Tue, Oct 28, 2025·Alameda County, California·Board of Supervisors

Alameda County Health Committee Meeting (October 27, 2025)

Discussion Breakdown

Fiscal Sustainability30%
Healthcare Services24%
Public Health Services20%
Technology and Innovation11%
Personnel Matters8%
Public Safety3%
Procedural2%
Youth Programs1%
Food Security1%

Summary

Alameda County Health Committee Meeting (October 27, 2025)

The Health Committee received updates on (1) the proposed three-year Measure C Safety Net Fund allocation plan—focusing on violence prevention funding and whether to provide oversight committee stipends—and (2) Alameda Health System’s FY 2026 budget status, cash-flow/Net Negative Balance (NNB) outlook, HR1 (“big bill”) fiscal risks, and St. Rose Hospital operational updates. The committee voted to forward Measure C recommendations to the full Board and asked staff to further explore the feasibility of oversight committee stipends before the November 18 Board hearing.

Discussion Items

  • Measure C Safety Net Fund: three-year allocation plan and follow-ups (Violence Prevention + Oversight Committee stipends)

    • Staff reviewed the proposed approach to allocate both projected annual revenue (stated as $6 million/year) and accrued reserves (stated as about $30 million), establish a reserve, and run a three-year funding cycle starting FY 2025–26.
    • Change highlighted: Violence prevention strategy funding was increased by about $1 million in the three-year plan (from about $2 million to about $3 million), reducing the reserve accordingly (noted as about $6 million after the change).
    • Excess revenue recommendation: Staff recommended that Measure C sales tax revenue received in excess of the projected $6 million/year be allocated at year-end to the violence prevention strategy up to an additional $1 million per year for the three-year cycle (with reevaluation next cycle). Any revenue above that additional $1 million would go into reserve.
    • Procurement/partners: Staff stated they plan to use an RFP process for violence prevention funding; specific CBO awardees were unknown at this stage. They noted the County Office of Violence Prevention was coordinating with the City of Oakland’s violence prevention office to align strategies. Cities would not be precluded from participation, but staff indicated cities would likely be approached differently than CBOs (not necessarily through a typical open procurement process).
    • Oversight committee stipend proposal: Staff reported Measure A/C/W Citizen Oversight Committee members currently do not receive stipends and recommended not providing stipends “at this time,” citing the need for more coordination with the County Administrator’s Office and the Auditor’s Office to understand impacts.
    • Supervisor positions and requests:
      • Supervisor Tam:
        • Expressed appreciation for the increased violence prevention allocation and asked how augmented funding would translate into specific CBO participation; raised Oakland “Ceasefire” as an example and asked whether it would have to go through an RFP.
        • Raised concerns about recruiting/retaining oversight committee members and suggested the County should try to accommodate a stipend given the workload and vacancies on other boards/commissions; asked to sort out stipend feasibility before the November Board letter if possible.
      • Supervisor Miley:
        • Expressed concern that a monthly, mandated oversight committee workload without stipends “doesn’t feel right” and indicated he supported exploring a stipend (he stated he personally thought a $100 stipend was a good incentive).
        • Emphasized the importance of results-based accountability/metrics for violence prevention funding and stated he did not want funds to be used without clear efficacy measures.
        • Asked about reserve levels, treatment of excess annual revenue, whether public entities could respond, whether school districts were involved, and about coordination with Oakland (including the Mayor’s interest in summer youth jobs as a violence prevention strategy).
  • Alameda Health System (AHS) FY 2026 budget update and risk outlook

    • Financial status (as of August, two months into FY 2026):
      • AHS reported being close to budget; cited 168 more discharges than planned in the first two months, and a lower length of stay.
      • Emergency Department volumes were described as very busy.
      • Reported net income of $4.7 million for two months, stated as about $800,000 off budget.
      • FTEs were over budget, but management noted volumes were up; labor costs remained a major pressure.
    • Cash flow / NNB ceiling risk:
      • AHS projected reaching the NNB ceiling of $95 million by 6/30/26 under the current budget.
      • Without intervention, AHS projected exceeding the NNB by $74 million in September 2026, driven by seasonal cash-flow cycles and timing of supplemental revenues.
      • AHS stated it was seeking to amend the permanent agreement with the County for more flexibility around the NNB, and was moving to multi-year (five-year) planning.
    • HR1 (“big bill”) and coverage loss risk:
      • AHS presented projected impacts that were relatively small in 2026 (stated as $7.8 million) but growing substantially in later years.
      • AHS cited Alameda Alliance projections of about 30,000 lives potentially disenrolled from Medi-Cal and stated the cost to care for those patients last year was $350 million; AHS noted these potential additional costs were not included in their projections.
      • CEO James Jackson further stated HR1 could drive over $100 million per year in revenue reductions over the next few years and raised concerns about potential loss of disproportionate share hospital (DSH) funding (stated as over $60 million/year for AHS, and about $1.3 million/year for St. Rose).
    • St. Rose Hospital status:
      • AHS reported St. Rose had low census and was awaiting licensing to operate as a subacute unit serving Medi-Cal/Medicare patients; delays were attributed to a federal shutdown.
      • St. Rose budget was headed to the St. Rose Board and later AHS; it was described as roughly break-even with IGT funding of $36.9 million. A prior IGT (stated as $30.3 million) enabled St. Rose to pay off the AHS line of credit and end the year with a small profit.
      • AHS noted ongoing planning for local share needs (described as about $10 million “to be determined” at that time) and ongoing efforts to reduce systemwide cost structure.
      • CEO Jackson stated AHS intended to replace St. Rose’s Meditech EHR with Epic, aiming for go-live in about 18 months, and stated they had reduced the expected implementation cost by about 50% through experience and process streamlining.
    • Committee member positions and key themes:
      • Supervisor Tam: asked for clarification on IGT timing and the AHS line of credit; asked whether disenrollment projections included St. Rose impacts; urged more careful “triage” in future spending given looming offsets; requested future grounding/analysis to be brought to the joint Health/Social Services committee.
      • Supervisor Miley: emphasized the importance of addressing NNB structurally; supported moving forward with a joint Health/Social Services committee; asked about timing needs for NNB agreement; raised capital spending as a potential lever; urged coordination with labor partners and noted Alameda County’s labor context.

Key Outcomes

  • Measure C item: Committee approved forwarding the Measure C expenditure plan and recommendations to the full Board in November, with exploration of providing a stipend for Measure A/C/W Citizen Oversight Committee members before the item goes to the full Board.
    • Vote: Tam—Aye; Miley—Aye (2–0).
    • Next step stated: Item to be before the full Board on November 18.
  • AHS FY 2026 update: Presented and discussed; no vote recorded.
  • Public comment: No public speakers on agenda items or non-agendized public comment.

Meeting Transcript

All right, so good morning, everybody. Happy Monday morning, October 27th, 2025. Clerk called the role for the health committee. Supervisor Tam. Present. Supervisor Miley. Present. Any instructions we need to provide? For in-person participation, the meeting site is open to the public. If you'd like to speak on an item, you can fill out a speaker's card in the in the front of the room and hand it to the clerk for remote participation. You can follow the teleconferencing guidelines posted at ACGov.org. And for speaking, you can use the raise your hand function. All right, thank you. So our first item this morning is an action item, Measure C, Children's Health and Childcare Initiative, Pediatric Health Care, Account Safety Netflix update. Quite a title. Good morning. So I am back to present some updates on our safety net recommendations for Measure C. Next slide. I don't, do I have the slides? Oh, okay. So this is what we're going to be covering today. We're going to do a review of the proposed allocation plan for the Measure C safety net fund. And we're going to do some follow-ups. Some additional health committee guidance from the September 8th meeting. And focusing on two areas: the additional revenue allocation for the violence prevention strategy and the stipends for the oversight committee participation participation. And then a requested action to bring the recommendations to the board in November. And then just a reminder that all of the presentations from our last two health committee meetings are in the appendix in the back of the of this deck for reference. So as a follow-up from the September 8th Health Committee meeting, you requested information on allocating annual revenue beyond the projected annual revenue to the violence prevention strategy. And you also wanted to see a plan for providing stipends of up to 150 per meeting for members of the Measure A, C and W Citizen Oversight Committee. Slide. And before I get into those information about those recommendations, wanted to just recap how we came up with our recommendations. So we're uh proposing allocating the accrued and the annual revenue to maximize the impact. So that's that six million annual projected and as well as the 30 million in the reserve or the accrued revenue. And we want to establish a proven reserve and a three-year funding cycle starting this fiscal year, 25-26. And this would be this would be allow us to you know support that regular review of strategies and also align with the measure A cycle. And we want to support our strategies that leverage existing infrastructure within our system and build on existing assessments and plans. And we're supporting we're providing a mix of in the recommendations of county and CBO contracted programs, and we're prioritizing strategies that support cross-sectional and holistic support for our priority populations. And so this is the budget that you've seen before, but there's one change to this proposed three-year allocation, and you'll see it highlighted in yellow, which is the violence prevention strategy. We've increased that line item again by approximately one million from approximately two million to three million. And everything else, all the other um allocations on the right remain the same, and then you'll see that the reserve fund has gone down a bit after that increase to violence prevention. So now we're at about six million. Oh, that's fine. I was just gonna say that the year one spending would be approximately 17 million and year two and three about 13 million. Next slide. So now we're going into the recommendations regarding the use of annual revenue beyond that project, the projected $6 million for the violence prevention strategy. So uh we are we are recommending um that to allocate measure C the sales tax revenue received in the safety net fund in the excess of six million for the annual projection to the violence prevention strategy at year end, up to an additional one million per year. Um and that's recommended for the full three-year cycle, but it will be reevaluated for the next cycle. And anything that's above that additional one million would go into the reserve. So it's up to one million per year. And this is consistent with the September 8th Health Committee recommendation.