we did see significant improvement in times of how long the cases took in terms of families being reunited, parents getting the resources they needed sooner. It was a very very successful court that was defunded unfortunately and since that time there hasn't been anything to replace that but that was the most effective tool that we had at the time to help reunify families quicker in that courtroom.

>> Great. And I know we've talked about that Gordon and I serve on the >> we the name changes >> criminal justice >> justice the justice advisory council we serve on that together and that's come up in those conversations as well., do you think, and it doesn't have to be now, but like in the future, you could email us like if there's any staff that have done the calculation of since that court ended, how much longer a family reunification case has extended, like if it's it used to be, I'm making up numbers, like within a month a family reunified versus now without this court.

How much longer? That would be I think really beneficial for us. And I guess to manager Hager, if we can have conversations cuz this is something that we've heard not just from the child welfare space, but also just our entire justice system in general of a very vital system and program that we had as we get gear up for our budget for next year of how much would it cost for us because that was a locally funded program. we didn't have state funding to reopen the family justice court. That would be really really I think impactful for so many residents.

>> So we definitely can look at historical costs that were associated with the courts. I I know de the district attorney also brought this up in her conversation a couple of months ago. So that staff will follow up. Thank you, >> Commissioner Jacobs. >> Well, thank you so much for being with us and presenting to us. I think this is the first time. >> Maybe second. >> Second. Okay. >> Kind of happens when we have like a really really new >> Okay. A long time ago. Maybe when you were requesting some locally funded positions. I don't know. But it's been it's been a long time. So, thank you for being here and for the work that you do.

I was wondering what with your current staffing, what is your capacity and what in terms of serving all the people that you need to represent and what your case loads are like? Could you talk tell us a little bit about that? Yes, we just got numbers in terms of the number of cases that we disposed of for the fiscal year 2425 and it was 8,48 cases that we disposed of. That is in light of things taking a little longer than usual. Prior to COVID, we were disposing of anywhere from 15 to 10,000 cases. But it is our responsibility or my responsibility to make sure that the citizens are getting effective representation and quality representation. So we're not treating people as widgets that need to hurry through the system. We're making sure that we're doing the absolute best that we can to get the best result for them. But we I only have 24 attorneys, 25 with me.

>> Yeah. And so managing their case loads to make sure that they are not overwhelmed, that they can still be effective and have a life outside of work is challenging, but we do what we can. Certainly more attorneys will have more cases, less we can spread out the workload a little better. like Wake County has 30 attorneys. That's great, but 24 for what we need to do in this county and the case load is not enough. >> Okay. Thank you. And also understanding again as chair Alam mentioned it's a system >> and so you're also impacted what district attorneys do and what type of evidence or lack of evidence there is provided >> so there are a lot of things that affect your work and now you mentioned the e courts which is a good thing because we want to I think reduce I One of the barriers that I've heard the district court chief district court judge talk about Clayton Jones is trying to get first appearance done virtually to help parents looking at.

Some of the barriers that you know that can be there for people. So is there anything that can be done in the courthouse? You talked about lacking room and storage. Are are there any solutions shortterm with any of those things >> that we may be facilitate be able to facilitate with our general services staff? Yeah, short-term I've reached out to God, I cannot remember his name, but he came and looked at the workspace where my support staff is currently to see if we could reconfigure it to give them more desk space. I know he was a little overworked and had a lot on his plate when he came and looked at it, but he did come and had some suggestions, but we haven't been able to follow up since.

>> Okay. Maybe we could we we will follow up. I know Mr. Brenson and I talked about needs for the courts in general in doing an assessment. we've heard from different parties about either needing reconfiguration or even replacement desk and chairs etc. So, as we prepare for the budget, but even prior to then, we'll we'll do some assessments to ensure space issues that we can address happen quicker. >> Oh, that would be great. Sometimes we can come up with some creative >> solutions to things like this. And I also want to recognize your collaboration with our justice services department for pre-trial release for our recovery court, our mental health court. That is a team approach and we it could not be successful without everyone working together and those are really successful programs. So thank you. and now safe babies is another one. So thank you.

I wanted to ask you about involuntary commitments and what role you all play with that. That's something that has really risen to everyone's attention late with looking at our behavioral health and crisis response system. And one of the things that we've realized is that people are not the orders that have been written out for IBC's used to go to our recovery our recovery response center, our 24-hour crisis response center where they really are equipped to take care of people for a longer length of time. and people are been going instead being sent to the Duke Regional hospital behavioral health urgent care which they will not keep them for like more than like 24 hours. Are you aware of any conversations about trying to get the orders to now be go back to recovery response center the way they used to a few years ago? There seems to have been >> right. No, I'm not. Our role in the involuntary commitment process is to represent those persons who have been.

Committed and are in custody and are entitled to a hearing. That's our role. So we represent them at the hospitals, Veterans Hospital, Duke. >> Okay. >> All those places. Do you So you don't have any input in requesting they go to some place like recovery response center? >> No ma'am. >> No. Okay. Who would be the best source to have input into that issue directing where they're actually being sent to? >> The judges. >> Okay. >> That's assigned to handle the involuntary commitments.

>> Okay. All right. Thank you so much, >> Commissioner Brennan. >> Thank you. Thank you, Chair Alam, and thank you so much for all your service and all your hard work., the question I had, it was about the drug treatment court because I'm a new commissioner, so I wanted just a little bit more background about, you know, why it worked, how it was funded, why it was defunded, and I and how we can get it back. And I know Chair Alam said something about putting it in our budget, but I just wanted some more background information around it >> on the family drug treatment court or the current drug treatment court.

>> The fam the one you said family drug treatment court. Yes. About that was the one that was defunded if I'm okay. Yes, ma'am. >> Yes. that court was used to where there was families or mother who had lost their child and they were dealing with issues of drug abuse or homelessness or things of that nature, they were given those resources. So, the court worked in tandem with that person's case to make sure that they were getting the resources they need to get become the type of parent they needed to be to get their child back.

And if that involved the child as well needing resources, that child was included as well to make the family better and get them home and happy. >> And you said, >> and I cannot tell you why it got defunded because at that time I was busy doing felonies in superior court, but it got defunded. >> It got defunded. Okay. So, and you said there are 24 public defenders and it's not enough. >> Like in order to be effective, how much how many would do you think you would need?

>> I would say 30. That way I could have a balanced more balanced case load. I mean, the case is going going to keep coming, but I think 30 will help us manage it better and be able to take care of people the way we desire to. >> Gotcha. Thank you so much. >>, I want to go back to something that, kind of, Commissioner Jacobs touched on., and I think Manager Hager kind of chimed in as well. when you talk about the the things that you need, you're talking about digital space for storage of files, physical and so forth. as well as space, do you have an idea of what you need? You know, like let's start with the digital space because that's probably the easiest to allocate.

Like were you are you all filling up your drives? Are you >> We are filling up our drives., ids has been trying to come up with a different way of helping with the space in terms of how we get discovery by Axon, but there's all of us don't have the same system because it's so expensive for them., but we're filling up our drives., we've never had a physical space donated solely to public defenders files. Right now, we're in a space where I think half of it is for district attorney storage and the other half is for us. And then we have some files in another room because we have to keep just so you understand we have to keep all juvenile files. We have to keep all abuse, neglect, independency files and we have to keep all murder files for life.

>> For life. Okay. >> So we can't ever get rid of those files. And then there are other files that we have to keep for 5 to seven years before we can purge those. And we do that when we can., but that's still five, seven years and we still taking care of cases and having to find places to put those files until we can purge. >> Now, with our other jurisdictions, are there best practices on how pe how they handle that? Like is it a off-site stores facility that they have like you know when when case files get so long you can keep them securely somewhere? Do you are there programs like that?

>> I have not heard of one. Okay. Okay. Thank you, >> Commissioner. >> Thank you, Chair >> Attorney Baxton. >> Yes, sir. >> Thank you for appearing here today and thank you for your many years of service to Dorm County in several capacities. Thank you for your comments regarding family reunification, which is dear to my heart. As a former social worker, I know the importance of keeping families together and, I hear, you know, a lot of frustration in in the community about this issue., some of it is caused by a lack of knowledge with respect to how the system works. And so on the one hand, as a member of the board of social services, I understand clearly that the agency is charged with the protection of children, but the judications occur in that courtroom.

And I want to thank you and the people that you supervise in your office for making this a priority cuz I know your office is doing that to ensure that we're doing the very best that we can to ensure that in an appropriate situation that families are are reunified. And so I associate my myself with the comments that have already been made by my colleagues and I'm hoping that you'll continue to work with the judiciary to ensure that we can speed up the docket so that more of Dorm County's children can get an opportunity to to return to their families of origin when appropriate.

It's not in every instance that that would be appropriate. but as many families that we can reunify as we can. So, thank you again. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much Chief Public Defender Don Valentine for being here for all of the work and I look forward to having more conversations especially around the family drug treatment court. >> Absolutely. Thank you so much. That now brings us to our rock Durham to Roxboro rail trail presentation. And I believe we have 60 minutes allocated for this presentation.

I'll wait till Ellen comes up. But Ellen, do you think 40 minutes presentation, 20 for questions? I. >> think we have a lot of new faces also. So, please introduce yourselves as well. >> You want to start?

>> All right. Good morning, commissioners. so we're excited to be bringing the draft final plan summary presentation of the Durham to Roxboro Rail Trail to you today. as you know this is a study of a 18mi inactive rail corridor in Durham County looking at the potential to convert it to a greenway trail. we have been working on this for about the past year with a consultant team and a multi-jurisdictional team of folks many of whom are here today. so just to introduce everyone I'm Ellen Beckman the Durham County transportation director.

Brooke Roer Durham County transportation planner and then we have the consultant team. Caroline Stalmmit and Holly Waterman from Destination by Design and Sarah Johnson from Tool Design. we also have a couple of people in the in the back here. Andrew Maker from the East Coast Greenway Alliance, David Miller from the Triangle West Transportation Planning Organization. and we also had two other folk two other organizations represented who aren't here today, but City of Durham Parks and Recck Department as well as NC DOT. So it's a big project and it required a big team.

So just to summarize Caroline's going to give a presentation and I do want to emphasize that we're not really requesting action today. We're requesting feedback on this final plan summary to guide the final report. we intend to bring the final report back to you at a later date asking for adoption., and there will also be a request for approval of funding for acquisition that we'll get to. So, with that, I'll turn it over to Caroline. >> All right. Thank you everyone.

So, as Ellen mentioned, my name is Caroline. Sarah and I will be co-presenting today. And we also have member other members of the team here to answer questions if needed. And as Ellen mentioned, there were five organizations that led this project from the client side. Ellen mentioned them. Durham County, City of Durham, Triangle West, East Coast Greenway, and NC DOT. Today, we are going to summarize the year-long planning process in 30 minutes. And we'll talk about the discovery phase and there were two phases of community engagement. So, we'll talk about phase one and phase two. We'll outline how we did the plan development and then we'll talk about the recommendations, the project timeline. So, our planning study timeline was a year-long. As Ellen mentioned, we started in October of 2024, and we'll complete it at the end of this month. Today, we are presenting to all of you. Later this week, we'll present to the City Council and then, as Ellen mentioned, we're not act asking for action today. She'll be back at a.

Future date for that. And then I wanted to also talk about the overall timeline of this just to to ground in that. So this opportunity for this rail corridor and a potential rail trail has been identified since 1988 in many county and city plans that were adopted. This planning process, as I said, has been a full year. And the corridor acquisition, so the attempts to acquire this corridor from Norfolk Southern have been going on since the early 2000s and it has been in the Durham County CIP since 2006.

This most recent attempt to acquire the corridor was started by the conservation fund about two years ago on behalf of North Carolina DOT and the anticipated closing is at the end of this year. It's an incredible opportunity. for someone who doesn't live here, I can say that to be able to acquire a corridor of this length and potentially have a rail trail that would would serve the community of this length is is really amazing. And no eminent domain is required to make this happen. So what we're going to show you today, no eminent domain. I just want to state that. I'll state it a few times. the corridor is owned by Norfolk Southern and will be acquired.

And then NC DOT will own the corridor as part of the rail corridor preservation project that will allow for that use as a trail very similar to American Tobacco Trail. So you have a great representation of what this will look like south of the city. And then design and development will take many many years. So this will certainly not be built in a year or tomorrow. It will likely occur in phases over 10 to 20 years. We'll talk a little bit about that phasing at the end. And that specific schedule for design and development is not yet determined. It will be determined by staff and funding and all the other things that go into that.

The goals of this planning study, we really had sort of six pillars of goals. The first was assets. As I mentioned, no eminent domain used for this. So, it was really important to the project management team and our teams to identify places in the rightofway or publicly owned properties that could be used for potential trail head trail heads and other amenities. Partnership was al obviously a key cornerstone of this with five organizations partnering to lead this effort and then partnering with organizations within the community which we'll talk about as we move through this presentation.

Connectivity incredible opportunity to create to connect the city of Durham to Roxboro and all the communities in between. Unity and distinction or distinctive was also were two important pillars. So what we heard from the start was there are incredible historic and cultural resources in this corridor. We want to recognize that. We want to feature that. We want to make sure that that is part of this planning process. And then how do we create an identity that really unites two counties, all these small communities, all these different people.

Lastly, what is the strategy for actually making this happen? So once the corridor is acquired, how do we design and develop it and bring it to life as a incredible community asset? All right, I'm going to turn it to Sarah. >> Good morning. Thank you for having us. So as Caroline mentioned, we had two phases of engagement. The first phase of engagement took place from mid January to the end of March of this year. And the photos that you see here, the graphics that you see are kind of a smattering of the materials created for that engagement. So there was a fact sheet that lived on the website. As you can see, we had social media posts coordinating with different county and city staff to review, make sure that it was in Spanish, make sure it was going out into the proper channels. We had a community survey that was held online and available in person at our public workshops. there were focus groups as well as popup events.

So, the community survey, we had almost 3,000 responses., and that's not, you know, answers, that's actual participants. So, three nearly 3,000 participants for this survey, which was pretty incredible., and it represented 88 zip codes. So, obviously that's more than are in Durham County. And it but we had a lot of folks here that responded to it and people gave us feedback during this first round which was really trying to understand what is there special to know about your community and what do you want to see on the trail and just kind of the discovery of what what could this be without getting into recommendations yet.

So we have a lot of different kind of demographic breakdowns and a lot of different information about what people wanted to see on these slides. I will recognize that they are very dense. One of the things to notice in the the top left is that overwhelmingly there was strong community support. There are definitely folks that did not want the trail at all from the get-go and continued to have that opinion through the entirety of the planning process. So, you can see that 15% strongly oppose the trail. When people were thinking about what they would like to do on the trail, a lot of folks were saying that they really they really wanted to be able to to walk, bike, run, jog, but then you know, we even had a small contingent of folks that wanted to ride horses for equestrian use. thinking about the kind of amenities or the destinations they wanted to get to. A lot of people recognized that this could be a connection to other trails, other greenways, as well as parks,.

Downtowns, neighborhoods. They were very interested in restrooms along the trail, as well as trail heads, having places to rest, making sure that there was shade and that there was signage to give them the confidence of knowing where they were going. and so they had they had that directional signage. People said that they wanted to use this trail and the majority of folks, so 44% or the biggest share, they wanted to use it a few times a month, although we had a really large share that wanted to use it daily or even a few times a week. and again, you see that 18% that said they would never use it.

That's pretty tracks pretty closely with the number of people who strongly opposed it in general. So within the within the survey there was also maps a map where you could place comments on specific places to give kind of contextual feedback about what's happening here be aware of this in this location. and so we we received information about opportunities and concerns. So people wanted to connect like I mentioned to the neighborhoods, trails, recreational assets. they wanted to make sure that there was opportunity for having parking and pedestrian and bicycle kind of access to it. they really thought that this was a great opportunity for even fishing access.

You know, this passes through Penny's Bend, which is a very popular fishing destination. solid opportunity for educating people about the the history of this space and wildlife viewing as well. And then there were a lot of concerns. So people were very curious, you know, what are you going to do at crossings? How are you going to make it feel safe with all of these road crossings that you have? What about crime? what about the fact that this runs alongside some hunting game lands?

How are you going to handle that? What is patrolling going to look like? What is enforcement going to look like on the trail? also concerns around the environmental impact, right? So especially after tropical storm Shantel, what is flooding look like? What does the impact to wetlands look like? what about gentrification as well as concern around it will there be sufficient parking or will that have an impact on the neighborhoods. So great great insight from the community. This shows kind of the smattering of everything that happened in this first phase. So, in addition to that, nearly 3,000 respondents on the online survey, we had three public workshops. one in downtown Durham at the main library and then one at the Edison Johnson Center near which is essentially as close as we could get to kind of our Braggtown section of the trail and then also in the the North Regional Library. We had focus groups because we recognized that the the people who respond to online surveys are not always the people who live right.

Along the trail. And so we were very intentional about reaching out to specific groups to seek feedback from them. So we had focus groups with the North Durham community and that included folks from the Baham and Rougemont Rton clubs as well as the Stagville Descendants Council and with the Braggtown Community Association. And then you can see the 12 different pop-up events that your that our staff team members went out and facilitated. So in total that was over another 600 participants engaged and I'll walk you through the plan development. So this as Caroline mentioned this is a long corridor 18.2 two miles in total just to get you to the Durham County Person County line and then Person County has completed their own version of this plan for the remaining mileage to get you into Roxboro. So for the 18.2 miles we looked at it in a lot of different ways. We did a desktop analysis which involved looking at your GIS files or kind of your map files and overlaying as much information as we.

Could as possible. We also did we looked at imagery. So your aerial imagery, thank you for investing in the aerial imagery. It's very helpful for these types of projects. We also looked at Google Street View. we were comparing to other trail projects. And again, you've got the American Tobacco Trail, which is fantastic, but there's lots of other trail projects happening around the country, not just in urban areas, but also in highly rural areas as well. And then we really took a strong focus to where there might be opportunity for trail heads. as Caroline mentioned, there is no imminent domain as part of this project. And I will say that when we began looking at trail heads, we just looked at every single thing. So we looked at every parcel, if it was public, if it was private, you know, maybe private, not developed, just to have a a stock, you know, to to look at it. And then after we went through the whole corridor, we came to the fantastic realization there.

Were enough publicly held parcels along the trail that there was no need to even engage in conversation with private land owners. unless there may be some opportunity for kind of a a commercial hub right like maybe there was a commercial node already on the trail. And so there were some conversations around that, but none with just people who maybe had, you know, an undeveloped lot or agricultural lot near the near the trail., so looking at overall the the assets near the trail, you can see there's 21 public parks, six nature preserves, 12 bike pedestrian trail connections, there's eight lakes or rivers, and then 20 it goes passes through 26 neighborhoods. it's within a mile of 12 public schools. you have 11 historical sites, two recreation centers, four business districts, four art centers. So even though it is passing through what may be perceived as a bit more less dense and more rural, there's actually, as we mentioned, a lot of cultural and community assets along this rail corridor. We also did a.

Lot of field work., so going out in person multiple times over the past year to look at all of the different railroad the the crossings, the roadway crossings, as well as looking at bridges. So there's three bridges for this., so looking at those trestles and those structures, we did meet with property owners who, there are a couple of different kind of commercial businesses that do back right up to the rail corridor. So having conversations with those business owners to understand any kind of interest in trail oriented development and we took a lot of imagery ourselves so that we could go back and reference it and use it for our renderings.

So what we came out of in terms of big picture recommendations. So I'm going to hit just the the corridor wide ones as Caroline will jump into your more kind of project specific implementation pieces., we came to a 12 to 14 foot asphalt trail. So, this is similar to what you see on the American Tobacco Trail, or if you've been down to the Swamp Rabbit Trail, outside of Greenville, South Carolina, but it's a bit wider because we recognize that, people, you know, they like to be social when they walk on trails. You don't walk single file, right? You want to walk side by side with somebody or bike side by side with somebody. And you also still need to be able to pass. So, what this does by having at least this size, the 12 to 14 feet, really it creates effectively three lanes. So, you can have two people walk side by side or bike side by side with a third person passing them. and then we always recommend the the shoulder to have.

Crushed stone and that really helps with kind of the longevity of the asphalt path itself. And then it provides additional passing space or pull-off space with the dog. Runners often like to to run on a softer surface as well. Important for you all to note is remember I said that we had that kind of smaller contingency of folks interested in equestrian use. It was about 180 folks that that mentioned that on the survey. We continued to hear about that over time. And so this this configuration that I'm showing you we have identified as a potential alternative for North Durham County and that would need to be considered in the future. There's a few things that would need to fall in place to really dedicate more time and analysis for this type of configuration, but we did feel like it was important to at least acknowledge it and to say that this is an option in the future should there be partnership with equestrian groups to be able to move it forward. And so this.

Would have a slightly smaller asphalt trail. but again, you're further north, a little bit more rural, and you're still getting that effective width for comfortable passing. and then it has the equestrian trail separated by vegetation and you can see an example of this in in Vienna, Virginia on the W and D trail. and then again still some shoulders and here we are showing that fencing would be appropriate because of the equestrian use. So roadway crossings, I mentioned that this was something that came up time and time and again. Everybody was very concerned. Okay, it's going to feel comfortable. I'm on the trail. you know, I'm in the woods. it's serene and then all of a sudden I have to cross, you know, East Club Boulevard or all of a sudden I have to cross, Old Oxford Road or Stagville Road. So, after speaking with the city of Durham Department of Transportation as well as NC DOT, we really heard a request from them to have flexibility in the recommendations that we provided around.

Roadway crossings. So, what that resulted in was essentially two things. So we came up with instead of we came up with two types of crossing. So unsalized which you see kind of in the middle of the screen versus signalized which you see on the right side as well as recognizing addressing the crossing at the the exact junction the place where the trail crosses the road is not enough. We'd like to have a toolkit of add-ons so you could think about what can you do way in advance on the street as people are approaching the trail itself., so for example, those add-ons could be things like, rumble strips. You might be familiar with them. The white lines that kind of come across your travel lane as you get off the highway and it goes d and it really alerts you to the fact, hey, something's about to happen. You need to pay attention or things like speed cushions., and it really just depends on the the speed of the road, which which types of.

Treatments are appropriate. So, out of our 21 crossings, two of them are grade separated. That's I 85 and Camden Avenue. And then we are recommending we are for sure recommending signalization at East Club Boulevard and Dearborn Drive within the city of Durham. As you move into the county, there's there are roadways that are pretty low volume in terms of the number of vehicles as well as lower speed. I will say that some of them are are higher speed, but the volumes are so low that it doesn't make sense really to have this signal. And I'll give you an example of that. So number 21 almost up at the Person County line, that's Harris Mill Road. That's a no outlet road. It's a dead-end road. It mostly services farms. So it that is that is a place where we really feel like a yield, you know, a yield sign and a regular crosswalk makes the most sense.

But I will say for a lot of your crossings in North Durham County, those have been identified as A or B. and kind of giving the engineers in the future a bit of flexibility to make that decision. And I want to make sure that I do point out that the North Durham Parkway that would be coming in just north of Hamlin Road and it based on conversations early conversations with the DOT it sounds like there could be potential for that to be grade separated because again that would be making like a four-lane road crossing so the the pretty much the widest road crossing other than the I85 underpass., so being ahead of the game on that in terms of design would be very helpful for the safety of trail users.

All right. Okay. So, we had a second round of community engagement that began in in on May 1st and ran through September 24th. And at this point, the intention was to bring some of these conceptual designs back to the community and back to these focus groups for input. Again, we had the website, project website, still having information posted there. We had a second online survey. We had another series of public workshops, focus groups, project coordination meetings. We had a postcard mailer that went to all residents that had property adjacent to the trail. And the staff led a number of popup events again. And the images that you see on the screen are some of the conceptual designs that we shared at many of these public meetings and and online.

For the second survey, we had less response, which is to be expected. There's always a lot of excitement at the start of a project in both directions. but the second survey required a little bit more engagement from the survey taker because they were reviewing these conceptual designs and providing input. So, not quite as easy as just clicking through and choosing kind of multiple choice. So, those who engaged, we had 453. We offered this survey in both English and Spanish. it was only online because of the nature of the survey with the conceptual designs and the majority of people took the survey in English. You can see the demographics here and in terms of the survey response most of the questions were open-ended because we were asking people to provide comment and reflection on the conceptual designs that had been outlined. So, we've shared some of the quotes and comments here, trying to give a representation of both positive, negative, neutral, in terms of how people responded. And then we analyzed.

All of those responses to all of the questions to get a sense of was this person in favor of the trail or or is this person in favor of the trail, not in favor of the trail, neutral, or they just didn't provide comments. They just clicked through and looked at the designs. Interestingly enough, we had the exact same percentage, 71% in favor of the trail and in the first survey it was 81%. So, we were really happy to see that stayed consistent throughout the planning process.

There we go. and as I mentioned, this second phase had more events and opportunities to engage with the public. So, we had three public workshops, again, essentially the same geographic area, downtown in the Braggtown area, and then North Durham County. Over 90 people attended those workshops. We had four focus groups, as Sarah mentioned. Those were small groups that had specific people invited to provide comment on specific areas of interest or concern. In this phase, we had project coordination meetings with specific organizations. So, this wasn't necessarily the public, but instead organizations either county or nonprofits that were representing specific groups such as US Army Corps of Engineers. the we had a transportation project coordination group. We met with the sheriff and we spoke to those who are informed about land use and housing. The staff also conducted a series of general information system sessions, not systems. five of those those were intended to do additional reachout and answer questions and address concerns or misconceptions about the trail with specific groups where that was.

Happening. North Durham County and other areas like that. And then lastly, the staff again did a series of pop-up events. This is the the meet people where they are just so just setting up at farmers markets and places like that to engage people and tell them about the trail. So all said in this second phase just shy of 400 people engaged outside of the survey. We also did a second round of focus groups. As I said, you can see some of what came up in those focus groups.

Again, staying pretty consistent throughout the planning process. So desire some specific things around trail heads, desire for more parking at Penny's Bend, excitement about the trail heads. and we heard a lot about limiting the impact the environmental impact in the area throughout because there's some really special places along the way. And then concerns about crime and gentrification again similar to what we heard in the early survey. Excitement about connecting to to different communities and different assets. We'll talk about how we'll do that. and then really emphasizing that historical and cultural interpretation and just a desire to do this thing right to get this trail built. We heard that a lot. So especially in the southern part of the corridor thinking about moving forward with this and bringing this to life we through the planning process had five planning sections but then as we got to the point of how do we bring this to life we identified six pl six segments to break this 18.2 2 mile corridor into.

Because the reality is this cannot be built in one shot probably or overnight. So breaking it into segments makes it more possible to request and receive funding and just a more manageable process for building the trail. It will be very important to remain flexible and opportunistic. We never know where funding might come from. examples like the funding that came from the pandemic and and different times. We just never know where funding will come from. So having the plan, being ready to go and apply for funding is critically important and with partnerships that might come up. As I mentioned, we have six trail segments. I won't read them here because I am going to go into those in just a moment. And I want to say that everything that you see from here on out is preliminary conceptual designs. This would all be subject to engineering and survey data and regulatory review and collaborating with adjacent property owners.

The first segment is Aendale Road to Hamlin Road. So this is coming out of downtown primarily in the city and so this segment is 3.47 miles. There's a tremendous amount in this segment in terms of potential trail heads and connections. There is one structure at Lerby Creek. So, there's an existing bridge that is in pretty bad shape, will probably require a partial or full rebuild. There are four atgrade road crossings. Sarah mentioned East Club Boulevard as well as Dearborn would likely both need to be a sign signalized intersection. You likely know those intersections. They're they're high volume and kind of tricky crossings.

And then there are two underpasses, I 85 and Camden Avenue. I'll show a photo rendering of one of those. and then many assets in the community in this region. So obviously downtown Durham connecting to the tobacco trail, the future Durham rail trail as well as as we move towards Braggtown, multiple schools and parks and the library. In this section, there are also a number of go Durham bus routes. So providing the opportunity for people to take public transportation to the trail. That was something that we heard a lot from the city that they wanted to make sure that we looked at this portion of the trail and the next few will also be a shared route with the east coast greenway which opens up some potential for funding.

I'm going to show a few conceptual designs. So this is just casting a vision of what this could look like. This parcel is at Camden Avenue and it's currently owned by DOT. So a publicly owned parcel. The project management team asked us to do two conceptual designs here. This one maximizes parking and this one is less priority on parking and add some other amenities and features. Again, these are conceptual just to be able to paint the picture of this is what it could look like to have the trail coming through here and having a trail head.

This is the I 85 underpass as it is in its current state. And this is what it could look like when the trail is passing under it. So, the underpasses always provide an opportunity for art. Obviously we want to make sure there's lighting and it feels like a safe environment for people who are traveling on the trail here. And then I'll show you a few different maps where we can look at how the trail will interface with other aspects of the community. So, here we have an opportunity along Ellerby Creek to create a connector trail that would take advantage of a city-owned parcel. we call it the wetland parcel up there and connect over to be Beaver Marsh Nature Preserve. So, it was really important to look at where schools, other parks, other trails were and how could the rail trail connect to those other community assets.

This is the second trail head in this segment. This is at East Club Boulevard. This is a city-owned property. a really nice opportunity to have a larger trail head here to service this southern terminus or the southern part of the trail. So potential for 60 to seven parking spots here. Again, this is all just conceptual and you know, designs could change in the future. This is the current road crossing at East Club Boulevard. The little arrow is that's the cor the rail corridor there that you can see. And then this is what that crossing could look like. So, this is a photo rendering of what that crossing could potentially look like.

This is one that does have high traffic volume, would likely need to be signalized to ensure that it's a safe crossing in the Braggtown area. This is not a trail head., but we wanted to show how the trail would interface with Dearborn Road. And Dearborn Dearborn is another area that's a a slightly higher traffic road. So the little pink sort of circle that you see there would be a roundabout on the trail or could be a roundabout on the trail that would signal to the pedestrians and cyclists that something is coming up. You should slow down. and it's also an opportunity to bring art and history and culture into the trail and potentially exhibits and educ educational exhibits. And this type of design could happen anywhere on the trail. We're just showing it here in Bragtown to give a sense of how it could interface with the trail and the road crossing.

My really likes Bragtown. There we go. The second segment is Hamlin Road to Penny's Bend. This is just under two miles, 1.75. There is one structure here. Many of you probably know it. It is kind of the iconic image of this trail. It's the bridge at the Eno River, which is in pretty good shape. people are walking across it probably right now. So that that one probably can stay mostly in its form. there are two road crossings in this section. And then key connections here, this is a a a significant recreation hub with Penny's Bend, the Mountains to Sea Trail.

There's an elementary school in the area and this would still be shared use for East Coast Greenway. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the current old Oxford Road Bridge and Penny's Bend area. This is another opportunity for a trail head that would be a shared recreation hub for Penny's Bend, the Mountains to Sea Trail, and the Rail Trail. We looked at two concepts here as well. This is sort of the the nearterm concept where we would look at parking o off of old Oxford Road and the 06 there on the left that's the current gravel lot at Penny's Ben. So that would remain.

The second option is ambitious and a long-term vision to really make this area safer for all the pedestrians and cyclists who use this area. This would put a roundabout in at Old Oxford Road and move the parking on Snow Hill Road, make that larger, and then potentially have an a trail crossing under the vehicular bridge here or over depending. So, this is the potentially long range vision that I know u some members of the county are excited about. This third segment is Penny's Ben to Rodendrin. So, just under four miles, one bridge in this section. And this is our last bridge at the Little River.

There's three road crossings and then lots of connections here. And I'm just going to jump right to this connectivity map. So there's Lucas Middle School, Little River Elementary, and the Durham Technical Community College here as well as Kataba Trail Farm. We spent time at the property at Kataba Trail Farm. They are excited about the trail and having the trail potentially cross their prop or a connector trail across their property to make these connections to the schools., it would require crossing the little river there, but could provide a really nice opportunity for environmental exhibits and sort of educational opportunities, especially with the schools nearby.

This is Rodendren Road in this section. This is what it currently looks like. This is a photo rendering of what it could look like. So, this is a lower volume crossing, non-salized. You can see how the trail users would interface with the road crossing there. The fourth segment is roadendron to ball road. There's eight atgrade road crossings here. Another very important section with Stagville historic site and Horton Grove, Lake Mickey, Mangum Elementary. And again, this is where the East Coast Greenway would diverge and continue its path across the state.

I'll show two connections here in this section. so this is at Orange Factory Road potentially using sidewalk there or an alternative trail to connect over to Horton Grove which would eventually connect to Stagville. That's the in their plans to connect to Stagville. This is Beaha Road in this section. So again just showing what this currently looks like, what this crossing could look like. And then the final connection that I want to show is to Lake Mickey and Mangum Elementary. So, this would be using Ball Road and sidewalks there to potentially provide a connection to the elementary school and over to Lake Mickey recreation area.

Fifth segment is Ball Road to Red Mountain Road. We come into Rougemont with this section. Three atgrade crossings and the community of Rougemont and the historic train depot. This is an area where fortunately the the rail right ofway is wider. So it gives us an opportunity to have a trail head here in the railroad rightway there at Red Mountain Road. And you can see six there on the bottom. We have another trail roundabout as a possibility before that road crossing.

And then the final our shorty section bringing us into Pson County. So, Red Mountain Road to Pson County, just over one mile and just one road crossing here. So, probably a fairly short and attainable section that would connect us to Person County and their remaining portion into the city of Roxboro. So, the takeaways that I just want to finish with before I turn it back to Ellen., as we have talked about, the corridor is currently owned by Norfolk Southern Vimple. There will be no eminent domain as part of this acquisition. That purchase is being facilitated by the conservation fund and NC DOT anticipates that by the end of 2025 to build this trail. there will be a need and an opportunity to leverage federal and state funding. Most of those federal transportation funds typically are provided at 80% with a 20% non-federal match. And in terms of state funding, there's at least at the moment lots of opportunity for funding through state parks. This trail would be is part of the great trail state plan.

It has portions of the mountain to sea trail which is a state trail as well as east coast greenway. so opportunity for funding there. The very rough cost estimate for building the trail would be 46 to 57 million. That includes the facilities and the connections that we talked about. A full cost estimate would be will be in the final report. And then the last thing that I do want to mention is that establishing the roles of Durham County and city of Durham in terms of trail development and ongoing maintenance will be a very important next step. And then establishing the role within Durham County will be an important next step. Which departments are are holding which aspects.

Turn it to Ellen. >> All right. Thank you Caroline. That's a lot of >> information on the time Ellen. I know >> I just have one slide. Perfect. >> Just one slide. This is all I have., so I just wanted to ceue up what is happening next., again, no action today. We want your feedback on this plan, but pretty soon, we will be bringing forward a request for approval of funding for our portion of the acquisition., and that will involve a number of things. You know, we'll have to approve some Durham County funding.

We need to enter into a funding agreement with NC DOT. they are purchasing the project, the corridor, and we are contributing to them., and then we have two state parks grants that have been approved for this corridor acquisition., one direct to Durham County was awarded over the summer for $500,000 and one to the East Coast Greenway Alliance., they sought out funding and got a million-doll grant that they were going to share proportionately between Pson County, Durham County, and the city of Durham.

So with all of that, Durham County's, you know, net cost would be projected to be around $223,000 or 1.7% of the quarter acquisition cost. So I I want to emphasize that this has been a partnership to get this funding, right? We have sought out all the opportunities we could we could over the last couple years. and it required a lot of coordination with outside groups, NC DOT, the East Coast Greenway Alliance, the other two local government partners. so Durham County, you know, had been planning on this acquisition in its CIP for many years. I think there's about two and a half million set aside and fortunately we only need to use 223 of that for acquisition., so that's that's very soon and needs to happen pretty quickly for NC DOT's acquisition by the end of this year., and then another step will be the formal adoption of the plan. So again, not asking for feedback today or not asking for action today, asking for feedback., and you know, as Caroline said, this is a.

Long-term project. Like this is a big one, right? This longest trail project I've ever worked on. we're not funding it all at one time. It's going to take place over probably decades many phases. so funding for design and construction that would all occur through the local government budget processes and u we're not asking for that today either. So so that's the last slide. I just wanted to cue that up and we can answer any questions that you have.

>> Thank you so much. I'll start on this end with Commissioner Burton. >>, thank you, Chair Alam. And first and foremost, >> actually, sorry, Commissioner Burton, I forgot. Vice Chair, Dr. Lee has to step out, so if you want to go first. Sorry. And then we'll go to >> Yeah, I don't have I don't have much. I just want to just show appreciation for the detail that you all have in here. I really love the fact that you kept saying there's no imminent domain, you know, needed here. That's very, very good. I'm really excited about this., I think I probably want to I probably have to send some questions here about, you know, the the phasing of it and the the the crosses and things. A lot of that is right near where I live and I just want to learn a little bit more about that as far as like especially with the schools and things like how do we try to connect like what Sandy Ridge is right there very close to.

One of the places as you said and I would love to see how we can integrate that more you know to allow the kids to get over there you know a little more safely. I I think well Mangum was really fairly close there and I saw Lucas up there. So I really love the fact that it's actually kind of windy up near where our schools are. and I'm I'm I do have some questions around and I can't really get into it right now because I have to leave and just step out just for a moment. I'm not leaving.

I just have to go to to do something really quickly. But about the the funding and because there were pieces that looked longer but they were cheaper where there are smaller pieces that looked more expensive, right? And I was really curious about like how that formula happens. I know it's all preliminary. I I get it. It's not a it's not a final, but I'm really curious about how that's calculated. And and the the traffic circle on what is it? Old Oxford. That'd be really >> really that's really ambitious, especially for that intersection with Snow Hill because that is there's a lot going on right there. but I will be in touch. I'll I'll reach out to you, Ellen, and see if I can you can transmit it to everyone there. But I do have some questions about like how the funding how the budget for the different sections are calculated because it it was such a ver a variation and there was no correlation between the size of the plan versus the the budget.

I'd be really interested in learning about that. But >> and I know you have to go I'll just say one thing. There will be a very detailed preliminary budget in the final plan with all those documentation. And I think part of what you're seeing is if there's a trail head or the connections in a segment that would impact the cost >> or a bridge >> or a bridge. >> Yeah. Right. And and then the number of crossings as well. So some you do have some long stretches without trail heads and without necessarily as it might not even have any bridge or creek crossing in it. So those things are kind of bigger ticket items.

>> And just really quickly, the the tracks, do they get pulled up or they paved over? >> Pulled up. >> Pulled up. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Oh, very good. Thank you all very much. This was excellent. This was an excellent presentation. So, I really appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Commissioner Br. >> Yeah. I just I don't have any questions. I just want to say to Ellen and Brooke, you all have done a fantastic job with this, especially since I'm the liaison to open space and trails and we were on a call on Thursday and just listening to how you handled some of the questions and some and the cons big concern around imminent domain because that came up and I'm glad that just like my colleague Vice Chair Lee said, you've said it over and over, there will not be any imminent domain.

So, we can believe that confidently. So, I just want to say thank you for all of your hard work on this., especially the hard work with around.

Getting as much public comment as possible to make sure the community was involved and gave their input. That was really, really important. And thank you to you all as well., this is this is really, really great. So, I just want to give you your kudos. So, >> Commissioner Jacobs,. >> thank you., yeah, great presentation, great work, all the engagement was amazing and going to other events as well., really fantastic., I will say that this will be one of the most important things that I will have done as a county commissioner., this is an investment in the future of Durham. It really is. And, you know, I'm in my fourth term now and I know how long it takes to get things done. And what's really critical right now is protecting this corridor and the opportunity for this corridor to be publicly owned is critical. it may take us 20 years to build it, but the the protection will be there for the residents and the future of Durham residents. So I I just can't emphasize.

The value of that., and you know, people who have been used to maybe living it with it. And I think again the point that this is not imminent domain. This is not this is land that is owned by the railroad., and for residents who are concerned about that to understand it's so much better for this to be publicly owned and protected than if a private developer came in and gained control of this corridor. So, you know, that's the other option.

So, we we either protect it or it is up for grabs. And so I think people really need to understand that and the fact that there's much work to be done as you mentioned but this is just the first step and we will work with residents to try to address their concerns and I appreciate looking at the plan and seeing all the ways that the plan is the first step at addressing the things that we've heard from the community about the width and you So, what people want the different trail heads to be like and where people want to connect to like you have listened to the community already is reflected here and it's amazing that the trail heads are also going to be in on publicly owned land. and that NC DO is going to be the entity who owns this corridor. The partnership and thank you also for being here of East Coast Greenway. all of the part the conservation fund, everyone. the fact that we are only putting in 1.7%.

Keith, you've got to like this. We're only spending $220,000 for $13 million plus investment is unbelievable. It's amazing. And we already have the money set aside., so this is just a real gamecher for our community and just so thank you. Timeline, Ellen, I know you said this is very timesensitive. Just so we're aware when when do you need this to come back to our board because it's such a tight timeline. So we're working with NC DO's acquisition schedule that's mid November. so we have a draft funding agreement that needs to be reviewed before it comes forward here for adoption. and then we al are also working with the state parks department on those two grants and we need to get confirmation of how we can get those funds secured and under a grant agreement as well.

So, a lot of moving parts, a lot of logistics, and >> yeah, by the end of this month. >> Okay. All right. Well, we'll we'll do our part., and I think it's also important to understand that not only do we need to act on the acquisition, but adopting the plan is also our first step to in the future applying for other funding to actually create the trail itself. So, this is also really critical. I was the asset inventory and analysis is amazing. It's above and beyond anything we see with the with the belt line or the at. I was wondering when you all do the is there a way to that asset map and I don't know if you want to go back to the slide because everything is just all in the same color. it's it's way back in somewhere in the middle, but >> I've lost control. anyway that the the asset map it had like 40some things on it but is there a way to color code.

It so that there are different colors for like education cultural economic development you know or or workforce related assets because I think it's important to reflect the diversity. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, the written plan will be much much much more detailed. If you think this is detailed, you're gonna you're love. So, it will reflect that. Yeah. We'll have the we'll have we have writeups for all of these different areas. So, schools, public greenways, the topics with maps to go along with that and support it. And then much more detail about each planning section and what the opportunities were there, what the assets were. So I think you will be you will love to read this book.

>> Okay. >> Because I was not like even on the the crosssections like when you were showing for instance the connection to like the beaver >> >> beaver marsh >> beaver marsh. What jumped out at me is well there's also a connection to a commercial shopping area right and so thinking about the trail is going to connect people to so many different things. And I want to make sure that we're also reflecting that. And even when we get up into Rougemont, you know, the economic development potential for some of the businesses up there. I I I just think it's really important. This this trail is much more than just recreation. it it really is. So yeah. All right. Thank you so much.

Thank you all so much. And yeah, I'm appreciative of all the ways that y'all have done community engagement because I know from the emails and conversations we've had, I'm sure they're not always the easiest conversations, but y'all have continued to stay engaged and answer folks's concerns and really help them understand how this is going to be a resource. I'm also excited that, you know, it's going to come in phases. that gives me time to build up my endurance to be able to utilize the trail. And also like as we get closer to the time when we open the trail, just thinking about how Durham just announced the the Garmin is having their new race and run here. I feel like this would be an amazing space that we could have some sort of like race or run or bike race on this trail to like announce for the ribbon cutting type ceremony and like to just get people out there. I feel like it would be a really great way to splash.

>> if it's connected all the way to Roxboro. You're going to get pretty much a marathon distance from Durham to >> Roxboro. That would be Yeah. And I just wanted to say we had the movable city this Sunday and all the people who were riding their bikes and roller skating and you know I think you know our community is just ready for something like this. So I just wanted to add that. Yeah. >> Yes. So, I think definitely like as we do the as we get closer to the end, I would love for us to explore and even talk to the sports authority because I feel like they have a lot of really great relationships with like Nike, Garmin, these international race organizations. I don't know what they're called, coalitions to do that.

>> I just wanted to thank Ellen and Brooke for all of your efforts. I know it's a part of what you do, but you have definitely gone beyond what's required often to make sure that our residents are clear about this project and also to the consultants who have helped us throughout the process. The engagement component was very involved, but that's what's required and that's why we're at this state place in the process. So again, thank you. Thank you all so much.

>> Okay, thank you. Be back soon. >> We have one last item and I know I'm thinking if folks are okay with it, do you guys want to knock out this item then? Yeah, then we have Okay, so I'll pass it on to Keith for our budget update and framework for 26. Manager Hager, do you want to start with the first couple of slides and have to >> So Keith, before you get started, do you think on a scale of 1 to 10, how doom and gloom are we going to be?

>> I will play the bad cop to manager Hagar's good cop. it is we'll let the presentation try to speak for itself, but you feel free to ask some questions after that. >> Yes. And so we have 60 minutes. So 40 minutes for presentation and then 20 for questions. Keep us going. >> All right. Good morning board. we look forward to sharing some updates about our current state. Keith will lead majority of the conversation and this dialogue is somewhat of an ongoing conversation since the beginning of the fiscal year and before. We've come to the board each work session sharing updates about the changing landscape both in the federal and state situation. And there are both policy shifts, funding shifts, many changes that have caused the country to revisit how they do their business. And oftent times we may not have enough time to to get our selects together to work through it. But the framework and Keith will talk further, but the framework will give the broad overview.

Of the budget with where we are last year and the current year, how our management managed things and the framework for planning for next year. And so, I've probably said a little bit more and I know I want to pick up a couple of the slides, but Keith, is there anything else you'd like to talk about with the overall >> No, I just want the I'd like the commissioners to understand from a budget office standpoint, this is a unique time of the year because we're looking at the end of 2425, those numbers wrapping up, how we did, how we did for the end of 2425 that stopped June 30th a couple of months ago, has an effect on the 262 27 budget, but we're also at the same time just beginning 2526, the year we're in right now. We're three plus months into that.

But we have folks sitting around us that will convey some of the chaos or we'll call it chaos amount. A lot of change is happening at the federal and state level that is will affect this year's budget, the current year we're in, which will also affect 2627. As commissioners, I need y'all to think the end of 2425 affects how we might think about 2627 because of our how how we how we end up with fund balance, how 2526 changes will affect 2627. And we're trying to incorporate some of those crystal ball sites, at least in the budget office, how how that may affect 2627 to give you an early idea of what 2627 may look like and the headwinds involved in that.

That's just generally the discussion we're going to have with a brief statement about the CIP at the end. Is that okay? Y'all, I would like for y'all to get used to thinking how the budget office thinks. So, there's three years we're working with right now. As we move forward, 2425 actuals, our property tax collection, yay, bright light., thanks to the tax administrator and their crew and the tax department is doing very well. We're meeting our collection amounts, our budgeted collection amounts. We're not blowing past it. In the past, we used to well overcolct in that revenue source because we tended to underbudget, but we've tried to budget more closely to actual collections thanks to David's consistent discussions with Kiar and tax administration. However, we have seen our sales tax collection drop significantly from budget. What do I mean by that? That's a loss of $11 million that we did not collect that I had budgeted at the beginning of the fiscal year that just simply did not.

Come to pass. And I'll show you a little later how that happened. Some of the slides that are concerning. That is concerning not only for 2425, but also for the current year and next year. Because if we're not collecting what I thought we were going to collect in 2425 in a low unemployment, very low unemployment state and a generally decent economy. What does that mean moving forward with some of the things we're seeing at the state and federal level and potential economic changes we may experience in the future? some we have had to increase our reliance on fund balance in the past as a revenue source. We haven't been able to do that in 2526 largely because we're undercolcting in some of our key revenues. We have lowered our expenditures but that use of a revenue source is getting tighter and tighter.

Not only did we reduce fund balance as a revenue source in 2526, we may have to reduce it again in 2627 just to stay fiscally responsible in the ways that we need to be. That's a discussion for another time that Claudia will have with Crystal Lee. Wright, our CFO, up here sooner rather than later. Overall, our revenue collection for 24 was about 91% of our budget. Our expenditure expenditures for 2425 were also around 91% of budget. So, we tried to control our expenditures related to our slowing revenues by doing a number of things. We had operating cost freezes. We had mid-year vacant position freezes. I know that frustrated some departments, but it is what we had to do. On top of that, we continue to see increased inflationary costs for certain goods such as gas and utilities are pacing higher than previous years. Inflation's hit a lot of different things. All that being said, 2425, how it ended up was decent, but it wasn't great in the sense that we.

Weren't able to refill our fund balance as much as we may have wanted to, and we're going to have to face that fact in 2627. Moving on to the current year, what year we're in right now, we have massive federal and state policy shifts. We have a few revenue and expenditure highlights, but those we have only reason we have a few revenue and expenditure highlights. We've just started the fiscal year. We're only 3 months in. We've barely collected any property tax and we've only collected one out of 12 months of sales tax, which was pretty good, but it it doesn't begin to show the trend of what the year will be. Having said that, there are some key things we want to talk about that want to note that's happened in 2526 and how we're managing the budget during this current year. Federal government shutdown will likely result in some sus suspended services. federal and state policy changes pose a risk to revenue streams and expenditure requirements.

You've experienced this already with discussions about the long-standing diet nutrition program. potential revenue losses may happen in SNAP and the local funds were used to offset some of those federal funding losses in the dine program this year. Again, that's an expenditure pressure that may need to be added to next year as well. And we don't know where SNAP will end up, although I have two experts on the either side of me who can help with that to proactively deal with some of these impacts. The the preliminary base budget assessment started in July with some work that John Kefir's office did with ours and and management team. Those are we are assessing and evaluating funding allocations by category that means by like federal and state funding our revenue sources and whether it's mandated and or not statemandated those types of things. And this work continues to build upon contract review initiatives we did during the 2425 fiscal year. That's the same information. There is some information if you were so inclined. No did a great.

Summary of some of the federal and state changes at this link in your document. Please read that document and it gives you an update of some of how the federal things may flow down to the counties. I'm going to let Rod talk about some of the problems or issues that have happened with the public health during the current fiscal year. >> Good morning again. Again, Rod Jenkins, director of public health. Be real brief. Keith touched on the dine program reduction. We're grateful for the county for a local appre appropriation to allow us to maintain staff through the end of this fiscal year. we did receive notification that Medicaid cuts were going to effect in October 1st. we immediately contacted Keith and his team, let them know that our proposed decrease as of right now is about $75,228.

That's pretty modest, but any cut to Medicaid means that we can't provide for our community., we did also receive notification from the North Carolina Department of Public Health that there was a 6% reduction in Title 10 funding and as a result, there was a need to do a stop work order for title 10 family planning funds in order for the state to assess and to really reassess, I should say, how to really spread those, funding cuts throughout the state. Right now, Durham County exposure is right at about 87,553.

As you all well know, Title 10 allows us to do family family planning within the Department of Public Health. It's a very important function of what we do. And of course, we do have a strong relation with Lincoln Community Health Center. Every year annually, I assure the provision of WIC services to Lincoln. And as of right now, that is the the main thing that is driving health departments crazy right now during this during this government shutdown. A lot of counties are deliberating what to do with their wick staff if they have local appropriations that can help kind of float. it's important to remember and I know I'm preaching to the crowd but the last shutdown that we had lasted about 35 days and that was in 2018 2019. So again I plan to have a conversation with CEO Claretta Foy around 3:00 today just to really talk through things and just make sure that they're on square print. But that's that's all I have for public health.

>> Thank you Rod. We're going to move to DSS now and Mag. Yep. >> Hi. Thank you. Good morning. I'm Maggie Clap, the director of Durham DSS. Currently, we do not have any word from the state on what's going to be impacted. They continue to work with the federal government to get that. There's going to be some programs which are exempt from a shutdown, but at this time, we don't know. the state last updated us on Friday with an update on Medicaid, which I think we have on the next slide. there's also a link here to a contingency staffing plan by HHS if that's helpful. but again at this time the state has not told us which programs will be exempt and what that will mean for us in the counties. What we do know is that they have a certain amount of funds that they've already received. How far that stretches is we're being told through October and then they're going to have to reassess at the end of October.

There's some things locally that we may have to assess for. We've been hearing from some providers that they're not going to be getting reimbursed. So that looks like meals on wheels and SA inhome services. We will have to look at how far county funds that we currently have in the budget can go. Again, it's an ongoing situation. We did hear, as I said on Friday, that North Carolina Medicaid said that they do have enough funds to get us through the first quarter of the federal year. So again, that's federal year se October one. so it' be October, November, and December. so that they do have enough funds to get us through that. Again, other than that, we're going to have to wait and see what the state hears from the federal government. What I'm hearing is that they're not getting a lot of communication because we've been reaching out to the state. and the state usually, according to my team and others, has been more proactive with communication in the past. They are not.

This time because they just don't have the communication at the federal level. As Keith said, it seems very chaotic. Thank you, Maggie. And chaos is not good for chaotic is not good for developing future year budgets. It's very uncomfortable place that management and our office finds ourselves and will continue to find ourselves for as we develop the 2627 budget. Some of the key items I want to note around the 2526 budget. Again, that's the current year we're in. No major revenues collected yet. We haven't begun to collect property tax. that will start in earnest in November and December and January.

That's when the bills are sent out and you have to pay by Decemberish time frame. So, that money won't come in until the midyear. We'll let you know when that comes. We put out a quarterly report. So, our second quarter report will note that we had to budget in 2526. We use lower amount of fund balance as a revenue source and that possibly will continue to be even lower again in 2627 just to strengthen our fiscal stability. That's just the lower revenue available for next year.

Economic indicators suggest downward pressure on revenues. Obviously, we're losing ARPA funds, but you're not going to lose the need that those ARPA funds were supporting. ARPA funds supported preK a little bit in the current year budget. It also supported a whole host of nonprofits that will be looking for continued funding in some form or fashion. Sales tax stagnation I've talked about and I'm going to show you in a couple of slides. So, I'll hold off on that until we get to it. Stateold harmless volatility. State hold armless funds are funds the county get because of the loss of article 44 sales tax way back 1015 years ago and the state taking over Medicaid costs that the county used to have to support.

As article 44 sales tax grew for the county that was taken away from Durham County and all counties and for the state grew higher than the Medicaid costs for Durham County. We got a rebate back. That number grew significantly over the last 5 years to become a doubledigit milliondoll revenue source for us. We currently have $10 million budgeted in revenue coming to us from this state hold harmless based off of trends for 2526. But this is a wildly economic related revenue source. What do I mean by that? It depends on article 44 sales tax being spent across the state, but it also depends on how much money the the state has to pay for Durham County related Medicaid. Given all the chaos and things that are happening at different levels, I can't begin to tell you what that number may actually come in as. Remember, we budgeted 10 million.

It may come in at 9 million. It may come in at eight. It may come in at 11. I don't see economic pressure supporting it growing. I do see economic pressure causing it to that revenue source for us going down. So that's not a great thing to think about but in a chaotic environment I want to be ultraconervative on how we budget our revenue so we don't get too far extended expenditure side. Claudia the manager has expressed to departments to urge control for spending and maximizing revenue source. We've said this a number of times in department head meetings. I think that position is clear to departments. we continue to have position freeze on non-mandated services although we're keeping public safety and select DSS and public health positions exempt from that freeze. we have employee benefits costs that are continuing to rise at elevated level elevated rates and we're going to have to do some further analysis. This is something I think you all need to understand that this number has doubled.

The amount we're paying for benefits in the last 10 years. It's averaging anywhere from seven to 10% increases a year. That's a an unsustainable increase for the county to take on. We can handle one year at a time, but if you average 10% a year, the amount's going to double in 10 in 7.2 years. If you average 7.2% increase a year, your amount's going to double in 10 years. We currently pay $50 million a year roughly in benefits for our employees. So, can we handle a 25 to $50 million increase in that number annually? That's the annual amount over the next 10 years.

That's something to be concerned about and that's why it's on here. Inflation is driving increased baseline expenditures for utility f fuel and we we don't talk about this directly but we will. It is really affected the cost of capital improvement plan projects. cost of projects continue to rise every year 10 15% or more. Those are relatively conservative amounts that we have to take account. I want to go to sales tax. I want to remind you all that sales tax is our second biggest revenue source the county collects. After that it falls off tremendously. So, article 39, article 46 and the ILA agreement we have with the city, that comes into our general fund and helps pay for benefits costs, helps pay for salary increases, helps pay for all your inflationary costs.

This is a complicated graph. I can walk you through it, but what I want you to see is how much new money, these gray columns were new money that was budgeted year-over-year. So in 232 24 sales tax was doing gang busters largely to a lot of related to a lot of ARPA funding being pushed through the system. So you all had on top of increased money from property tax revenue you had $13.39 million in new revenue in 2324 to spend on new programs expansion programs or pay for benefits cost. However, in 2425, looking at the end of that fiscal year, when I talked to you last year at the budget retreat, I said, "Oh, I think we're going to make $75 million by the end of the year." It got worse. When we had that budget between when we had the budget retreats last year to the actual ending of the fiscal year and now I estimate the general fund only collecting $72 million. So, I budgeted 80, but we only.

Collected 72. Remember I told you sales tax loss was 11 million. Nine million of it was in the general fund. When I made that $75 million estimate for you all, and I was making it for our office back when we did the budget retreat in February or March, I think when when we had that time frame, I was estimating the county was going to have a budget of $82 million in 2526. I actually lowered that a little bit from the time I talked to you all to $80.7 million. But my concern is that I don't know that we're even going to meet the $80.7 million amount that I have budgeted because we had such a bad budget year in 2425.

Why did we have a bad budget year? That is the great question and I point this out to you to see gross collections. This is a number I I look at is the single most important number that my office looks at for economic activity in Durham County. This is gross collections of sales tax before amounts are distributed to the county, before amounts are distributed to the city, before refunds are taken out from nonprofits like D. This is just an indicator of activity, economic activity. Look at the steady growth in Durham County gross sales tax collections from 2000. This is a 10-year look from 2015 to 2018. You see that slope? That's a gradual but growing slope. 1920 is when COVID happened. So, the world kind of shut down. things went flat. But then look at how the slope changed from 1920 to 2122. In fact, 2223.

You see, it grew at a a significantly faster pace. But look at what has happened from 2223 through the end of 2425. That's practically three years where the number the amount of gross sales tax collection for Durham County has stayed flat. That has never happened in the time that I have been here. that is also happening in a ultra- low unemployment rate system, in a relatively robust economic system in Durham County. It's held flat. I cannot tell you why it's held flat. I can only say that it has. That is concerning. It may be that we're reverting back to the mean. What do I mean by that? You see that dash line, that sort of a slope of how the growth in sales tax was. If we had stayed on that slope and kind of take out the ARPA rocket fuel effect, you can see that we're roughly on the same slope that we were from the pre, but we hadn't budgeted that way. We got to a point and we continued budgeting.

More. All this to be said that this is one of the pressures that is going to be on our office to reassess where we budget sales tax for 2627. This is not good news. This is particularly in a a city and a county as vibrant as Durham County. This is the same information broken out by quarters. You can see there's quarterly variation, but if you look at that line, you can see it's slowly growing. But look at it from quarter 202122 quarter 4. That's the months of what is it? That's April, May, and June. From 2024, look at it's bounced around, but it hasn't grown. Again, I'm just pointing out to you that over three fiscal years, gross sales tax collection simply hasn't grown in Durham County.

Why is that? What is happening? And more importantly, what do we budget for 2627? So leading into 2627 budget development with these sort of headwinds in front of us that's concerning the manager concerning my office the CFO all county funded entities receiving recur recurring dollars will undergo significant base budget evaluations during the budget development process. Allocations will be evaluated for alignment within general statute requirements, local mandates and BOCC priorities. Operational assessments and benchmark service costs will occur. Benchmarks will occur with peer jurisdictions where appropriate just to see where we are in terms of comparison of funding and operations with similar type departments across the state.

Contingency strategies will be developed to plan for potential shifts in federal, state or local revenue streams and departments will continue with John Kefir's new office to refine key performance indicators. I want to show you all how much of it sounds like a seven almost $700 million budget has lots of rooms for savings and in some ways it does and in some ways it doesn't. What I want to point out to you here is how the budget can be thought about is broken up into dollar chunks for spending. $250 million roughly 36% of the budget is allocated towards education related services. That's DPS, DTCC, preK, and Museum of Life and Science. So 36% of the budget goes to those things. Another 37 almost 38% goes to personnel required to support county services. Thanks to David 80s for making the slide. Appreciate it, David. This includes health benefits. So this is salary, overtime, FICA, ELER's retirement system, and benefits cost.

That's 37% if I'm doing the math. That's 64%. Am I right? 74% almost getting close to 75% of the budget is taken up with education costs and personnel costs. Next we have debt service payments. That's money transferred from the general fund to pay for school related debt service in a different fund. That's another 8%. So we're in the 80 plus percent range 83 something like that if I'm doing my math right some check. And then we take in some other known operating costs that we have to take care of. election, security, utilities, IEP, those are economic development contracts. We have risk management costs, the insurance and bonds we have to to pay for our services that we provide, alliance, money for mental health, and money for vehicles.

That's another $30 million. So, it's another 4% of our budget. The six largest department operating budgets, DSS, public health, sheriff, office of emergency services, general services, and IST is another $61 million. All other departments operating budget is $29 million. It's interesting when you look at this, you say, where can we make savings? There's not, you can't think of it easily in terms of $700 million available unless you're willing to consider reductions in education, willing to consider reductions or savings in some form or fashion around personnel cost, willing to consider operating cost reductions in some of the larger departments that have a lot of things they're going to need to be doing particularly in less u supportive economic environment. And what I'm trying to say is public health and DSS and OES tend to be needed even more when the economy is not doing great. So is that an area you're willing to look at?

What I'm trying to convey to you all is there's really little room to make massive cuts unless you're looking at some of the high dollar groupings here >> that excuse me Keith that's a great slide just to show how complex this exercise is. And thank you, David, for grouping the categories in this way. in that personnel category, as you know, that's where all of our EMS workers are, our DSS workers, our public health workers. disproportionately, we are a service organization.

Part of the work that we will do collectively is looking at well are there ways that we can continue to become more efficient because we have 100 counties across the state and some may be doing some of their work more efficiently than we are. So when you're in a situation and you have declining resources and increased pressures you definitely have to look within and as well as externally to figure out how do we go forward. So this will be an invol a a very involved process but we want to make sure that we're very thoughtful and intentional how we do our work and it will take some time. So, we just ask the board's patience as we re-evaluate how we're doing our business and in trying to make sure most important that we are being responsive to our residents and for those things that we're required to do and also those priority areas of the budget. Thanks, Keith.

>> Yes, ma'am. Commissioner Burke. >> Yeah, I just wanted to add to that. You know, me coming from public education, that's what makes it tricky about educations because you have to have a minimum of staff in a building. You have to have a custodial staff, school lunch staff, the child nutrition staff, administration staff. It's serviceoriented. So, you know, all those it's very, you know, I would tell people off all the time, it's not the supplies, it's the people in the building providing the services to the children. So I just wanted to add that >> some key performance indicators. Our office will work closely with the new organizational effectiveness department run by my neighbor here to the right John Kefir and to connect relevance KPIs key performance indicators to department budgets. These KPIs will help identify the efficiency and effectiveness of programs and services while also highlighting areas where more detailed analysis needs to be., this is one of several tools the county is going to use by management departments to evaluate program and service.

Effectiveness in a belt tightening environment. I will say you cannot balance the budget and fix the budget only on operating costs of certain departments. As I related on this back slide, only 4% of the budget is related to all other departments operating budget. That is a place that management will look. We always look there, have looked there for the last several years to make reductions in operating budgets, but we are limited without looking at some of the bigger ticket items. I want to show you the Durham County tax rate. This is 33 years of Durham County tax rate.

Starting in 1993 94, the tax rate was 90 cents. We had a revenue reval that year and went down to 87.4%. What is more interesting to look at is the percentage cre increase yearover-year of the tax rate. And what I want to note real quickly to you all is the last two years. 2425 tax rate increase percentage-wise and 2526. Look at those two numbers 6% and 6% compared to the last 33 years. What is happening? We are having to by choices made by management, the board and departments, we are having to support our budget more and more through property tax revenue. Why? Because sales tax revenue, our sales tax revenue as I showed you earlier is flattening out. We don't have that new revenue. You continue to need new revenue to support Durham Public Schools to deport to support operational budgets to support new requests that come to you like two that have already come to you today. But the way you're doing it, the way we're doing it is raising the property tax rate.

Claudia, >> I just want to really highlight one other factor though, Keith. It's not just that the sales tax revenues are flatter. It's that we are receiving less state funding and less federal funding for the things that we need to do for our community. So there's been a bigger and bigger burden on us at the local level to fund things like public education and repairs and for our schools. So I I just think it's important to have that bigger context of what we're also seeing is the burden falling on us here at the local level to take care of things that used to be provided by the state or the federal government.

That's a great comment, Commissioner Jacobs. I remember that some time ago there used to be statewide bonds for schools and it's been some time since that has occurred. the decline in in revenue sources whether it is sales taxes or others coupled with increased pressures of population growth which is a great situation to be in that we are in a region that's growing. many places in the state they're declining. And so I'm grateful we have that challenge, but the the pressures that's happening on our tax base are are some that we will not be able to sustain. So, as we plan for next year's budget, we are trying to keep in mind the tax burdens, as we have these conversations, but also knowing the community, desires a certain level of service. So, balancing that act is is, a careful one. And we're already seeing new cuts in federal funding like with the dime program and now with Medicaid.

And so again, we're it's that double whammy of things like decline and what we saw with sales tax with the burden of how are we going to take care of these critical needs for people. >> We're also losing a lot of federal research dollars. We are a research hub in this county and the RTP and those dollars while I can't see it yet, those pay high dollar salaries that people live in Durham County and they do research work at Duke or they at Central or Carolina or state and they mix and match and it's all out in the RTP as well. And I'm deeply concerned about the downward economic pressure of people losing federal dollars flowing through research groups that are just the the salaries and people living. We haven't seen that yet. I don't know how much worse that is going to get. Again, chaos makes me tend to get more conservative and that's what I'm trying to convey to you. The concerns that we're having or at least the ones I'm conveying to.

Manager Hager. Some key budget takeaways for 2627 that I would like for y'all to remember. We have slowing revenue and quickening expenditure growth. This is not a new statement. I have made this for the last three years, but it can say it's getting worse. revenues are not keeping up with the expenditure needs you all are facing that we all are facing. Not to mention the new things that come in front of you every time you meet. Not unlike today. Two different things that are asking you to plan for future funding. But in this environment, you all need to be concerned about what you can say yes to. Economic indicators point to potential for further challenges. I just noted that with the loss of federal money, why is our state why is our sales tax flattening out in a relatively good economy, if the economy gets much worse, will we see that decrease? We have to have we need to consider long-term sustainability. I would ask each and every commissioner in.

Here every time you you get an ask for a new request for funding that you say how much and how do you think we're going to pay for it and consider that because we have to pay for it long term, not just one time. For example, this this rail trail, it's a one-time purchase, but then you're planning to take on significant costs in the future and then in perpetuity, keeping that up. Begin prioritizing early. Management and the board need to be talking now and potentially at a policy retreat about what you are prioritizing.

What does prioritizing mean? It means the word no may need to enter into the vocabulary here and there in a gentle but strong way, fiscally responsible way. We have some difficult decisions coming for the board and for management. We need to begin strategic discussions immediately. That's why we're starting this meeting and we'll continue as much as the manager sees fit. We will be continue monitoring quarterly reports for early warning signs. We'll be having a quarterly report coming out mid November that goes from July, August, and September. Excuse me, mid-occtober if I'm correct, Heather. We'll get that first quarterly report out in in the next couple of weeks. We have limited use of FY226 midyear fund balance amendments. What I mean by that is we have gotten used to going to the well, our savings account on a regular basis as people come and say they have emergency needs or their new needs. Can we can we appropriate fund balance? Well, yes, we can appropriate it, but as I've said earlier, our fund balance amounts have.

Gotten tighter and when you just not just is the wrong word, when we make the decision to spend some of that fund balance midyear, we only make that overall fund balance amount even tighter. So, it's just something that needs to be in the forefront of your mind. Oh, we're digging into our savings account again to spend on something. Is that the right thing to do? Are we setting ourselves up for long-term fiscal costs related to this one-time use of fund balance? We ultimately, I think it's the manager's hope, and it is my hope that we will prioritize long-term fiscal sustainability. We're going to have to make it through these years, through this unknown in a way that we can come out on the end of it and still be supportive of the citizens in the way we need to be. What's the budget process look like? Tentative.

This is a very early sort of budget calendar. December or January, possible policy retreat with the board. January and February, we'll have department budget input. What I mean by that, they'll literally be creating their budgets and putting it into the system as we coalate that budget. February, we have our generally we have our BOCC annual budget retreat where, as Commissioner Alam noted, I'm always doom and gloom and we'll probably be some form or fashion of that. Again, also we will have February, we'll open up the budget budget portal for public opinions, public statements on what they think the key budget areas of need are. March 1st through March 31st is when departments get a chance to meet with manager Hager and propose their budget request for the upcoming fiscal year. March, we'll also have advanced public comments at a board meeting. we have to do that by state law. And in early May, the manager usually around the second week in May, the manager presents her recommended budget. And then in midMay and through.

June, you'll have the board budget work sessions. And in early June, usually the first or second week in June, we will hopefully approve this budget. We can get through this together, but you got to make some hard decisions. And I think it's manager Hager, department's job to make that at first, and then we will present them to you all. those same hard decisions will ultimately end up on your desk in front of you. capital improvement plan update. The the CIP we we used to come we go quiet for a couple of years and we would do a byianual CIP update. and that process has changed because the cost of CIP projects have changed so quickly and the admittance of new projects and projects changing consistently to what I'm trying to say is that the CIP has largely turned into an annually updated document and we're going to come back to you with that annually updated document after we get some vetting with our financial coordinator Doug Carter and Associates.

But project costs change rapidly. We have new planned and unplanned projects to consider annually and just the change in scope and cost changes that makes it where we can't really wait two years and have a price frozen. It just doesn't work that way anymore. The current CIP will need to establish a potential geo bond referendum amount for DPS, DTCC, the museum, and the county if we so choose. We currently have an estimated geo bond referendum for 2026. Again, economic realities and choices out in the real world may decide whether we continue to do that in 2026 or do it later. I'm not proposing anything right now. We have it in 20. I'm just saying that's the time it's set for right now.

But we have to figure out the amounts we want to do. But in figuring out the amounts, you have to figure out the amount of debt service payments the county is willing to take on in the future based off of that geo bond referendum. I'm sure the schools will give a significant number and we will try to respond to that. But it has a cost to us out a couple of years later. The cost of CIP debt related service I think I just said may rise significantly in the next 5 years depending on the size of the geo bond referendum. the updated CIP will be presented to the board in the near future hopefully before the budget process starts because part of the CIP is how much annual debt service we need to pay for 2627 and I need to get some clarification on that depending on some projects that are still out there to need decisions made.

That is the CIP process. I will be quiet and let you all ask questions. >> Thank you all so much. Manager Hager, do you want to go first? >> No, I thank you Keith and David and your team for your work and all you do and the departments because they're the ones also very close to this process. U as Keith shared, we've started some of our work a couple of months ago looking at revenue streams when we saw shifts at the federal and state level. it put out a warning sign that we needed to revisit what we're doing and how we're doing it so that we could make sure the highest priorities in serving our residents could still occur. we thank the board for hearing from us. We will share additional information with you. excited about the work that will happen in John Shop and his team with looking at our KPIs and refining our performance measures. We heard from you in the budget development process for last year's budget about our need to refine.

That work and so it it's a lot that will be happening but we are up for the task and again thank you for working with us through this season. Thank you so much, manager Hager. And yes, ditto ditto to thank you all for all of the work that you guys do in the budget office and obviously our department staff that execute all the programs. I know we get to make the quoteunquote easy decisions of how we spend the money, but y'all are the ones who actually manage it on a day-to-day basis. So, thank you for all of that.

I know manager Hager and I we've talked about this and I definitely see and I hear you Keith about the ways that we can find savings., and I know I've talked about zerobased budgeting and all of that and it's not necessarily a thing that I'm thinking about for us to find costsaving measures, but just an exercise and I know manager you said like there's been KPIs that have been established to roll out of just a practice for us of we are using and this is not our staff department is that we're using taxpayer dollars to be able to provide them more transparency of, hey, we're reviewing these programs that we fund. We're reviewing these services to make sure they're up to the standard that we as a board want, but also that our residents want. and doing that as like an overhaul of all of our programs and services cuz I think we may not find cost savings or things to cut through that process, but we may find that there.

Are similar programs being funded that could be communicating better with each other or that there is something that we're funding or a nonprofit that we're supporting that we're also supporting a different nonprofit here and they're not communicating with each other and trying to get them to get together. If they're serving the same population, they should be working together., and I think that really happens if we get down to the bare bones and work our way back up.

>> I I I do firmly believe that sort of based on the scenario that you're hearing right now, regardless of what it's called, we are going to have to look at what's in the base. Some of the framework information that I shared in a separate communication with the board captured an exercise we did about five six years ago when we took the budget and we look well what's statutoily required what's required from a local mandate and then putting the dollars into those buckets and then isolating the broadest category, what's sort of board priority or or areas that we have done consistently over many years.

Some version of that exercise has to happen right now because the numbers that Keith talked about all those sales taxes are I consider this almost a correction from the standpoint there was such an infusion of infrastructure dollars that happened a few years ago during the COVID virus and the economic recovery Y some of this is stabilization. So if you look at the trends, if you saw where there was a the sales tax trend of where we were back in I guess it was 2015 16, it may have been around 170 million. Now we're at 270. So that's tremendous growth. So even if it's slowed some from from a economic stability perspective, we're still such a strong economy. On the expense side, we've just grown fast and a lot. And so to your point, figuring out well, how do we become different on the expense side will require deep dives into almost every corner and unfortunately the convergence of some of the shifts from external revenues, but also most importantly from where I am looking at.

It, some policy shifts that the pressures will roll downhill from a local government perspective. Some of the shifts that may occur may mean that the community may look to us. The question is, will we have the dollars to close the gaps and in most cases the response will probably be we just don't have it? We've been very clear with nonprofits that received funds through the ARPA appropriation that those funds were only for a short period of time and they have been respectful of that.

We funded very few projects that were would be considered recurring. and those would have be would be in the categories related to the schools or for child care. Otherwise, everyone is clear it was either one time or the funds have ended or will end soon. we'll we'll get through it, but to your point, we're going to have to look at every way the dollars are spent. How do we benchmark with others? I often say benchmarking against yourself is a is a story, but how do you compare to others is another one. So, we will be doing lots of that. some of that work has already started., and we look forward to coming back and we hear you loud and clear about the zerobased budget.

>> Yes. Thank you so much, manager Hager. And then you I had one more question of how with the health benefits, have we gotten data from like other local governments about are they seeing the same cost increases for the health benefits for their employees? Is anyone able to find a vendor that has been able to provide? >> We we will follow up on that. That is something that we're benchmarking. we did some comparisons. I actually there are a couple of things with benefits. One, you know, what are your prices, who's on your plan, and how much are you covering?

Those are those are a couple of separate buckets. That's probably another different conversation, but we are looking at how our costs compare. We are a very gener we have a generous plan. We could afford it a few years ago. We may not be able to afford it at the version it is at now. But we'll come back to the board in a couple of months with more details with that. As far as some benchmark information, that's a very complex question. Most, if you read headlines, most are struggling with their benefits cost and we are no different. but there are some ways I imagine that we can find some different ways to make it more affordable., and revisiting how much burden of the plan is owned by the county versus the employee because that makes us different too.

When I was working with the state, I had a much higher deductible than where I am now. And so, and then I had a much different type of benefit offering as well. So, all those factors are there. We'll bring those back to the board for consideration. Thank you. And then my last question was I don't think I haven't brought this up with a bunch of stuff. I know I talked to attorney Williamson and manager Hager about it about in what ways does Durham County do we invest in state bonds? I know we talked finance. Yeah, >> it's finance. Okay. But yeah, have we were you a little bit >> we we're going to get you the response for that. We do make investment. We have an investment portfolio and a strategy.

She's not here. she could answer it right off the top of her head, but we'll get that information to you. Okay. >> Yes, >> that would be great. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner Brian. >>, yes. Thank you all for your presentation and I know we're having a discussion and I know Chair Alamir really focused on zerobased budgeting. I don't know if I'm fully on board. and I'll tell you why. I know when I you know I'm come I come from the schools education and I remember this discussion we had this discussion when I was teaching maybe 20 25 years ago about the schools going to zerobased budgeting because one of the things and I said it earlier about with it's a serviceoriented business so with the schools and I imagine it's the same with the county is that you have people doing the work So if you look at a budget and you look at is okay you have a person in that position with the schools if you okay we're not going to.

Do this service anymore with the schools you can just move somebody okay because we're certified in something so if I have an assistant principal we don't need a AP at that building okay they can go back into the classroom so I guess I need a little to be sold a little bit on it I do like the idea about we're looking at our operating budget. We're looking at what we provide and figuring out where do we have services that are duplicate and making sure we streamline., so that's just how I'm thinking about it., but I do like, you know, the idea of us thinking about those things, especially because we're in this chaotic environment, what's happening at the state and the federal level. We're not sure about where our money is coming from if we're going to get these funds and we don't always want to put this burden of taxation on our residents. So, I would like for us to talk about that a little bit more to understand the.

Processes and things like that. So, thanks >> Mr. Jacobs. >> Thank you. I'm really glad that we're starting early on these conversations and I think that to the point of where we started with you know Rod and Maggie giving us kind of an update on some things happening with funding and programs. I I do feel like we're probably gonna need even almost like a weekly check-in. because just on related to related to public health and so and DSS because my question is what for instance in what you shared today, Rod, about the cuts for the two programs that were cut. I'm I'm thinking okay I see the dollars but what I want to understand is what does this really mean in terms of like what pe how many people may be impacted what services or programs are going to be impacted so I think it's important for us to not just look at the numbers but like what is that really translating into that that's what I'm really concerned about for.

Instance with the wick program, I know that we got an email from Lincoln as a board member, Maggie and I, saying that we have they have set aside funding. This was last week and you know, we have some funding to hold us over, but that's what a lot of it is going to be. So when I mean about I'm not meaning like we need to have these extensive reports but I think >> we're going to need to know about things how we can be nimble and respond and all work together when we're we're if we're really talking about like somebody not having food, not having medicine, not having housing. I also got an update from the HOPE department which is the because I'm on the HSAC because some of the HUD funding has been impacted and so people are wondering okay how is this going to affect money that's paying rents right now or you know how vouchers or whatever. So we're all just going to have to be really communicating.

And collaborating., and I know for instance, I don't know when you all meet at a leadership level with the city and the schools. I was actually at an event with the schoolboard chair yesterday and asked her, "When are you all meeting next?" Because this is also like a leadership with the staff and and our leadership at each of our boards about how we can all be working together around this these issues. So, no, that's a that's a great comment. I I would like to say I I appreciate how Dr. Jenkins and Maggie both keep us informed.

As soon as they get the information, they forward it to their respective boards and we send it often to commissioners. trying to figure out the systematic way of doing that is something we can definitely figure out. If my memory is right, it's almost 125,000 individuals that receive some type of direct or indirect service through DSS. For public health. If my memory is right, it was about 27,000, but another 30ome that have education type services. I may have my numbers off there. There's a lot of stakeholders that receive services through our human services entities. And I know to your point and the rest of the board is how do we make sure those highest and most pressing needs are still met. The challenge is from a budget perspective, how we may have challenges closing gaps, but if it's a board's priority, if you know, we would have to figure out, well, what do I stop on the expense side to cover this other expense that's happening? And that would be the the.

Question that happened. So there are ways we tighten our bell whether it's slowing travel or freezing positions. There are lots of ways that we can control the budget. And you you will note last year that's what we had to do. And that's what we've been doing. So from a policy perspective, it will be a shared ownership and how we get through this., and that's part of the reason we're also doing those reviews right now to to make sure we're clear or will start doing some of them. Well, what is clearly mandated to do? And and what are those things that are nice things to do and how do we get through this season? Because it is a season. I'm optimistic optimistic that things will become different. But while we're in this phase, especially the unknowns, we do have to be very strategic in how we manage.

>> Yeah. And I'll just say I'm going to be an optimist here too and say that I think one of the ways forward is going to be through collaboration and coordination, communication with not just the city, our other governments, the city and and the the board of education, but also with the private sector and all of our partners. I think the rail trail project is a great example of that where we have partnered with a lot of different folks. We're leveraging a lot of different resources.

Our staff has gotten a lot of grants and I'm going to push back on you Keith. We when we look at big picture and our job is to look big picture. We're not just thinking about now. We also have to be planning for Durham. That's our that's our challenge as elected officials. We have to be looking at this moment in time, but also looking 20, 30, 40 years in the future and the rail trail. And right now, we're focusing on just securing the corridor. Again, it may not we may not spend money on it for a long time, but that's an economic development investment. That's if we're going to look at how we have future revenues. We didn't we didn't even talk about tourism as a a possible asset for that. But these are the types of things where if we want to incre increase our sales tax revenue, we also have to invest and related to our CIP. So I think that's also for something in our board to think about because I'm.

Thinking when you're talking about how do we understand our sales tax revenue and I think it is important for us to dig in with all of our partners on that. And it is a national trend and and I like the fact that you showed us on that graph that we're also not far off if we're just on a steady growth but we're investing in Durham next. The whole purpose of Durham Next with our occupancy tax dollars is for those for that for that entity to focus on festivals and our a new convention center and a sports facility. These are all things that hopefully will help us grow our economy. So yes, we are in this moment now, but we can't forget about investments we have to make in the future of our community at the same time., so I I just I just wanted to put that out there. KPIs. I I really appreciate what you sent us with that long list of the KPIs >> and we were refined. And I also.

Wondering John how you are thinking about our strategic plan goals because I'm really interested in KPIs that are not not just around like output but also about the outcomes that we want to see in moving the needle on the goals that we have in the county. So I'm just wondering how you're thinking about that the strategic plan goals interfacing with the KPIs. Well, we the the process of creating linkages and alignments with the strategic plan and the existing performance measures and as well as any new measures that would need to be created pursuant to that process had already been initiated prior to the development of the new department. we are currently reviewing and updating the strategic plan in light of a lot of the changes that are going on.

Which has kind of paused that a little bit, but we plan to finalize that process with the county attorney's office soon and move forward with continuing along that line. I think as the manager noted, we have an existing an extensive existing base of performance indicators that we will continue to evaluate through intensive conversations with department staff. It's going to be a partnership., but I think the point you highlight on is is the key is I mean there's going to be some measures outputs matter and and there's going to be some measures, but we do want to focus on those measures that are outcome oriented., and so we're going to be spending a lot of time helping departments understand the distinctions between those concepts to examine the existing measures.

To identify where we might have gaps in relation to that distinction and make sure that we are filling those gaps with high quality measures that will capture outcomes for department level activities and investments., but it's, you know, we're we're beginning to map out our engagement strategy for the current fiscal year, to start having those conversations with the departments in coordination with the budget cycle so that as we get into the spring, we're in a much stronger place. Starting with the strategic plan and trickling all the way down to as we've talked about the mandates, we've talked about you know all the different types of activities and the drivers behind them so that we're we have a comprehensive performance evaluation framework not just one that is focused at certain specific levels. And how do you envision those with the budget kind of interfacing with the budget staff and what's in our budget book because it would be great if we I mean I'm will we see a change in the budget book so that.

We're actually seeing more of those. >> Okay. That >> and I think we're going to look at differentiated reporting opportunities as well. Right. I think we also want to be cognizant of what we focus on in the budget book. You know, that's that's one way to communicate, right? And so I think we're going to look for other opportunities to provide information to decision makers that may go beyond the confines of the budget book, but that may support and supplement that as well.

>> Okay. because I also I'm thinking about what's going to be public facing too because we want the community to also see you know to chair alarm's point how how how we're doing and how we're spending taxpayer dollars and all of that. So and what people are getting. So, what we can do is come back at the December work session with an update on that framework and what it looks like to to John's point, we have quite a few measures.

We need to refine the ones that we're focused on and make sure that we aren't missing some. And but we we can come back for those those conversations. >> Okay, great., and I just want to highlight that, to Commissioner Burton's point, there's a lot of the parts of our budget that are mandated services. And honestly, a lot of the things that are discretionary are really the key programs that this board has created. Things like the Durham PreK and our, long-term lowincome homeowner relief program. And there are thing these are programs that we hold near and dear to our heart. Project build our you know our recovery court our mental health court a lot of the things that we're so proud of in Durham County and we are not going to want to give those things up.

So I I think it's also we really need to be face up to that that a lot of our transformational progressive programs are discretionary and being funded by local funding., and I think also I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but even the conversation this morning with our, you know, chief public defender, like those are creating new positions, funding a new court, those are all going to be local local burdens. And, you know, I just I know there are so many things that we want to do, but that that is the reality of of what we're talking about right now. And I think I think what would also be helpful with for us is I know we've talked about this before, but even for us as a board to have a rubric around decision- making for new programs or positions for decision- making because when you look at our budget and thank you David for that chart when we have 38% of our budget being for personnel Now, we really have to be.

Asking ourselves tough questions if we want to be creating new positions rather than reallocating existing positions. We we really have to so I think anyway I think that would be helpful for me personally to have that rubric. And then thinking about the nonprofit funding process, I know we've talked about staff coming back with a proposal of how we move forward as the ARPA funding goes away. and I don't know if you all are is that part of what you are doing, John?

>> No. Well, I mean, I would imagine the, you know, the the grant side of organizational effectiveness has been involved in administering the ARPA funds, but we have not and we would certainly be happy to participate and share what we've learned through our experience, but we have not been a part of that conversation. >> And and then I guess for that, we would revisit lessons learned from the past and the budget team has been involved with that. It was a very small amount of money that we allocated for it., but many lessons learned in in navigating the ARPA grant cycle. So to John's point, and it all goes back what's to from from my seat with my policy hat, what is the return on the investment on any dollar we spend? And that I think that sort of wraps a lot of what you were saying from the investments from PK >> to other special initiatives.

>> What are the investments? What are the outcomes? Are they moving the needle? If we were to do longitudinal studies, can we see that those investments have helped with upward e economic mobility? Those are the kinds of things we can't do immediately, but would like to in developing an infrastructure do a different job in how we're telling that story and explaining to our taxpayers. >> Yeah. I mean because we've had a focus on the board in upstream investments investing in early childhood and knowing that we'll set you know the ideas to save investing on the front end and the in that way. So I I think and and it may take a very long time to see those ROIs for things like that too. But and I also just think big picture I I think helping maybe some strategies like you know one I just talked about you know the partnerships and looking for other sources of money which our staff is so good at but also you know things that we do normally.

Which is things like with our CIP we've I I'm getting into the weeds here, but you know, we've always done like state-of-the-art green building, you know, lead certified. I mean, we may not be able to do that. If we need an a new animal shelter, we may not have to do something that's more value engineering or whatever we're trying to build, just as an example. And then also really evaluating some of our assets. We have a lot of assets that are just sitting here like the old DSS building, the Boys and Girls Club. How do we really leverage the public land, things like that? So again, being proactive around and and that's going to take the collaboration part. So it's just a bigger strategy, I think, to get us more nimble at getting through the the economic future we're facing. So, thank you.

>> Thank you, Commissioner Jacobs. And just to provide clarification, I know in the emails that I've sent about zerobased budgeting, I've always said that it wouldn't be true zerobased budgeting because we do have those statutory requirements. So, that would be the zero would be that statutory requirements. And again, it's not to institute any sort of cuts, but just sort of this reflection of also highlighting exactly what you said, Commissioner Jacobs, like I don't think residents understand how much we go above and beyond with our programs. like they know but I think that scale of that prek is funded majority locally I don't think folks understand that grasp and being able to go through an exercise like this will help us with our communications and pushing it out and also advocating at the federal and state level that county governments cannot continue to carry this burden that we need them to step in thank you all so much that that comes to the conclusion of our agenda. is there anything else? Okay, >> it's lunch time.

Board of Commissioners · Regular Meeting · October 6, 2025

▸Consent Agenda20:22

▸Discussion Items37:43

▸Public Comment2:10:20

▸Adjournment3:32:09