Good afternoon and welcome to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors Social Services Committee for Monday, January the 26th, may have roll call, please.

Supervisor Fortunately Bass.

Present.

Supervisor TAM.

Present.

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Thank you very much.

We have four meeting informational items today on our agenda.

So we'll start with the first one on the adult protective services annual update.

Hi, Supervisor Tam and Supervisor Fortnite.

Thank you for having us on Faith Battles.

I'm the assistant agency director for the Department of Adult and Aging Services.

Today we have Cades Kabidi.

She is our program manager for Adult Protection Services.

And the Carcamo is one of our supervisors for Adult Protection Services, and she served as an out-of-class program manager for several months, and they will begin their presentation.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Well, good afternoon, supervisors Tom and Portalado Boss.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in front of you today.

I am joined today by one of our APS supervisors, Yolanda Carcamo, who will introduce herself shortly.

Next slide, please.

We are here today to share updates about our small but mighty program and highlight key accomplishments and challenges from fiscal year 2024-2025.

Our presentation will cover the process for responding to APS reports, a snapshot of fiscal year 2425, including statistics component graphics, case example, comparison of Alameda County's APS program with a neighboring county of similar size.

And finally, we'll wrap up with our short and long-term goals.

Without further ado, I will turn it over to Yolanda to present them.

Next slide, please.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Yolanda Cartmann, and I am one of the Adult Protective Services supervisors.

We'll begin by walking through the APS process, how a report becomes an investigation and ultimately a plan for safety for our clients.

Reports come through our hotline, online platform, or in person and are processed by our intake social workers.

Each report is screened by an intake supervisor to determine eligibility and urgency.

Once ruled in, an investigation is assigned a timeline, which are as follows: immediate same-day response, 10-day response, or no 10-day response, which are our desk investigations.

Once assigned, the APS worker conducts an unannounced home visit, interviews all relevant parties, assesses risk, and links clients to appropriate resources.

If abuse is substantiated, our findings are documented and shared with law enforcement or partner agencies as appropriate.

Our work is guided by two principles.

Consent, APS is a voluntary program, services cannot be imposed, and risk reduction.

At closure, our goal is to eliminate or mitigate danger and ensure safety moving forward.

This process is the foundation of APS intervention.

Next, I'll discuss how we're addressing increasing housing instability among our elder adult population.

Our home safe program is a critical resource for APS clients who are homeless or at imminent risk of experiencing homelessness.

The program provides housing-related interventions, such as temporary housing, rental subsidies, security deposits, utility assistance, and home habitability improvements, such as repairs and accessibility modifications.

To date, 7.9 million has been invested through fiscal year 2024-2025.

34% of that has been direct financial assistance to our clients, with 41% contracted service providers, such as legal assistance, housing navigation, and case management through our two contracted home safe providers, Felton Institute and Daybreak Centers.

Enrollment has grown steadily over the years.

From June of 2025 through October, we did stop accepting referrals due to uncertainty around continued state funding.

With new funding secured, HomeSafe is now extended through 2027 2028, and the referrals have resumed.

Our mission is to eliminate housing instability as a barrier to safety because without secure housing, any other protective measure is compromised for our clients.

We'll now take a look at the key updates that have shaped APS in 2024 and 2025.

Next slide, please.

2024 presented significant staffing challenges for us with 10 APS workers and three APS supervisors who separated from the agency, and no new hires were made.

In 2025, we were able to hire 14 new APS workers and five supervisors, three of which are in and out of class role, and we expanded our no 10 day pilot to three workers, which enables us to complete faster desk based responses for lower risk cases.

Our MSW internship program grew to six interns, strengthening our recruitment pipelines, and the home safe program received additional funding and was extended through fiscal year 2027-2028.

We've advanced cross-agency collaboration through our second annual law enforcement forum.

And despite these advances, APS also faces a significant growing gap between service demand and our staffing capacity.

Next slide, please.

In fiscal year 2024-2025, adult protective services received over 9,250%.

Of these, 2,567 were screened out, leaving us with 6,675 new referrals for 5,892 unduplicated clients.

These cases involved over 10,000 allegations, 35% of which were for self-neglect, 30% financial exploitation, and remaining categories, including psychological abuse, neglect, physical abuse, isolation, abandonment, sexual abuse, and abduction.

The prevalence of self-neglect and financial exploitation undercover the complexity of our work.

Our cases often require medical, legal, and housing interventions.

In response to this growing need, we've rebranded our fast financial abuse specialist team meetings, our local district attorney, and our MDT, multidisciplinary team meetings, bringing together expertise from multiple adult and aging services programs, such as in home support services, area agency on aging, our county veteran service office, and our public guardian conservatorship program.

I turn it over to Cadess for a little bit more on our statistics.

Next slide, please.

As you'll see displayed in the next couple of slides, our clients base truly reflects Alameda County's diversity across race, language, sexual orientation, gender identity, and age.

While most of our clients identify English as their primary language, about 14% speak other languages like Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Farsi.

To meet those needs, we rely heavily on language line services since we have limited bilingual staff.

In accordance with Assembly Bill 959, we also honor inclusivity by collecting voluntary data on sexual orientation and gender identity.

This helps us ensure that our services are responsive to our LGBTQ and non-binary clients.

Next slide, please.

So when we look at who we serve with regards to age, you'll see that most of our clients are between 60 and 89 years old, but APS also supports over 1,000 dependent adults between the ages of 18 and 59, many of whom are in their 30s and 40s.

In terms of race and ethnicity, our clients reflect Alamedas County's diversity.

As you can see in the pie chart displayed to your right, 37% of our clients identify as white, 25% black, 11% Asian and AAPI, 10% Latino, and smaller percentages of other groups.

This diversity means our services must remain culturally responsive and inclusive.

Next slide, please.

APS reports come from every corner of Alameda County, but Oakland consistently accounts for the largest share of cases, likely due to its larger population, density of older adults, and perhaps the unique challenges faced by older residents of urban cities.

Next slide, please.

So at the board's request, APS reviewed trends over the past decade.

When we look at the data, one thing is very clear, which is that APS cases are rising every single year.

And you may be wondering why.

Well, there are two major reasons.

First, Alameda County's older adult population is growing and we'll keep growing.

Second, in 2022, AB 135 expanded eligibility by redefining elder as individuals aged 60 and older rather than 65 and older.

Overnight, that added 96,000 people to Alameda County's elder population.

So what does that really mean for the future of APS?

Well, by 2055, Alameda County's population of individuals for 60 and older is projected to reach 723,000, which is nearly 40% of all its residents.

If we don't act now, APS caseloads will continue to grow at an unsubstantial pace as Alameda, sorry, pace as Alameda County's older adult population expands.

That is why we need to scale staffing and resources immediately.

I'll turn it back to Yolanda to expand further on this topic with the next few slides.

As you've just seen, Alameda County's elder population is growing rapidly.

APS reporting continues to rise year over year.

That growth isn't just a statistic, it means more complex cases and higher service demand.

To illustrate what this means operationally, we've compared Alameda County APS to neighboring counties.

We're going to be looking at a comparison to Santa Clara County.

This comparison highlights the staffing gap and workload disparity that makes it increasingly difficult to meet best practice standards for timely intervention.

Alameda County serves 1.7 million residents with 26% of those residents being over the age of 60.

Santa Clara County serves 1.9 million residents with 20% over the age of 60.

Santa Clara County employs 52 APS workers and manages 8,630 referrals annually, about 120 referrals per worker with an average caseload of 26 per month.

Alameda County employs 36 APS workers, manages 9,253 referrals, and averages 441 referrals per worker annually with an average caseload of 42 per month.

This still this disparity illustrates the strain on Alameda County Adult Protective Service Resources and its stress direct impact on service delivery.

To meet realistic caseload standards, Alameda County APS requires 13 additional workers to reduce monthly caseloads to 26 or 54 additional APS workers to align annual referral volume with our neighboring counties, along with two to six new supervisors and one additional program manager.

Finally, an additional intake unit to address our backlog exceeding a thousand referrals.

We also recommend restructuring, dedicating a long-term case management unit for complex cases, expanding our no 10-day pathway for death-based responses, and expanding our contracted case management services for low-level referrals.

These changes are essential to stabilize operations and restore timely intervention.

These numbers tell part of the story, but behind them are real people whose safety depends on timely action.

Next slide, please.

Understaffing means vulnerable adults wait longer for protection.

Currently, APS workers manage 42 cases per month instead of the recommended 26.

That's 338 cases above capacity every month or 11 extra cases per worker.

Annually, APS handles 6,480 referrals beyond our capacity, meaning 18 vulnerable adults a day may not receive timely intervention.

If even 10% of those cases involve immediate safety risk, 648 individuals a year could remain in unsafe condition.

That looks like seniors left without food or medication, adults enduring ongoing financial exploitation, or caregivers in crisis without any support.

These are not abstract numbers.

They represent lives at risk.

With targeting staffing and continued programmatic restructuring, we can close these gaps and prevent harm.

We'll now take a look at a case sample.

I'm gonna pass it on to Jess.

All right, so we have a 64-year-old client with cognitive impairments who had been abandoned by her sister and had no other support systems in place.

She was struggling with basic self-care, like forgetting to eat, unable to maintain hygiene, and falling behind on rent.

Neighbors were also complaining of a strong urine odor, and she was on the brink of eviction.

Next slide, please.

So APS stepped in and connected this client to the home safe program, which provided rental assistance, deep cleaning, housing navigation, and case management.

With these supports, she was able to catch up on the back rent, set up auto pay, and her unit was cleaned to meet these standards preventing eviction.

But we didn't stop there.

We linked her to a case manager to explore in home supportive services for ongoing care and referred her to Meals and Wheels to ensure food security.

This case illustrates how APS doesn't just respond to crisis, our program stabilizes lives and build long-term safety through collaboration and creative.

Next slide, please.

So looking ahead, we have five strategic priorities to position APS for the future.

First is securing sustainable funding through Measure W, Medical Claiming, and Older Americans Act resources to build the financial foundation we need.

Secondly, using that funding to sufficiently staff APS and strengthen our workforce.

A key part of the strategy is continuing our successful MSW and thermal clean pipeline, which transitions in turns into permanent APS workers, a model that is already achieving a 75% success.

Third, housing stability, and that is by maximizing home safe funds to support clients who are unhealthy or at risk of losing their homes.

And fourth, innovation, and that is by expanding case management pathways for low-level reports and rebranding our APS financial abuse specialist team and APS multidisciplinary team meetings to strengthen visibility and engagement.

And finally, increased collaboration, hosting the 2026 hospital forum and deepening partnerships with agencies like the area agency on aging, aging and disability resource connection and county veteran services office.

These steps will ensure APS is ready to meet future demand and deliver better outcomes for vulnerable adults across Alameda County.

Our presentation.

Thank you for your time.

And we're now open to taking time.

Thank you very much for that update.

Yes, I do have a few questions.

Firstly, thank you so much for your ongoing work and this report.

It was very comprehensive.

I do want to ask a few questions as it relates to investigation, some of the demographic data caseloads and budgets.

So the first question is what's the percentage of cases that are investigated in a timely fashion?

I'm interested in hearing a little bit more about any standards for investigations like there are for CPS.

So investigations that are opened on time or closed on time.

Is there a little bit more information on that?

Hi, Yolanda.

Yeah, I can pull that up.

I think last month we were averaging around 30 to 40% with timeliness.

But I can get you a number.

As you were looking, I think I'm interested in understanding the part of the challenge with the backlog is we had two units of APS workers that were responsible for taking calls in our call center and being able to process those calls and have them either screened out or at the desk, that's what no 10 day is where you don't have to have an investigation.

You can support the older adult via phone conversations or actually assigning them to go out into the field.

The backlog happened when we lost several APS workers and we weren't able to timely get to the calls on the hotline.

In addition, we receive calls through fax, we receive calls through email.

These are all reports of abuse or neglect and calls on the hotline.

So having to clear that regularly and having a practice for that is a has been a challenge for us.

We eliminated the fax option.

Most counties don't deliver reports through facts.

So we eliminated that, and now they are only through call or mail in allegations of abuse and neglect.

But the good news is we created a plan to work through those more quickly.

So we've had everyone in our department that does administrative report or trans specialist, management analysts, they've all Yolanda, clerical staff.

We consulted with SCIU and agreed to have clerical staff help us to screen those calls off so that we can actually get those assigned.

So we're slowly and surely making good progress to chip away at that high number.

And I will also add it's important for us to consider how we can use AI to be able to help streamline our work.

And our call center is a place that we are looking to introduce AI to help streamline the work.

Did you want to add anything more, Yolanda?

Yeah, I was able to pull up our compliance for last month.

And as a program overall, it's 37% for timely investigations.

And what is a timely investigation?

So going out within that time frame of the response time, whether that be a same day immediate, those are cases involving severe physical assault, possible sexual abuse, or severe neglect or self-neglect.

Somebody maybe is at imminent risk of eviction or they don't have power, food, or within the standard 10-day response time, that is getting out there, performing an in-person assessment, followed by doing their risk assessment and their service planning and engaging with that person.

The longer the case is open, the worker has to go out every 30 days, which poses an additional challenge for our staff when they have so many new cases coming up.

The cases have grown to be more and more complex year after year.

And so those cases that require longer term, it's no longer in and out like it used to be, where you could go and have a case wrapped up within 30 or 45 days.

I was an APS worker back in 2018 up until about 2022 when I was promoted.

And these cases are a lot different, a lot more complex, and the standard of 30 or 45 days is nearly impossible for most for most of those cases.

For clarity with the 10 days, is that calendar days or is that business days?

Calendar days.

And that is for the first face-to-face.

Correct.

Not the completion of the case.

Correct.

Thank you for that.

The next set of questions is about the demographic data.

So thank you for providing all of it.

Um there are a number of small cities and non-cities, cities, and is it possible to get the demographic data broken down by our cities?

You want the demographic data broken down by cities?

Yes.

You know, who's impacted and who we can be connecting with.

And then in case of in the case of younger, I mean uh 60 and below, given the state legislative change, it looks like there's at least a thousand allegations of abuse there.

Um, what are some of the primary reasons that there be those younger people are getting referred?

To be clear, those are dependent adults.

Right.

So adults that may have cognitive issues that don't allow them to protect themselves.

So easily those can fall, and I'll leave uh Yolanda and Kedis to respond.

Those could fall easily with financial abuse or neglect from caregivers that should be caring for them, those are probably two of the big ones that we see.

And I guess I'm trying to understand whether the issues facing those younger dependent adults versus the older adults, whether those issues and allegations are different.

Well, go ahead, Yolanda.

They certainly can be a lot of the time when we see a lot of families living in multiple generations of a household.

You have somebody that might be a dependent adult that has an intellectual disability, let's say, and they have an elderly parent that's caring for them.

Uh, even though they're an adult, their parent will maybe hit them as a form of discipline.

And so we get a lot of physical assault cases for that younger population, and it's going out and coaching families on appropriate disciplinary action, getting them connected to resources like the regional center or increasing that support with them.

And sometimes it's opening a case for mom or dad if they're age eligible, and there's a lot of overwhelm in the household, getting more care overall.

Um, also, as Faith had mentioned, financial exploitation of this younger population.

Uh, some of these individuals who have intellectual disabilities, they're working, they're part of the workforce, they're part of the community, but they are particularly vulnerable to folks who are trying to exploit them or their funds, and so we'll often get reports that somebody has stolen money from them or they've befriended them and are taking advantage of their resources.

And those issues can cross the age demographics as you're asking.

Older adults can suffer with those same issues.

Yeah, I'm familiar with the financial exploitation allegations in my district and community.

Um, and then in terms of the caseload, you remake you're recommending an additional 13 APS workers uh to reduce the caseloads to the more standard caseload.

Um, how many vacancies are there in the division?

Okay, we have four, I think, four or five.

Four or five.

Okay.

And so with the recommended number of additional staff, that's beyond what's budgeted.

So four and five are close to being beyond what's budgeted.

We are maxed out with the positions in our department that are budgeted.

Okay.

And so um to get to that number, then that does that require us working through that in our budget process to add staff.

Is that correct?

Well, I'll defer to Director Ford.

That's what it would require would require, yes.

But I would also like to know how is Santa Clara County funding all of their positions?

Um we have equal allocations between the two counties since we're comparing.

We can go back and get more details on that, but my understanding is Santa Clara County's positions are all funded.

What they had in staff currently, they have funding behind them.

We can get the details about what the funding behind them actually is.

But to answer your question, yes.

Okay, additional funding.

Okay.

And um, in terms of funding, uh you mentioned measure W, are there what is the funding source for the division, and are there funding sources that are federal or state that are going away in the future?

None of our funding is going away in the future, except for home safe, but home safe, we don't use home safe to be able to fund our worker positions.

Home Safe is used specifically for housing needs for older adults and how we can help case manage them.

So, as far as I understand, we're not losing any funding for staffing at all.

It's just an under-resourced program.

I see.

And um final question.

So assuming we're able, it sounds like those current vacant positions are on the verge of being filled.

Is that correct?

And so if there were additional positions, um, you think we'd be successful in adding them?

It looks like 2025 was um a successful year in terms of adding positions, but there was some attrition the prior year, I think.

Yes, we haven't we haven't experienced uh a growth in the positions.

We are at this very point just backfilling.

So we would need to grow those positions, and we don't have a plan that I understand to hire as of today.

So it requires additional funding.

And there's actually a good pool of candidates out there.

So we wouldn't have to do any extraordinary recruitment.

There's an existing list, right?

There's an existing list, and we have interns currently in our department.

It's six six of them, yeah.

And we could easily take five if they wanted to come to the county.

So I don't believe we would have a hard time recruiting an additional 1340.

The higher number that Yolanda referenced is the 54 number that's expanding to absorb what we anticipate is coming as well.

That might be a little bit more tricky to get that many more APS workers at the same time, but we have been successful with hiring APS workers, ones and then having them flex up to twos that have less experience.

So we're excited about that.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

All good questions.

I wanted to follow up on some of the questions regarding the budgeting.

So this morning at the health committee, we talked about measure A1, some of the funding that's left over through the interest or through returns from loans.

And we're obviously talking about breaking ground on senior housing, 66 units.

How well braided are some of these funding sources to meet some of these needs when it comes to a combination of housing, like healthcare support, uh, and you you talked about healthy homes, making sure that you have somebody come in to uh modify or make sure that conditions are safe.

That's definitely one of our next schools for this next uh phase of home safe program.

Uh initially, the first several years of the program was operating.

We used HomeSafe as more of an isolated funding source.

But as the programs grown and expanded, and county to county, we've all learned how best to use those funds.

We've learned about the importance of braiding funds.

And so the state, after having meetings this last few months with them, they've talked about that being a priority, and so trying to connect to more of uh the different housing programs, more of the coordinated entry system, all of those different providers, how we can use one another's funding sources and resources and expertise.

Not everyone's an expert on elders, and like us, some of our younger population who are experiencing homelessness, we're not necessarily an expert on the chronic homelessness piece, and so working together, braiding the funds, using our shared knowledge, that's our goal over the next few years up until that fiscal year 2027-2028, and we're hoping that will stretch the dollar out for us to serve more clients as well.

Okay.

Uh in terms of like the number of referrals, where do most of the referrals come from, or is it is there a correlation with population?

So compare Santa Clara and ourselves, so referrals for just APS in general or the whole state program?

For APS because that drives your need for APS workers, right?

A lot of ours come from mandated reporters, so most of anyone who has any interaction with an older adult, a child, uh dependent adult, they're considered mandated reporters, and so a majority of them are coming from senior housing service coordinators, the hospital, emergency first responders who are going out, seeing things play out, you know, responding to a call for someone who had a fall, and then they end up in the home, and the home has significant clutter, the elder can't get out, they're having to, you know, call code enforcement in, the home is maybe at risk of being red tagged and condemned.

And so a lot of the time we'll get those initial referrals and we're screening from there.

Uh there's also the public who calls.

So some of our seniors who are informed, they see some of our campaigns, they see us like on the bus, they're like, oh, let me call adult protective services or their loved one, realizes that they may be able to get assistance from us.

So majority would be the mandated reporters, and then next would be concerned loved ones, clients self-reporting themselves as well.

And if I might add supervisor TAM, we have a good number of seniors that are severely neglected, their homes are in great disrepair.

So we can get referrals from them from people that are coming to their home for one reason or the other, whether it's law enforcement, a neighbors coming to help them deliver meals, constituents in the neighborhood that see the home is dilapidated.

And we probably spend about $3,500 each self-neglect case to bring that home back into a livable state so the older adult can stay there.

That includes uh it's a hoarding situation where it's a really deep clean.

We just paid $22,000 for one that was extreme.

And we found out because the home was red tagged, the city was about to evict the older adult for disrepair for a number of months.

And the referrals are similar to what I remember from child welfare, so on the 880 corridor, it's very similar.

The cities that touch that corridor represent the majority of our cases.

Okay, so I'm just trying to understand, like when you look at the comparison between Alameda County and Santa Clara County, you know, our population is 1.7, theirs is 1.9.

We have a slightly higher proportion of people over 60.

So that so that makes, you know, if we took the 26% times 1.7, that's 442,000.

Santa Clara would be around 380,000.

Do you see the proportion of APS workers in Santa Clara as being adequate for their referral and their caseload?

Because clearly ours isn't is what we're seeing, right?

Correct.

Every APS program wants the lowest amount of cases per worker so that the workers can actually spend a lot of time on the cases.

That's where we are struggling any APS program.

You could get an older adult and you resolve the immediate risk, but workers are hesitant to close the case because the long-term issues that the older adult has makes them worried to close the case.

So cases will continue to grow.

Our suggestion for an alternative response system could touch at that a little bit.

So we would only be touching the case to resolve the immediate risk, and then it's passed on for ongoing case management.

The average case for baseline Santa Clara County at 26, I'm sure they would love 20 just because it gives their workers more time to get more involved in a case.

That's closest to the standard 22, I think, or 24 is closest to the federal standard that they believe workers should have to be able to fully work a case.

So what's the main difference between Santa Clara and ourselves that causes our caseload to trend up as you're showing into the future?

I think we face really unique challenges in Alameda County, is one piece of it.

Uh Santa Clara County, I think, is more of an affluent county as far as clients.

And so I would also anticipate reading their annual report.

A lot of their reports were financial exploitation.

If you look at our statistics, we talked about how common self-neglect is happening here.

We have so many older adults that have such limited resources here.

Oakland, for example, as Cadessa highlighted, so many of our cases coming in.

Uh, there's lack of support systems.

There's not a whole lot of services that folks are able to qualify for if they're just above that threshold for maybe in-home support services, but they certainly can't afford $40 an hour for a caregiver and the insurance doesn't cover it.

So I think just Alameda County's unique, you know, set of issues and complex problems that we have.

Our homelessness crisis contributes to it certainly, and then us having that larger older adult population.

Okay.

In terms of um, just the last question of looking at uh what you believe would be an ideal staffing um restructuring, and then looking at the available uh potential funding because I serve on the budget committee, so I kind of want to anticipate this having gone through a hearing this morning about what we need with AHS.

Do you have a sense of how much you might need in like measure W funding?

Are you going to get cut from the Medi-Cal funding and claims?

Are you thinking it's gonna look differently with the maintenance of effort that you submit the CAO?

Um, for the latter question, I would say no.

Okay.

Um I think measure W is a good first start, but it's not sustainable funding.

Right.

So I mean, if we go that route for the immediate um issue, we would have the same.

Do you need offsets with potential Medicail cuts?

Oh, we don't know yet to that extent.

Okay.

That's true.

We serve with a drug committee.

So with Cal AIM, what is the core funding?

Well, Cal Cal A will not necessarily help us to hire staff for APS.

It's more geared towards the services that the clients would receive.

So you'd have clients that will be touched by a more comprehensive set of services, and that funding will come from different places because they have the more complex needs.

Okay.

So we don't know how many might be potentially Cal Aim eligible.

We've had a lot of difficulty even getting clients connected to CalAIM, and that's a statewide issue.

A lot of our counties, we brought it up in our regional uh protective service committees meetings, is that we've had such little luck in even getting folks connected to that longer term support.

I would say, you know, there are clients that qualify, but we don't have the time highlighting just the eminency of these cases sometimes.

They require immediate interventions.

People might be on the streets within 24 or 48 hours if there's an eviction notice.

Someone just lost 100,000 to a million dollars in their assets with one scam caller that exploited them for two or three days.

Someone doesn't have food tomorrow, so we can't necessarily wait for those resources to play out.

And even when we do, it's taken months and months, and we've not had too many successful results even with Cal Aim.

Okay, thank you.

I mean, we definitely make a good case for the needs right now.

So I appreciate that.

If I might come back to your question, Supervisor Fortunato Bas, I don't think we answered it for you.

So APS is funded by state realignment funds.

It's also funded by state budget allocations, local funds from the county, and there are some federal grants.

I understand our state realignment has been decreased and hasn't grown, and that's a big portion of how the program is funded.

Thank you for that.

May I ask one more question?

Um, I am particularly interested in the financial exploitation.

That happening in our community, including in the older Filipino.

What is um, I think I saw a reference to a financial team.

I'm curious what the collaboration is with the district attorney's office and whether there are ways to eventually prevent this from happening to other people by getting to those who are exploiting our seniors.

Right.

So the meeting you're mentioning is our financial abuse specialist team meeting, and that is it's actually a state-mandated meeting that all APS counties are required to have with the district attorney.

And on a monthly basis, our APS social workers and supervisors identify cases of financial exploitation that we want to collaborate with the district attorney on.

These cases may or may not have law enforcement involvement, and we find more often than not they don't.

And we have an increasingly hard time getting law enforcement to get on board with these cases.

And so each month we identify the case, we go down to the DA's office off of I think Edgewater, and we sit down and we talk about that case.

We get perspective from investigators there, we get perspective from the lead elder abuse prosecutor, and they let us know if they're able to take on cases.

The years that I've been here, we've seen different variations of the meeting, but I am particularly really hopeful with the newest uh district attorney and the new elder abuse district attorney that was assigned to us uh since rebranding that meeting in July, we have had several cases that they're moving forward with prosecution on elders that have been seriously exploited, and we're actually getting traction, and that's been a rarity because of I think the lack of awareness around financial exploitation of elders.

As a preventative measure.

We are also committed to going out and informing the community.

We have an APF supervisor that goes out and does uh education presentations to our mandated reporters alongside also the community.

So we participate in tabling events at senior centers.

Uh, anytime we can get the word out about adult protective services, we can be a little daunting sometimes.

People are concerned there's myths about APS that we will remove someone's rights or we'll take them out of their home.

And so we really try to go out and dispel that narrative and talk about what API services are that were voluntary.

We're really meant to link them to support and provide them with resources and try and gain that trust.

And so we talked recently with the DA as well about doing more of the scam uh awareness.

We had a scam jam last year during Elder Abuse Awareness Month.

June.

In June, and we're continued to committing to that to try and increase the awareness because we know financial exploitation, it's it touches one in 10 seniors, if not more, and the shame and the embarrassment behind it.

A lot of individuals don't want to report it, they're embarrassed, they continue to be exploited.

And so we're trying to normalize having those conversations.

Thank you.

That was really helpful.

And certainly my office, and I'm sure the other supervisors would probably want to help uh amplify that information on the scams.

Yeah.

And I might add that is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.

It happens every June, and we have some type of activity every June.

We're working on what we're planning for this June coming up.

That activity was held at a San Leangel Senior Center.

We actually had somebody, I think maybe the FBI is coming this year to talk to older adults.

That's they love that.

So to talk to older adults about what it actually means for a scam jam.

We want them to be informed.

And the prevention side of it is the more people in the community know about it, the better.

So I would be remiss if I didn't shout out the number for our APS hotline while we have the presentation.

I do.

510 577 3500.

3500.

And if you'd like a scam jam in your district, you should connect with us, we'll do our best and try to get one for you.

And we also have public service announcements.

So the more you know, the safer you are.

Thank you.

That's let us know how we can help with publicizing that as well.

I'm sure Supervisor Miley's on top of it of the nice people.

Yes, because if it's good for seniors, it's good for everyone.

That is true.

Any other questions?

So do we have any public comments on just first item?

Thank you.

All right.

Oh, I was gonna wait.

I'm done with I'm double digging for both topics.

Okay.

Thank you.

Oh.

And the um here is okay.

Yes.

I just um uh wanted to um point out I'm a um graduation.

I'm a social worker three, and I work in the uh local uh public assistance office at 2000 San Pablo, and I'm a um mandated reporter.

And recently, uh I report, so in terms of where the referrals come from, they also come from the uh local um public assistance offices because many times we have seniors um coming in that are um homeless, uh, they may have financial problems.

Uh so what I do is I get on the APS hotline and I make um referrals.

Um, and just as an example, last week we had somebody that was 90 years old that was um uh released from a nursing home and she said she didn't have enough services at home and uh didn't have the family um support.

So in my mind, there was an immediate uh referral.

So we do have um seniors come coming in that need uh various uh.

Thank you.

Yeah, no other public comments for this game.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good job.

Um our next item is also an information item on the net growth movement guaranteed income contract.

No, three when I first started at pilot on using our funding.

Right.

Yeah, June 27, 2022.

Um, your board established a two-year guaranteed income for former policy pilot.

At the time it was known as skipping, and now it is net growth movement, and as part of a pilot um the department and the contractor built-in and evaluation process, and that has just concluded.

And so then you'll get an update about um the results of that evaluation from Amy Dorski.

From two people.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you for having me.

Um, happy to share the results of our evaluation with you.

Before I get started, I just wanted to acknowledge my colleague Molly Van Droonen who uh worked on all aspects of the evaluation with me.

Uh, next slide.

So, why guaranteed income?

We know that the goal of extended foster care is to support young people during the transition to adulthood.

We also know that many young people who age out of extended foster care still struggle to meet their basic needs.

Next slide.

So, what is net growth movement?

So net growth movement was a pilot that provided young people who aged out of extended care with a thousand dollars per month for 24 months, plus optional supportive services that were provided by uh Bay Area Community Services.

67 of the 90 young people who were eligible enrolled in the pilot.

Next slide.

Our evaluation had three different components.

We uh administered surveys at two points in time.

We analyzed program data that were collected by BACs, and we conducted two rounds of interviews with participants and with uh staff members.

Uh next slide.

I'm gonna talk first about the findings from our examination of the pilot's implementation.

Next slide.

So the care coordinators were expected to connect with participants at least once a month.

However, participant engagement was lower than expected.

Care coordinators engage with an average of 14 of the 67 participants per month.

When we talked to participants about the support that they received, some indicated that they wanted a lot of support and were very proactive about reaching out.

Others wanted no support and were generally unresponsive.

Next slide.

Here are a couple of quotes from participants who talked about their experiences with care coordinators.

One said, I go to care coordinator about a problem.

He's gonna actually try to come up with a solution, and he's gonna call me up to follow up about it to see if I got it figured out or what else I could or else what else he could do.

So obviously, that participant had a very positive experience with care coordination.

Another participant had a less positive experience.

They said the case management was not consistent at all.

I felt like I didn't get the support that I needed.

Whenever I tried to communicate, it felt like it was taking a while for them to get back or no response at all.

Next slide.

Participants appreciated that the pilot did more than provide monthly cash payments.

One told us they weren't just throwing money at us and saying just do whatever.

They were actually talking to us every month, they were checking in, getting to know what we were actually going through.

They were helping us to find places to live or jobs.

People think, oh, you're a young adult now, you probably don't need help with that, but we still do.

Next slide.

Uh BACs offered a set of financial literacy workshops, and 43 of the six of the 67 participants attended at least one.

However, participants' experiences with the workshops were mixed.

One said, I've been joining the financial literacy classes.

I've learned how to manage my money a lot better.

Some of the classes really helped me create some habits like budgeting up my money for the month and even trying to put some to the side to say for a rainy day.

So another participant had a less positive experience.

They said none of it was particularly helpful because of a lot of it had to do with stocks and stuff.

I'm not in a position where there's that's something that I'm at all curious or interested about because I'm just trying to pay my normal bills.

Investing is kind of overwhelming when you're just learning how to do with money.

Next slide.

BAX also hosted several in-person social events, but logistical challenges limited their frequency and size.

However, participants expressed a desire for more of these events.

One said, I definitely wish we could have done more in the realm of community events.

Initially, we were in we envisioned these really large events where we had all 67 or a majority of our participants, at least those who are in the local vicinity, coming without really thinking about some of the logistics and challenges of their varying schedules, geographic challenges of getting them all together.

Next slide.

So now I'm going to talk a little bit about participants' lives before, during, and after the pilot.

Next slide.

So their lives prior to enrolling in the pilot were described as stressful and precarious.

Many lacked stable housing, that was among their biggest concerns.

They also worried about not having enough money to buy food, to pay bills, or cover the cost of yellow living expenses.

One told us, I lost my job and then I got put out of my home because I no longer had any money.

That was going on six months when my lawyer called me about the opportunity.

Another said, I definitely struggled with making sure I had enough money for rent, and then all my different auditional expenses and also staying on track with my credit card payments.

Next slide.

While they were enrolled in the pilot, participants felt more financially secure.

They were able to stabilize their housing, pay their bills, and reduce their use of credit cards.

The pilot also had a positive effect on their employment and savings, and many reported improved mental health.

One told us, I never had to worry about having my bills paid.

I was able to make sure that I had extra food.

It provided me with support for transportation, which helped me to get to and from interviews for a job and maintain employment.

Another told us the program is really benefited by mental health.

It really made me not have to stress about really basic things like food and being able to wash my clothes that people shouldn't have to struggle with.

Next slide.

So we asked young people to talk about how they were preparing for the pilot's end.

And we also asked staff what they were doing to help participants prepare for the end of the pilot.

The care coordinators indicated that some participants were not prepared for the pilot to end.

The matching funds that they used to incentivize savings and provide participants with financial cushion to fall back on were actually very helpful.

We've one said we've had several of them be very transparent about the fact that they've become very dependent on this, and not receiving this additional sport at the beginning of next year is going to be extremely challenging.

Next slide.

Reported that they were worried about their financial situation.

Participants found employment, revised their budget, and changed their behaviors to cut their spending.

Some participants were getting by with savings they had accumulated as a result of the match, but others are really struggling.

Next slide.

One said, I have a very large savings account now because I was able to save.

I was able to move forward on my career path, and now I make a sufficient amount to pay all my bills and put money in my savings, even without the program.

So this young people person was doing uh very well after the pilot ended.

Another, however, was who was struggling told us I had to take out two loans that I'm still paying back so that they were not going to evict me.

I had to get a credit card.

All of these things that I never done before.

I had to do those things just to maintain my house while I tried to figure out getting my rent lowered.

I'm trying to see if I could get somehow if I could somehow get a second job, which is hard because I have health issues.

Next slide.

We also uh analyzed some quantitative data using the data we collected through the surveys.

This slide shows you the uh economic hardships participants experienced both before they enrolled in the pilot and after they enrolled.

And consistently you can see that the percentage of participants who were experiencing these hardships was much lower while they were enrolled in the pilot than before they had enrolled.

Next slide.

This is a similar slide, but it compares participants' experiences with it hardships while they were enrolled in the pilot compared to after the pilot ended.

And again, consistently you can see that while participants were in the pilot, they were less likely to experience hardships than they were after the pilot ended.

Next slide.

Food insecurity was lowest while participants were receiving guaranteed income payments.

That's the middle circle.

The circle on the left is how is the percentage of participants who were food insecure before the pilot, and the circle on the right is the participants who were food insecure after the pilot ended.

So again, it's while they were enrolled in the pilot that food secure food insecurity was at its lowest.

Next slide.

Participants were less were the least likely to report being concerned about losing their housing while they were enrolled in the pilot.

Next slide.

Both before they enrolled in the pilot and after the pilot ended, subjective well-being was lower than while they were enrolled.

Next slide.

And again, that's higher than before they were enrolled in the pilot on the right, and after the pilot ended, which is on the left.

Next slide.

Some participants were able to complete a semester of college or earn a credential while receiving guaranteed income.

Next slide.

Employment rate also increased over time.

So actually, after the pilot ended was when the employment rate was highest, and that probably reflects the fact that a number of participants reported that after the pilot ended, they got jobs because they needed additional money to help make ends meet.

Next slide.

Participants were less likely to experience transportation related problems while they were enrolled in the pilot as well.

And that's shown in the middle, the middle uh graph there is while they were enrolled in the pilot.

Next slide.

So reflections and recommendations.

Next slide.

Participants expressed expressed gratitude for the program.

They felt more ready for the transition to adulthood as a result of their experiences with the pilot.

They also advocated for the pilot to continue so that other young people like themselves could benefit.

One told us the NGM program was a great way to help financially support me while I was still learning to become an independent adult.

It gave me some room to struggle and learn and grow.

Another told us I was very grateful I got the help and experience from the program.

It was the first time I felt supported in my life.

Next slide.

So we have some a few recommendations.

Moving forward, pair the guaranteed income with supportive services.

As you might remember from the one uh quote I shared, young people appreciated the fact that they were not just given money, they were also given the supportive services to help them with uh various challenges they were facing, including uh challenges with housing, employment, and education.

Second, require some level of service engagement.

Although the young people who took part in the services uh valued the services that they received, many young people didn't engage in services at all, so it may have been a missed opportunity for them to benefit more fully from the pilot.

And finally, uh using matching funds to encourage savings.

This was a real incentive for young people to save, and some of the young people um really took advantage of this and built up a significant amount of savings, and that savings helped them after the pilot ended.

And I think that is the last slide.

Um, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you very much for that presentation.

It's uh I think it's it's a good program, sounds like based on your reflections.

Um, the young people have definitely benefited from it.

Um, yes, I um I really appreciate this.

It's good to have the evaluation of the program and certainly guaranteed income, universal basic income has been growing.

So it's great to have the data as well as the qualitative information from the participants to help think about what comes next.

Um and the recommendations definitely make sense based on what you shared.

Um, I just have a couple questions.

Um my understanding is that um one of the former foster youth who designed the program wanted the stipend to be 1,000 per month for two years.

And I'm curious what you think the impact of that amount was compared to other guaranteed income programs that might have smaller amounts and yeah, shorter duration as well.

Right.

Um, so we did ask the young people and uh about the amount, and they seem to think it was the right amount, um, neither too much nor too little, um, and they also they also didn't really have any issues with the duration of the pilot.

So for the from their perspective, it you got it right.

Um it um I think I think given the like the housing costs in the Bay Area, I think anything lower, I don't know how I think that would have been a challenge.

Um, many young people talked about how the the guaranteed income helped them stabilize their housing, and if it had been a significantly smaller amount of money, I don't know that that would have uh helped them uh find stable housing.

That's helpful to hear.

So even transportation and food is more expensive, so less money could really impact the program.

Do you have any thoughts about a shorter duration for another program?

Um I think it really takes some time for young people to get themselves on their feet, get to a point where they're stable, and then once they're stabilized, they can finally begin to do things like pursue their education and employment goals.

So I think having that two years was was really helpful.

I think if it had been say only a one-year pilot, I don't know if that would have been enough of a runway for them to begin to pursue those other opportunities.

That's great.

It sounds like um the folks who designed this program got it right by involving foster youth and fine.

Um, in terms of the net growth movement, um, it still exists, right?

Even though the pilot is over.

I'm curious to hear any thoughts that you have about the model that's evolving and you know what you think about that.

Um I don't really have much involvement outside of the pilot, so I really can't answer that question.

Okay.

That's it for now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, can you help me understand uh the participation?

Because you said that 67 of the 90 young people were eligible enrolled, but then uh 14 out of the 67 um engaged uh per month with the care coordinator or wanted to receive whether financial literacy or other supportive services, correct.

Is this is this like what what happened to the funds that weren't completely used up?

So the the participation in the supportive services was optional.

So all of the young people, all 67 received the thousand dollar stipend each month, but young people could choose whether or not to engage in the case management, the financial literacy, and the social events, and so on average um 14 young people per month engaged in the case management services.

Um we also have data in the report on uh the level of engagement in the financial literacy training and the social events, but so that's that's the discrepancy.

So uh the young people could choose whether or not to engage in that case management piece.

Okay, so when uh you know, overall, if you looked at what happened before enrollment and even after the pilot ending, even though it's not as in terms of looking at financial well-being wasn't as robust as while they were enrolled, overall it was still better than yes, that is that is correct.

Yes, across all of the outcomes we looked at, whether it was food food insecurity, financial well-being, housing concerns, young people were still doing better after the pilot ended than they had been before they enrolled.

And this was the 14 people that received uh case management support.

No, this was across the board.

Okay, yes.

So that's pretty promising.

I mean, it's consistent with what you see in the the research uh nationwide when it comes to uh I keep calling it guaranteed income.

I know it's a different name now, but uh I think um has there been any sort of governmental type of instituting of this program across the board?

I think when we implemented here in Alameda County there was um efforts at the state level, and we did apply for some, but it was denied.

But California has a pilot currently, okay, guaranteed.

Right.

Santa Clara has a guaranteed income that they have.

How are they funded?

Santa Clara, I think is just funding it, but the state I'm not sure.

Yeah, I'm not sure where the pilot funds are coming for for the state pilot, Jennifer Gavin.

Okay.

Is there so this was targeted with foster youth, which is important?

Is there something like that in a statewide effort, or is it broader than just foster youth?

So these were foster fitted exodus, a non-minor dependent, and the state's pilot focused on the same group, okay.

Yeah, yeah, we're I'm actually leading an evaluation of the pilot in your neighboring county San Francisco with with the same population.

Okay, I think they have a higher cost of living, right?

Um, that I I can't tell you how much higher it might be.

Their stipend is a little bigger, but the duration of the program is shorter.

Okay, I look forward to seeing that as well.

So thank you very much for this update.

I have no other questions.

Are there any public comments on this item?

I guess one more question.

Okay.

Um, so I know Director Ford that you let us know about the exploit um grants back in December, yes.

So just looking at um the program names, it looks like one is the California Abundant Birth Project, the restorative reentry fund, study steps, and that bananas is doing.

So it looks like these are serving different populations.

Is that right?

Could you just speak a little bit more to the populations being served by these?

I mean, it just looks like it's um abundant birth, birthing moms, restorative re-entry, the re-entry population, and study steps.

Yeah, unfortunately, I don't have the information available right now.

Um, but when we discussed uh the different grants that BERT applied for and given out, they could also include home false.

Okay.

Okay, so there definitely could be a nexus between populations served here.

Thank you.

Yeah, because they asked if we would be a control group.

So there are some similar, there's overlap.

I see.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next informational item is the department of children and family services status update and our progress on implementing the state auditors report.

So we'll have um our department director for children and family services here, Shale Love.

This is um the third of many presentations that she will give to the public to your board, the community at large.

Um, is interested in this effort.

Okay, so next slide, please.

So today we'll be reviewing the acknowledgement of the Alameda County Audit Implementation Task Force, a review of our progress to date on the 2024 108 audit report timeline, progress on addressing recommendations for hiring and recruitment efforts, the results-based accountability metrics, department highlights and opportunities, next steps and attach, but we won't be reviewing our appendix so you can see the ground level detail of where we are on specific items.

Next slide, please.

So before Michelle gets into her presentation, we wanted to acknowledge the Alameda County Department of Children and Family Services Audit Implementation Task Force.

On October 7th, your board directed that regular monthly audit progress updates be provided.

On December 16th, 2025, the agency fulfilled Senator Dr.

Warhouse's office's request to review the agency's 60-day response at a California State Auditor.

On December 22nd, 2025, the agency received notification from the establishment of the Alameda County Department of Children and Family Services Audit and Implementation led by the Office of State Senator Dr.

Aisha Wahhab.

The task force aims to ensure the timely implementation of recommendations from the California State Auditor Report 2024-108.

The task force will also provide oversight, address barriers, and republican through a bi-weekly meetings, monthly progress reports, and if needed, collaboration with external experts.

On January 16th, 2026, the agency and members of your board attended a meeting hosted by Senator Dr.

Wahob's office to discuss transparency among other items.

At the meeting, your board invited Senator Dr.

Wahob and the staff to attend the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, Social Services Committee meetings, andor the full board meetings to receive additional audit and progress updates.

Next slide, please.

So review of the audit report timeline.

Where we are right now is the next thing that will be due is our six-month progress report at the end of March, March 23rd.

Um our last reporting to the state was in November with some additional questions that have come up since then for additional information.

Um they haven't uploaded their review of our progress report yet to their state system.

Next slide, please.

So progress on addressing timelines.

The timely supervisory view and approval of emergency response investigations is still pending, and we're hopeful that will be concluded by April of 2026.

Recommendations two and three is review the status of referrals and identify impediments to emergency response unit timely referral investigations and completions and develop strategies to address impediments to time and investigation completions.

We anticipate that will go through October of 2026.

Recommendation four, survey staff to identify impediments to retention.

We expect that will go through October as well.

We are aggressively working to hire as many child welfare workers and both master's and bachelor's level staff as we can.

Both of those are in progress.

Next slide, please.

Making shadowing mandatory for new employees.

We have completed that.

Recommendation number nine, identify and locate all relatives within 30 days of removal that has been implemented.

Update system improvement plan to include provisions for sibling engagement.

That was actually signed by your board on 1216.

So we have partially complete, but we can probably actually move that to fully completed.

And number 11, develop policies and procedures to track and manifest shelter care facilities.

So the policies have been written.

And so that is completed.

So Michelle, can you remind us who the partners are for AB 20?

Absolutely.

The partners for 2083 are behavioral health, probation, Alameda County Office of Education, the Regional Center of East Bay, and our agency.

And so the delay in language is um social services, behavioral and probation had agreed on language that didn't quite work for the regulations for regional center and the Office of Education.

So we've had to go back and clarify the language so it works for all parties in terms of things being completed for foster youth in the time frame set by law.

Recommendation 12 is implement the policies and procedures, which you're accordingly by the transitional shelter care facility performance.

That will go through October 2026.

That's pending because we don't have an open facility, so we can't implement those yet.

Recommendations 13 and 14 develop and document a process to track core and continuing training.

Establish a process to hold supervisors and workers accountable for completing those training hours.

So that is currently in progress.

And finally, ensure that all contracts include results-based accountability measures specifically for timeliness measures.

Next slide, please.

So the update on recommendation five are hiring and recruitment.

So for bachelors and child and master's level child welfare workers.

We will participate in the California Title 4E job fair on February 20th, 2026.

Title 4E is a program for graduate students that gives them financial aid in return for a commitment of two years at a child welfare agency.

And we had our Comcast recruitment advertisement, which concluded on January 18th, 2026.

It was an English, Spanish, Spanish, and Chinese specifically, Mandarin.

And we have that actually for you to see that clip.

So next slide, please.

So our hiring and recruitment efforts continue.

So here are the analytics we have from the Comcast recruitment advertising data.

The analysis period is from December 16th through January 18th of this year.

Education level, college degree, and our geographical areas were Fremont, Hayward, and Oakland.

These cities were determined to be optimal reach for our time frame and the funding we had at the time.

So the impressions goals.

Impressions are just different views of a commercial either on TV or other formats, like streaming.

That was 72,028.

And completed views, that's actually for television, was 68,000.

So we reached actually four in 10 households in those areas.

And had 101.60 degree of completed impressions.

Next slide.

Our total reach was 2%.

Viewer exposure was one to two times of the commercial over two total networks.

And that's because those were the networks available in Spanish.

Next slide, please.

For um our Chinese speaking audience, the analysis period was again December 16th to December 27th.

Our total reach was 6%, but our viewer exposure was three times over a total of 17 networks that were available.

Next slide.

The social media focuses on why the work matters, what the job is, and how to apply.

The messaging is consistent with social media and it's on platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

Next slide, please.

So the child welfare worker exam that was applications from October 7th through October 24th, 2025.

We received a total of 105 applications.

31 were able to actually advance and take the exam.

18 passed the interviews.

And this one we are currently offers are pending, so we don't know how many of the 18 that passed actually accepted the job interview.

Our upcoming exam dates, we have March 16th, May 15th, July 15th, September 15th, and no.

So for next slide, our child welfare worker two exam.

We and this was the exam period was July 9th through October 7th.

We received 75 total applications, 31 advanced, 16 past interviews, and 11 have accepted offers, which gives us about a 68.8% pass rate.

The exam dates will be the same as the CHAT Welfare 1 exam dates.

Our goal is to have those applicants or candidates when they're actually hired be in the same training rooms.

Next slide.

So our update on recommendation number 15, adding the results-based accountability timeline vendors.

So all contracts to social services had RBA measures prior to the audit.

The audit was seeking to add a timeliness measure for our contracts.

And that is timeliness for contact from referral to contact or engagement with clients.

So there were 38 contracts without this specific measure.

And 13 contracts with measures related to timeliness response to agency referrals already.

So for our contracts that were generated through GSA, the language is complete, but we'll need to go through a formal contract amendment process.

So your board will begin to see those board amendments likely in March.

For the contracts that were generated by SSA, we only needed to do side letters that language is completed, and we're in the process of updating them.

So next slide, please.

Department highlights and opportunities.

Under celebrating successful client outcomes, we have another planned reunification breakfast in March 2026.

Bringing family homes, which was an allocation and an opportunity to opt-in to program by the state, which allowed us to provide housing rental subsidies and things that would help people be more stable in housing.

We serve 69 families with ongoing rental subsidies as well as case management support.

Since July 2024, we've also approved 104 requests, totally 280,000 for additional housing related supports for one-time rental assistance, security deposits, and furniture.

Through five CBOs through additional ARPA funding.

These CBOs were part of our child abuse prevention network, and the concrete supports were things that families needed to stabilize them in the moment.

Oftentimes providers are able to provide case management, but they can't pay for things like rental assistance or housing or furniture or things like that that can stabilize the family.

Through our CSEC allocation that we receive from CDSS.

One successful collaboration was we run Oakland for our children, which occurred August 23rd, 2025.

They had a total of 259 participants, 18 teams, including a team from our sheriff's office.

The focus was on knowledge and information about preventing commercial sexual exploitation exploitation of children.

Law enforcement was present.

They also had things to let people know how to engage with them.

Additionally, our contract continues with Catholic charities to help foster youth with special immigration juvenile status.

That is for foster youth who don't have a green card when they come in to help get them one before they exit.

This contract was recently renewed.

This partner has been a great partner the last five years.

We presented in partnership with them in LA at a statewide convening that was well received in November that was hosted by KC Families programs.

For continuous quality improvement, our existing system improvement improvement plan included action plans to address timely investigations of referrals for course retention, and expanding family finding and engagement.

So we are doing our CIV update.

It's due to the state actually we submitted it last Friday.

So you will see some of that information in an upcoming social services committee.

So that we can monitor things that are happening in the department, includes metrics to track emergency response, workforce retention, youth with complex care and needs and stays overseas at our transitional shelter care, including timely child welfare services.

We will be integrating the metrics from this audit into our dashboard process so that we continue to monitor that at a different way.

For transparency, all relevant information, every presentation that's been presented to your board has been uploaded, and we've added an audit dashboard to our agency website.

So the public, when they go on to the department, they can see the status of um how we're doing with the audit.

If they want to review any presentation, they can review it.

We'll be updating our CIP as soon as we make it accessible so they can also review our system improvement.

I mentioned earlier, we have a six-month response letter, which will be submitted on March 23rd.

Our 12-month response will be submitted September 12th.

And we have additional monthly presentations to your board regarding the status of the audit and our completion.

So before we go to questions, Michelle, can you remind us why in September there were 10 recommendations, but when you presented presented in November there were 15?

Yes.

And in the review, the auditor felt that some recommendations were compound, and they wanted to be able to give us credit for things that we were completing instead of having items with compound measures and it where we had to complete all of those things first.

So they changed it to 15.

Um that we needed to complete.

Thank you for that clarification and definitely uh the progress.

This is a very high priority for the board, as you heard from the November meeting, and we want to be timely and responsive to the state audit report as well as uh making sure that we internally implement the recommendations and make improvements to uh are important to making sure we have a system that can improve for uh child welfare.

So let me uh start with Supervisor Portugal pass, and I I do have some additional questions following up on the meeting we did have with Senator Waha.

Thank you.

Um I certainly appreciate the update in terms of the status report as it relates to the recommendations as well as the highlights and opportunities to have that more qualitative information.

In November, I had um discussed and requested the public facing dashboard, and I know it's online.

I am really I appreciate all of this information certainly and the progress being made, and I think it's really important because this is such a high priority that the board and the public also have the metrics that we discussed, and so those metrics were in relation to response time, caseloads, investigation, and staffing or vacancies.

Is it possible to display the dashboard during this meeting?

Which is, you know, it's on the social services website.

I feel like it's such a critical piece of information.

It's um, it would be important, I think, for this for it to be part of the public record.

Oh, that's fine.

And I have a couple questions about it.

Hi.

So I go here, help me navigate to it.

Yeah, okay.

Terrific.

Uh, for members of the public who are with us, do you mind uh describing how to navigate to the website on your website?

Sure.

If you go to the go to the agency website and then go to this about us, it actually has its own tile.

So if you scroll down, it does look different.

Scroll if you could scroll down.

If you see right there the audit dashboard, and if you click on that, and then scroll down some more.

That gives some information about the dashboard.

And then here are the measures.

Can you guys see those?

I guess.

I have it on my computer.

Oh, I see that part.

Thank you for bringing this up.

And so if you click um the plus sign, it will open up additional information below.

I do have a few questions.

I'm really glad this is online.

Um particular question I have is that it looks like this is comparing approximately three months of data.

And I would be really interested, and I think it's a little bit more um uh relevant to the state audit to have data that perhaps starts before the audit to now, so that we can really see the progress timeline.

Do you have that data and is that possible?

We have the data, and I'm gonna look to Jennifer and see if it's possible.

I think is it possible to scrunch it all on here?

I think is yes, it's possible to add as many months of data as we need to to this.

Um it may change the view of the actual chart when you see it on the screen, but uh it will in the initial view will always show the most recent period, and then the chart that you can add additional.

Okay, and that data exists and it exists.

That's good.

I mean, I again I personally would like to see data from before the audit to present, and you know, given that uh Chair TAM is going to talk about the task force, perhaps Director Ford Task Force can, you know, also take a look at this and make some recommendations.

How far back would you like us to go for transparency?

Um, I can't remember the time period that the audit covers, but prior to the start.

And the time period covers so 2019 or 2018.

So I think the first years.

Yeah, possibly, but I think I'm also open to that being a discussion task force.

Oh, but the idea is to see, you know, just a longer time period to see what the progress or the challenges have been.

Um and then as it relates to the open investigations, uh, there's a target goal of 1,000 open investigations.

Um certainly that is better than uh the approximate current level of 1500.

Chart is the the number of people and the number, number of staff we have and the number of investigations they receive monthly, and how that they can stay open for 30 days.

So it's kind of a rolling number that we have.

So okay, so it's sort of a formula based on best practices relative to the staffing we have.

Jennifer, you want to talk about the formula?

Yeah, please come.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

Jennifer is a senior management uh analyst of the work.

Thank you.

Um, I believe that our target for this particular metric also came from uh the previous one of the previous presentations and a suggestion is a possible place to start.

Um I think we can look at updating the target um to a you know to a different number, but I think looking at our current timeliness, the number of referrals received, um, this seemed like an initially a good target to start with.

Okay.

Um I'll just keep going in the interest of time.

Um and so the goal for opening investigations for 10 day referrals is only 55 percent.

Uh, that's obviously better than the 25% uh that I saw on the dashboard.

Um again, I'm just curious about setting that target because 55% doesn't seem that high.

Is that tied to staffing as well?

It isn't tied to staffing.

That that one we tied to um the current when we looked at our performance over the last 12 months and the state's performance over the last 12 months.

We wanted to get to at least to the state's performance on this metric.

Thank you.

And then there's um some additional, so the dashboard also has um it has emergency response referral investigations.

Uh, that's really helpful.

It has information on staffing and well-being of children in foster care.

Um, there's some additional data that was mentioned in the audit that could be useful as well.

So I am interested in data related to the rate of timely closure for immediate and 10 day referrals.

Uh, the average days to open and close investigations for those that are not clients.

We can suppose that's data that we have.

Okay, okay.

So maybe um, you know, thinking about the dashboard as like a place where the public um you know officials can go to get information.

There's a lot of data points that I think are good indicators in addition to that.

Um, in terms of vacancies, so the dashboard shows the vacancy rate is now at 26 percent.

What's the number of open positions currently?

Um, it's about 60.

If I had to guess, it's around between 50 and 60 of child welfare positions to 60.

That's a lot of staff positions.

Um, you said vacancies?

Vacancy, open positions.

Unfiltered.

35 percent, it was 85.

Okay, um 60.

I think when you factor in um attrition, yeah.

So it fluctuates.

Okay.

Prior to the audit and for a number of years with normal attrition, our vacancy rate has been between 18 and 22 percent.

Okay.

That seems to be the number um there's enough staff to do everything about 18 to 22 percent.

With the retirees, people staying.

I think it's changing generationally, staff don't stay as long as they used to.

So I'm not sure what that rate once we stabilize what that'll look like.

Okay, and that's about 50 or 60 open positions, vacant positions, which we have to fill on continuous basis because also in prior years we didn't have that we could anticipate that come March, um, we we would see more retirements.

The continuous hiring is really helpful.

We were doing one hiring of 24 a year, and now we're getting about 10 or 11 at least every um batch of group we hire.

So, yeah, I appreciate that information.

And so the goal on the dashboard for VC is 20 percent which sounds like it's been historically around that um again in terms of setting that goal seems like given the importance of this issue having a lower vacancy rate would be a better goal to have more people able to support our children and families so I have a question again about the goal setting there.

We were going with what we had previously I don't think we're tied to a goal we want to fill as many positions as we can okay so yeah well the goal is 100% but yeah but but the realistic yeah is that there's always gonna be attrition but yeah we have our goal is ultimately the higher I see um and the conversion rate that was in the uh presentation the 14.7 conversion efficiency rate for child welfare worker cheese how does that compare to other counties it's right here what slide is that um that I don't know how it compares to me I don't know um the funnels okay and it seems low but again I don't know if it's about if it's low relevant or not these or not um okay I'm just gonna keep moving so that we can do my questions that go to my colleague in terms of caseloads um what's the current caseload for emergency response so the case so guideline is 12 year old something um do you know what that was what we have 12 the standard that the guideline is 12 I'm trying to figure out off the top of your head do you know maybe it was a range between nine and like a couple people were at over the standard of about 14 which is better during the mid part of the pandemic when our caseload was really um difficult uh staff were getting about 30 cases so with the new guideline keeping the new guideline we're having enough staff that we can have staff get fewer cases is significant.

Okay.

And how are the caseloads determined and uh how is support made to the our social workers that I bet that identify issues with their cases.

So um the goal of 12 is based on looking at what the case load for ERU was for other Bay Area counties significantly smaller for some Santa Clara said their goal had been 12 this is the only real large county in the Bay Area other ones are like San Francisco's five we're never going to be able to do five.

They just don't get as many referrals as we do so we use 12 as a goal looking at the grand jury report and what other counties were doing we were an outlier with the case low guideline of 15 that we had previously in terms of setting the case of guidelines that was part of a meet and confer in partnership with SEIU and so a little back and forth.

Okay there and um and when the caseloads are too high or too low how is in terms of assessment what do you mean the work that they're doing yeah is there um a process that you go through with the social worker around adjusting so caseloads we have a guideline it's not a cap so if staff are over their guideline they do get premium pay for being over their guideline in terms of the work the assessment staff do when they're interviewing clients and doing things like that, that works.

So they're still expected to use structure decision making, they're still expected to consult with their supervisors on an ongoing basis in terms of what is happening in emergency response.

We have added some close it out, some time in the office.

Some people might qualify for the first two hours of the day or spent in the office, either closing your referrals, or if you don't have any referrals to close, where you can talk with your supervisor about what your plan is to address your 10 day referrals that may not have been closed at this point.

We're also using our case assistance program, which are people doing overtime, and people who are former employees and employees from other counties that we have hired as TAPS where they come in for ERU.

What we have been doing is we have been setting up investigation areas for that.

In our computer system, you actually have to set up the template to close a case.

So we have people setting up templates for staff.

So all they have to do is come and dump the information in when they're ready.

Setting up a template can take 45 minutes to an hour.

So it is some savings of time for staff that all they have to do is convert their information into the new.

When will that contractor be conducting well, will that contractor be conducting all of the family finding work?

So it's the contract is expected to be executed April 1st.

They will be doing a large part of our family finding.

So our contract will do the bulk of it, but we have it sprinkled.

So elsewhere in the agent department as well.

Okay.

And then finally, in terms of investigations, um, I am interested in hearing more about what we can do to lower the open investigations from the currently 1500 to the thousand goal.

Um also interested in hearing what's the rate of timely closure of investigations for immediate and 10-day referrals.

That was addressed in the audit, but I didn't see that data.

So that data I'd have to pull, I don't have with me.

Okay.

What we're doing to work on timely closures, that is that time at the beginning of each shift that's resulting in about 200 referrals being closed a month.

So in terms of timely closures, if you have open cases the first two hours of your day, you're expected to work on closing your referrals.

Um a worker speaks with the supervisor, they develop their plan for the cases they intend to close, and we're trying to give concrete time for staff that they just sit and close referrals instead of going out on investigations.

Okay, and also add that dashboard to the website.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Ford.

Um, and what's the average number of days to close investigations where we don't make the target deadline?

Um, you know, how do we capture that information?

Uh that was also addressed in the audit.

So all the information about ERU is actually contained on our safe measures website.

Um, I just don't have it open where I can pull it up for you.

So, like for myself, I've created a full dashboard, so all of these points I can look at.

Our supervisors were actually trained on how to use safe measures themselves, and workers can use safe measures as well.

So we're expecting supervisors in the course of supervision to be reviewing for their staff what cases are open, where are they with them being pending?

So all the data is readily available to us.

I just don't have the website up.

So we're also in a meet and confer with our pace union about some of those metrics and expectations.

Okay, um, well, those were my questions.

Finally, I'll just say that it definitely is helpful to um get our status report on the progress on implementing the recommendations, and at the next uh social services committee, I think it would be helpful to have the dashboard on the screen, walk through it, okay, and to really hit those particular metrics around staffing, caseload investigations, response time.

Um, it's hard to sort of know or feel that progress is being made, I think, unless we get that level of information.

Okay, that's appreciated.

Thank you.

And just to update on the number of vacancies right now among the child welfare workers, it's 73 vacant.

What's that in terms of percentage?

272.

So we have divided.

272 um fully positions, yeah.

So 73 divided by 272.26%, but that's in the report here.

But in the audit report, um it showed that for 2024 2025, at least a partial year, it was 34%.

It was okay.

So we we made significant improvements there.

Um but it was trending up for uh for one, two, three, four, five, six report uh years, right?

I wouldn't say six years, it started trending up with the vacancy rate or with the vacancy rate.

The vacancy rate started trending up in 21 that first year, that first full year of the pandemic.

So you do see a trend of us going up in terms of our vacancy rate, and now that we've implemented the child welfare worker ones, we were able to get continuous hiring.

Now you see us going back down.

Okay, um, so I also want to echo Supervisor Fortunato Bass's um request to make sure the information the before the audit and after the audit is also part of the dashboard.

So at the end of this 12 month period, we will have a good sense of um the progress that we've made, and then also incrementally because I I know sometimes there's a lag time in getting the information and the data, but clearly the questions that she's asking came from the senator's office and the audit reports.

Okay.

So I want to try to understand how we can get this feedback to the appropriate agencies, uh, whether it's the senator's office or department of family services, and would they be relying on the dashboard uh for transparency because they seem to want to talk about understanding what barriers that we may be facing and how they can help address those barriers as well, whether I assume it's uh funding.

I know the senator talked about suggestions that we hire retiree and newtens, for example, to fill some of those agencies, so our agency has always used uh required a new attempts whenever we could.

So actually, prior to um the audit, we were using retired and new attempts to help close cases in the area.

Um they've been actually super helpful to help us with that.

So I think we did we sent them all the information we sent the audit, and we'll do an update to them because in the last couple weeks there's been more information we sent the auditors.

Um in terms of barriers.

I don't know if I got what you yeah, I don't think it's the question again about barriers, and then what I want to say also is um in the meeting with Senator Dr.

Wahop, she complained about the format that she received the information.

So we will also improve upon how um she receives that information.

She was sent it the same way that the department has uploaded the number by number.

She wanted it more comprehensive, so we'll also make okay.

What I'm trying to make sure doesn't happen is that we're duplicating efforts because there's only so much staff we have, and we can only send so many people to meetings, right?

And so I want to make sure that the information that you provide us here is available to the task force.

So they are tasked with the same thing we're tasking you with, which is to provide timely updates on the progress of implementing the recommendations from the audit report, and they want to take it one step further and identify barriers that would preclude us from meeting some of those timelines.

And so I want to make sure that they have accurate information and that we also uh can tap on whatever resources are necessary from the state that could come out of this effort.

So I I would hope that this would be a collaborative effort because you know, as much as we're constrained by the Brown Act in terms of our ability to send staff and send board members to these meetings.

I know uh supervisor Marquez and I would like to send staff members, but or or ourselves if we're able to make some of those meetings at their at the senator's request at based on the task force she's forming, but uh we also want to make sure that they have the appropriate information so that you know they're not because some of the information that Senator Waha discussed with us seemed a little outdated.

It seemed like she didn't have the information at hand.

So I think any barriers will be greatly reduced or eliminated because we do plan to have SSA representation of the task.

Okay, we can provide whatever updates um that are asked of the participants.

Okay, appreciate that, and uh we should probably send a response to the December 20 second letter from the senator's office.

Okay, just outlining and capturing our conversation today, and uh be happy to sign it.

Would you be happy to write it now?

I'm just seeing them.

No, um, we'll draft it for your signature, okay.

Uh Chair Tam, just on that uh item the task force.

My office is also interested in participating, and Dave Brown would be our design okay person.

So we'll we'll try to coordinate it to minimize any perceptions of the Brown Act violations.

So they did send out a doodle poll last Friday, but we haven't received the agenda yet.

So there is a meeting for this week.

Yeah, my chief of staff informed me that we did get the doodle poll.

Um, and so we'll we'll just coordinate it, and and our schedules are heavily impacted sometimes.

Yeah, I think one of the options um on a doodle poll was today, and so it would have been a natural conflict for either one of us to attend.

We'll make it work.

Understood.

Okay, the comments on this item.

Um, so good afternoon, supervisors.

Um, SCIU, uh SSA chapter president.

So I just want to my public comment is not specific to what was presented, it's just an overarching reaching is that you guys are very aware that we're embarking.

Um, and as it pertains to both presentations that are coming, um, I am incumbent to stress that there have been proposals put across the table that pretty much touch on everything that maybe has been touched in both of these presentations.

Um, I want to stress that it's a collaborative effort with management.

Um I am constantly fielding concerns, complaints, um, accolades, all of that as it relates to management directly, but I think what needs to be impressed upon is that some of the things that need resolved are out of their hands, and it is left up to the board.

And so that is where I'm here to stress as we move through this bargaining and contract bargaining that you all strongly consider proposals that have been put across specifically from SSA that are incumbent, everything that we've touched on from staffing, recruitment to retention to child welfare workload, things as small as licensing for APS workers, to auditing CBOs that we have as to measurements of success for the amount of money that you guys are putting towards CBOs, AI, we have proposal for all of that.

So I'm just here it is, and we'll be here to the end of bargaining to stress the importance that particularly coming from SSA.

I know that we've had discussions at the table that we didn't think that we would have as many proposals as we do because we just went through full bulb bargaining.

But the picture has is looks very different than what it was when we were in bargaining last.

It just is what it is.

And so I think we all need to be mindful, but again, that there are as many conversations that I can have with our leadership within the agency.

There are things that are out of their control as it relates to funding, staffing, and us looking, um looking at where funding is coming from, Measure W, those are very high high reaching type of fruit that we want, we need to have conversations around.

And there is any testimony.

So they can make an impression upon you all, the importance of whatever is being elevated from the management that it's being elevated from them as well.

Um, and that it's needed for you guys to really take the listen to what your concerns and your needs are.

So that's it.

That's all.

People say so.

Um my name is Cynthia Landry, and I'm the uh vice president for services, which does include the uh job protectives workers, the APS workers, uh social workers, and employment counselors, and uh I'm on the negotiating, probably on the negotiating team also.

And uh so the issues of workload, caseload, retention, uh recruitment, uh, these everybody here knows, including uh I know a great uh director, Miss Ms.

Ford knows.

Uh these are issues that uh you know are being uh addressed and need to be continued uh to be um uh addressed because we have to have sufficient staffing to do our mandated, you know, to do our mandated um uh services, or I should say do them with uh do them with uh some level of um closure and and um and getting the reports done um timely.

Um and there's also some uh I don't know if I'm supposed to say it here or not, but there's there's some proposals around telework, uh some premium uh differentials for the CPS workers, also uh educational um pathways uh to bring in uh to fill some of those um uh vacancies, which uh hopefully the uh I'm sure the board will um support um um also we have uh the workers want to do the best job um possible and I know what I do um I want to do the best job um possible, but we do need adequate uh adequate um um staffing thank you uh it's not look like there are any online commenters okay thank you all for your comments and uh just as a point of order my chief of staff told me in the the not first meeting is this Friday at three tasks for I have a formal ask if we can find an agenda item for welfare department at the next social services committee general item how was the request?

Well we have in our meetings our individual meetings we have asked and I think there was misinterpretation of SCIU wanting a standing item that's not the ask, but to ask is for at some point for us to have ahead of time scheduled to be able to discuss the departments as a whole of social services and pertinent to so just so that you know because of the fact that we're in bargaining there's there are issues on the table that take to all departments and if we're never having the discussion of all of the departments at this level I'm not sure you guys are gonna be well informed of why we are making the asks that we are asking I have constant conversations with them but if you don't afford us the opportunity to have the discussion at this table um so uh typically on bargaining unit issues uh the department and our lead bargaining uh representative is uh Ms.

right now and we she would give us updates on the request right and the department's response but that's not typically something that we we go back and forth and over.

I think the question for my membership is when do you when do you guys for all like these are specific and germane specific issues that have been going on and so the concern that's been elevated is when we do wrap our heads and get to the goal that we want with the audit and we wrap our heads around APS meeting how do we how are they able to continue the concerns around how are you guys able to know what's going on as a whole in the public and the membership know that you guys know on a whole it's there's nothing this is nothing to throw the departments under the bus because it's nothing to them right but if we are having a discussion around caseloads say in welfare benefits and there's things coming down from federal government state around the ABOD the working adults the medical all of those we've already had the discussion at the departmental level we know the caseloads are out of control how are you all keeping making being made aware of that um through the committee meetings um the social services committee meeting and the joint health and social services meeting so we have regular updates about everything that's happening in the department that's why this one is called social services yeah and you want to know when so these are agenda yeah so no no no so when in when are the others so far the last two to three meetings have been child welfare and APS so when does because when a lot of the workers and this as I'm left asking that a lot of the workers who have logged on are from welfare benefit that have questions around the medical impacts have questions around the ABA working and not at a department level they have questions for the board and funding and around measure W and higher level questions when do they get to have hear your stance or presentations regarding those concerns around the parts so director Ford was talking about um this there's a joint meeting between the social service and the health committee to talk about the impacts of HR1.

Basically um impacts on medical and impacts on SNAP and including a lot of the issues that you mentioned on ABOD and where those cuts might be and how we're going to address it um in terms of understanding where the state budget is and how it translates to what it means for the county.

And we still need to get some information, but those meetings are happening monthly.

So there will be an ABOT update at the January, I'm sorry, the February joint health social services.

That's the second Monday in February at two o'clock is the start time.

Okay.

Chair Tam, if I may, um, as I'm hearing uh the requests, I think our budget workshop, which is typically in April, I believe, where we have all of the department heads give an overview of their departments.

That's another point of information.

I mean, I'm hearing the requests as looking holistically at the department as a whole and the various uh units that are within it versus sort of this unit and another unit.

Okay, and I I think um director Ford can bring that forward completely as the department as a whole at the next uh joint committee meeting.

And see when we are you talking about the budget process?

Well, I'm just saying that MOE budget, yes, that presentation where we hear one space where we hear from we hear about the department as a whole.

Well, maybe let me ask this who drives the agenda items for this meeting.

I do.

Okay, yeah.

So that's my that's my question.

So then I mean I hear you guys when you're presenting me with what committee you go to, but the overall question is who drives the agenda for this meeting and should someone see the need or want to put something on the agenda for this meeting that's pertains to social services.

Is this the first stop or do we are we saying the health committee or the joint committee?

Well, this joint meeting is uh between social service and health that addresses a lot of the issues around HR1 and the impacts of federal government and the state government's cuts on the county and how the county will need to respond budgetarily.

So Kara, if you and I can have a more thoughtful discussion, and if there's an item in particular you would like to see, I can discuss it with the social services committee chair.

Go ahead.

Because we give you case level numbers, but it sounds like transparency, right?

Because that's just where I I have a report with management, right?

I have that conversation with management.

The bridge that needs to be gapped is the relationship with the board from the membership.

So this is aside from the department and aside from management, right?

I understand they they get caught in it because they're the one with the information and have to present the information.

But my question is specifically to the board, and you guys overseeing the social services committee and you driving the agenda.

At what point do you say, well, this month we're going to put welfare and benefits department on the agenda?

We're going to put then our follow-up with APS on the agenda.

This is specific to you all, the board, not the department.

I understand the information comes from the department, but this is accountability for the board and the role you guys play and have to answer to folks that I have to answer to.

It can come to this committee or it can come to the joint meeting that we talked about, uh, just like we had this morning with the health committee and SEIU attended along with a number of other bargaining units on some of the reduction enforced issues that were being discussed, but that can be agendized.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

Hearing none.

Thank you.