Good afternoon, everyone, good afternoon.

Thank you all for joining us today.

I would like to call to order the 2 p.m.

Thursday, June 18th, special meeting of the Board of Supervisors, and I'll ask the clerk, please call roll and establish our quorum.

Supervisor Marquez present.

Supervisor Cham.

Excuse Supervisor Miley.

Supervisor Fortunato Bass.

President Halbert.

We have a quorum.

Present.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Well, first item as to ask for public comment on closed session items.

Um we have listings of closed session items.

This is not for the open session item, but public comment on closed session items.

Do we have any public comment either online or in person for closed session items?

There are no public comments.

Very good.

We'll close public comment on closed session.

Do we need to adjourn the closed session?

We're not going to need to adjourn the closed session, so we'll then move to open session, which is a fiscal year 2026-2027 recommended proposed budget hearing and deliberations.

I'll turn the meeting over now to our county administrator, Susan Murnichi.

Thank you, President Halbert, members of the board.

Good afternoon.

Today we are formally opening your budget hearings on the fiscal year 2026-27 proposed budget submitted to your board on May 28th of 2026.

The total proposed budget for all funds is $6.7 billion, a 9.3% increase over this year's approved budget, and it supports almost 10,500 full-time equivalent positions.

The budget is balanced and closes a 185 million dollar funding gap.

50% of that funding gap was closed with savings achieved through reduced employer retirement costs, the result of a thoughtful intentional fiscal strategy to help address the county's long-term unfunded pension liabilities that continue to increase annually.

The net funding gap for 26-27 after first applying countywide pension cost savings was 91.4 million dollars, still a significant structural funding gap, largely resulting from ongoing staff and operational cost increases without commensurate ongoing revenue sources, as we continue to provide the highest level of mandated and discretionary services possible to meet the growing and shifting needs of our residents and diverse communities.

As you know, the proposed budget closes the remaining 91.4 million funding gap for next fiscal year through a combination of one-time and ongoing expense reductions and revenue adjustments developed in collaboration with elected and appointed department heads, each committed to managing their respective agencies and departments within the budgets adopted by your board, making difficult choices, exploring innovative and creative solutions to address funding limitations with a common goal of continuing to provide the highest level of services possible within limited resources without major program reductions or staff layoffs.

Today we will begin to set the table for your budget hearings next week by providing a brief economic overview, an update on state and federal budget status, our current five-year forecast and mid-year projections, and a snapshot of the competing priorities and challenges facing the county, all significant factors as you prepare to consider the proposed $6.7 billion budget, hear from the public and stakeholders, deliberate and consider adjustments within the balanced budget, and finally adopt a final budget to start the new fiscal year with a balanced plan that provides a solid foundation for the year ahead, knowing that we are facing more challenges than ever this coming year, with significant unknowns and risks related to pending federal policy changes and funding reductions, economic instability, and global unrest, in addition to our local challenges, risks, and liabilities.

With that, we will provide a brief overview and then recommend that your board continue your fiscal year 26-27 budget hearings, deliberations and adoption to next Monday, June 22nd at 1 45 p.m.

We're going to start our overview with an economic outlook presented by Melanie Otendito.

Mr.

President, if we could have a motion to open the public hearing, and just uh for the record, I just would indicate that obviously since we did not recess into closed session, there was no report from closed session.

That's no reportable action was taken.

Okay.

Mr.

President, I'll move to open the public hearing.

I'll second.

Very good.

We're going to vote to open the public hearing.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Supervisor Marquez.

Hi.

Supervisor Tam.

Hi.

Supervisor Miley.

Supervisor Fortunatabas.

Aye.

President Halbert.

I vote yes.

The public hearings now open.

We'll start with the presentation.

Thank you.

With respect to the broader economic outlook, top lines remain relatively consistent.

As you know, tech continues to invest in artificial intelligence while pulling back on investments and personnel.

So some of the headlines that you see here reflect some of the largest tech companies in the region going through multiple rounds of layoffs in some cases while simultaneously seeing record gains.

Uncertainty from changes in federal policy as well as market volatility and continued concern over federal debt are you know our overshadowing a lot of other changes that are happening.

Monetary policy so far has been in a holding pattern.

So there continues to be concern about higher future inflation.

With that, there is concern about what some economists refer to as K-shaped economic growth, where high earners and high net worth individuals may be seeing strong returns, but lower and middle income workers really feeling the impacts of inflation and high unemployment rates.

Federal immigration policy is impacting California in particular quite heavily, with about a third of our labor force being from immigrant backgrounds.

That coupled with falling birth rates, in addition to the continuing housing shortage, all impacts uh labor participation and growth.

On the next slide, you can see that uh you can see the state's uh current unadjusted unemployment rate at 5%.

Uh this is for April compared to, and that is uh compared to the nation's average at 4.3%.

Um, here in Alameda County, the unemployment rate for April was uh 4.1%.

Um we had mentioned in one of our one of our more recent budget presentations that employment in the East Bay in particular has been lagging behind the rest of the Bay Area since before the pandemic.

As your board knows, we monitor uh the local real estate market because property tax is the county's most important source of discretionary revenue.

Uh the state association of realtors just updated its monthly uh data yesterday, which reflects the median home price for May at 1.4 million in the county.

That's a 5.7% increase over April and a 2.6% increase from a year ago.

Um home sales are up about 6.6% compared to last month, but only up about 1.6% year over year.

And on the next slide, you can see that the rate of unsold inventory is down about 4.8% compared to April and down nearly 26% from a year ago.

Median time on the market is 13 days.

That's an increase of 8.3% from April, but flat on a year-over-year basis.

Um, and for context, uh the state's median time on the market for single family detached homes is 22 days.

So you can see that the market here locally reflects continued uh demand, which is driven in large part by low inventory.

Thank you.

Um, so this is a high level summary of the newly finalized state budget agreement um amongst the uh assembly and the Senate.

And um, this is specifically a snapshot at how directly impacts county operations, our local revenue, and our safety net programs.

As you can see from the top row, this budget represents a very delicate balancing act.

The state has successfully prioritized fiscal stabilization and revenue growth while simultaneously delaying some of the most severe cuts that would have impacted our local communities the most.

So the four key metrics driving this budget are the 36.5 billion in total reserves.

The state continues to build up its fiscal cushion, which includes 15.1 billion dollars in the Rainy Day Fund and $4.5 billion in the special fund for economic uncertainties.

And the legislature says that this stability is vital for them to continue to operate a balanced budget.

And for us as a county, it does become important on in unstable years where the state can use those resources to continue supporting safety net programs.

Second is the additional $5 billion in ongoing revenue.

This is critical, this is a critical addition to the budget from the May revise.

This is generated by extending the managed care organization tax, implementing permanent corporate tax credit caps, and expend expanding the sales tax to pre-written digital software.

Third, which is a major win for counties and other local governments, is $900 million for half round seven, which is up from the $500 million that was previously proposed.

This is for ongoing homelessness initiatives and housing programs.

And we do rely on these resources to continue to meet our goals.

Fourth, the underlying challenge here is that we continue to have a $9.7 billion structural deficit.

So while the current year is balanced, the state still projects a structural gap looking forward towards uh 2930, primarily driven by rising uh federally mandated HR1 costs, and we have to continue to keep this in our in mind as we do our long-term fiscal planning.

Moving to the bottom half of the slide is some more detail about what this means for us as a county and our departments for health and human services.

We did get some breathing room on the drastic proposed cuts, including the Medi-Cal reductions.

These have been delayed until July 1st, 2027, which does give us some more time to plan and make adjustments as needed.

The legislature's budget plan includes approximately $835 million in the upcoming year to address the damage already set in motion by HR1.

This includes $125 million for emergency only alternative to indigent care that would provide healthcare services for individuals who lose full scope Medi-Cal eligibility due to HR1 work requirements.

$250 million to support California's public hospital system, which is facing increased uncompensated care and financial pressures.

$450 million for county eligibility for Medi-Cal and CalFresh to help Californians maintain access.

And this budget was a major advocacy victory for counties.

The state completely rejected the proposal to shift in home supportive services growth costs onto counties, saving our local budget from a massive unfunded mandate.

Prop 36, there are resources.

The legislature included 50 million dollars in one-time funding for Prop 36 implementation.

But it is a one-time investment.

And finally, there is a new framework which has been established to enact the fair share from big corporations act by April 2027 to require large employers to provide adequate health coverage, which will ultimately reduce the strain on our taxpayer-funded county medical and safety net systems.

While the state's structural deficit means we must remain cautious, this agreement successfully shields us from immediate cost shifts and preserves our core safety net funding for this current year, but we do know we have a lot of planning to do for uh future fiscal years.

At the federal level, we are seeing rapidly evolving policy.

Um we hear these updates every week.

Congress has adopted their federal budget framework as of the end of April.

So there's a one-year funding agreement in place, but that budget didn't include funding for the Department of Homeland Security, ICE or customs and border protection.

That agreement was finally reached a couple of weeks ago, and that was through a second reconciliation of 70 billion dollars to fund ICE and CBP through the end of President Trump's term, so that that doesn't come up again.

But the congressional Republicans are already talking about a third reconciliation package, which to try to further advance the current administration's priorities.

And we know for us here that is problematic for the programs that we deliver.

And currently, Congress is in a stalemate with the reauthorization of FISA, and they continue to not be able to move forward on those things, which is stalling their ability to move forward on any sort of legislation.

But they have proposed a national defense authorization act package of 1.14 trillion dollars that they are hoping to get through before they go on their summer recess.

The overarching trend, though, is that the increased investment in federal immigration enforcement and national security really has taken the focus off of the things that are important to us as a county and the safety net programs that we deliver.

This next slide illustrates the county's annual funding gaps that we've experienced after the educational revenue augmentation fund or ERAF was implemented in fiscal year 92-93.

So, as you can see, since ERAF began, Alameda County has closed funding shortfalls totaling 2.7 billion.

Without the benefit of retirement rate reductions, the gap, as the county administrator noted earlier, would have been 185 million, which would have required significant cuts and reductions.

Your board's forward thinking of set aside resources to prepay unfunded liabilities helped us close more than half of that gap, leaving 91.4 million to balance in collaboration with agencies and departments.

Alameda County's fiscal challenges are consistent with those facing other counties throughout California.

Rising labor, pension, and health care costs, as well as increasing service demands on top of uncertainty and state and federal funding are common pressures across county jurisdictions.

We also know that cities within the county are facing budget challenges.

Just a reminder that the county's budget is highly reliant on state and federal aid.

As you can see in the proposed budget, state and federal aid is over 60% of our financing in the general fund.

Moving on to the five-year forecast.

As with previous forecasts that our office has presented, there are some built-in assumptions.

The model is built assuming slowing economic growth, no new unfunded programs, and no other major changes to our existing labor agreements.

Major drivers include labor, operating costs, outpacing revenue, as well as IHSS inflation.

Risks include the prospect of an economic downturn or recession, as well as the impact of high interest rates on the national and global economies.

So if we assume a base case scenario, we can see our projected funding gap, our projected funding gaps grow over the five-year horizon.

Again, the model assumes that we take no corrective measures to address those funding gaps, which is why you see it growing over time.

But the current forecast compared to the most recent one, our office presented assumes slowing economic growth consistent with recent historical data.

In addition to the long-term forecast, every quarter, the county administrator's office sends a request out to agencies and departments to submit quarterly projections as part of our budget monitoring efforts.

This process supports accountability related to spending and regular, comprehensive monitoring of the budget also allows for the evaluation of service-level provision, progress towards goals and expectations, and the examination of trends and other deviations that may impact our future operations.

As of the third quarter in the aggregate, the county is projecting savings, which is driven by vacancies, offset by an underrealization of program revenue.

While we're not recommending any countywide adjustments at this time, we'll continue to monitor and work directly with agencies and departments to recommend any necessary adjustments to maintain a balanced budget.

Thank you, Melanie and Amy.

You've heard our economic outlook, you've heard about the current status of the state and federal budgets as well as a look at our longer term outlook.

And we want to now try to pull that all together.

I know we had shared with you earlier some of the fiscal pressures, and that list continues to expand.

So we are clearly navigating a convergence of fiscal pressures that are occurring simultaneously.

And while any one of these challenges would be manageable on its own, together they create a significant strain on the county's long-term financial sustainability.

This illustrates the broad range of external and internal factors placing pressure on the county's finances.

They're interconnected and often compound one another.

The cumulative effect is a narrowing of your fiscal flexibility at a time when the demand for county services continues to grow.

Collectively, these factors reinforce the need for disciplined financial management, strategic prioritization, and proactive planning.

As we move towards budget adoption, our focus is on preserving essential services, maintaining fiscal stability, and positioning the county to respond effectively to emerging challenges.

The next slides will discuss how these pressures are reflected in our budget outlook and some of the actions being considered.

If we look now at the policy pressures alongside the fiscal challenges, the county is also navigating a growing number of policy, governance, compliance, and operational requirements.

These initiatives advance important community goals, but they also require significant organizational capacity, coordination, and resources.

This slide highlights the major policy pressures influencing the county's operations and decision making.

While many of these initiatives are positive and mission aligned, they create competing demands for staff time, funding, technology investments, and leadership investment.

Together, they shape how we prioritize work and allocate resources across the organization.

Collectively, these policy pressures reflect the county's commitment to transparency, accessibility, accountability, and improved service delivery.

However, each initiative carries implementation demands that must be managed alongside fiscal constraints and operational priorities.

As we look ahead, our challenge is not simply deciding what to do, but determining how to successfully execute multiple priorities at the same time while maintaining excellent service for our residents.

The intersection of fiscal pressures and policy expectations underscores the need for thoughtful prioritization and strategic resource allocation, which is reflected in the budget outlook and our recommendations.

In addition to our fiscal and policy responsibilities, the county, through your board, is also advancing a number of board-directed initiatives that reflect community priorities and strategic investments.

These efforts address important needs and opportunities, but they also require significant coordination, staffing, funding, and organizational capacity.

Each initiative advances important policy objectives, community outcomes, or service improvements.

Taken together, they represent a substantial body of work that must be balanced against existing operational responsibilities and fiscal constraints.

And while each initiative delivers important value independently, collectively, they require significant administrative, financial, and operational support.

Departments are often asked to contribute staff expertise, program implementation, policy development, community engagement, and performance reporting across multiple initiatives simultaneously.

Success depends on clear prioritization, cross-departmental collaboration, and alignment with available resources.

These initiatives reflect your board's vision and priorities for Alameda County and demonstrate our commitment to improving outcomes for our communities and residents.

At the same time, they add to an already complex operating environment shaped by fiscal pressures and policy mandates.

As we move through the budget process this year, an important consideration is ensuring that resources, staffing, and implementation capacity are aligned with the breadth of priorities before us.

Taken together the fiscal pressures, policy requirements, and your board directed initiatives create a challenging but important context for your budget discussions, deliberation, and our future strategic planning efforts.

That concludes our overview as we prepare for your budget hearings deliberation and adoption next week.

Thank you very much.

Before we go to public comment, just questions from the board.

Any questions?

Huh?

I forgot our last slide.

That's a surprise.

So this brings together the three major categories of pressures shaping our operating environment fiscal policy and board directed initiatives.

And as I indicated individually, each of them would require significant attention and resources.

Collectively, they create a highly complex environment in which the county must balance competing priorities while continuing to deliver essential services to residents.

Beginning with the fiscal pressures, the county faces a combination of structural funding challenges, increasing service demands, aging infrastructure, capital investment needs, state and federal funding uncertainty, healthcare system pressures, and limited ability to generate new revenue.

These factors constrain our financial flexibility at a time when community needs continue to grow.

At the same time, policy pressures continue to expand.

New compliance requirements, accessibility standards, governance expectations, transparency mandates, strategic initiatives, and major implementation efforts require ongoing investments in staff capacity, technology, training, and organizational change.

These responsibilities are critical to advancing equity, accountability, and service excellence, but they also increase demand on our demands on county resources.

And layered on top of these fiscal and policy requirements are the numerous board-directed initiatives that reflect important community priorities.

Efforts related to homelessness prevention, health care governance, emergency medical services, justice reform, immigrant and refugee services, economic development reparations, and oversight all require sustained attention, cross-departmental coordination and collaboration, and implementation capacity.

The key takeaway is that these pressures do not exist independently.

They interact with and reinforce one another.

Fiscal constraints affect our ability to implement policy objectives.

Policy mandates influence resource allocation decisions.

And board initiatives require funding, staffing and operational support.

Together, they create a dynamic environment that requires careful prioritization, strategic decision making, and disciplined fiscal management.

As we move through the budget process, our challenge is not simply to identify resources, but to ensure that our resources, our staffing, and our organizational capacity are aligned with the full scope of expectations placed on the county.

The broader context informs the budget recommendations and strategic choices that will follow as you deliberate on your budget and adopt a final budget next week.

So after you take public input, we're going to recommend that your board recess and continue your budget hearings until next Monday.

The schedule for Monday is listed above.

It is our intent to have more detailed presentations on all of the program areas, some of the special budgets, address final adjustments and other issues, and ask that your board close the hearings on Monday.

We are scheduled for your board to deliberate on the proposed budget on Tuesday at 1 30, and that your board adopt a final budget on next Thursday at 4 p.m.

Thank you very much.

Could you put the slide up with the three wheels?

I think we have a few things to do in our job.

10,000 people getting this done as well as uh stable of nonprofit organizations.

We're going to have um just questions or comments rather from our board.

I'm gonna start with Supervisor Marquez, followed by Tam Fortunato Bass and Miley.

Thank you, President Howard.

I just want to uh thank the CAO's office and everyone that's worked on this.

This is um extremely comprehensive, complicated, but thank you for making it really easy to digest.

And the will on slide 16, just gonna be very public and open with the community.

Cause I know this is gonna hit media bloggers, people that are paying attention, but I just um posted something on stories with this image, and I'd like to respectfully ask that you add another fiscal pressure, and that is SB 1193, because I am sitting here disgusted, seeing everything this county is faced with, and our own state senator is adding to that pressure, wanting to prevent our ability to provide services to low-income residents, people that rely on the safety net.

This is a waste of time and resources.

Look at expansive this list is, and yet we have deliberate intentional, inhumane, added pressure from someone within our own delegation, and the public needs to know this.

And I'll leave it at that because there's special elections and other stuff going on right now, but people need to pay attention.

Um, so I'm gonna ask that you add SP 1193 to the pressure because that's wasted.

I don't know how many hours of time and deliberation, um, and it's really only hurting the public.

Um, so just thank you to everyone that worked on this, and I'll just ask that that be added.

Thank you, Supervisor Marquez.

I echo that.

Um, it's a direct attack on us personally and risking our residents and Senator Wahab should be ashamed.

Supervisor Tam.

Thank you, President Halbert, and I uh also want to extend my appreciation to the CEO and her incredible team and the creativity on that graphic is amazing, especially it looks like daggers hitting all of us at three different levels.

And you've captured um all the issues that we've been talking about throughout the year, whether it's the care for us gelas initiatives and all the various um issues that we're facing when it comes to what we're dealing with with the federal government with HR1, and obviously things that we have been talking about for so long, like um sheriff oversight and reparations.

Now, when we um talk about some of the more detailed implications uh next week, can we also kind of drill down to see the effects of um the May revised the convergence because it sounds like there's some relief that's on the horizon, um and I want to understand how postponement of the drastic program cuts to health and human services will affect the Alameda Health Systems in terms of their budget situation and also understanding um given that we know I don't think we assume that the state was going to shift the IHSS growth to the county and our budgeting, but we have a reprieve, but we won't know until the governor actually signs off, is my understanding.

So at what point do we figure out we might need to make some adjustments based on what's being presented from the May revise?

So we won't know the outcome of the final state budget pending the trailer bills and you know the governor's um actions.

Departments are continuing to review as we have updated information and assess um the impact.

So, you know, we'll adjust to the extent that we have additional information next week, both pending factors as well as any you know specific potential impacts and keep the board updated.

Thank you.

Supervisor Fortinato Bass.

Thank you.

Um I definitely appreciate all of the hard work that our staff has put into our budget process and want to thank again our staff for delivering our proposed budget two weeks early.

It gave me uh time before this meeting in uh to review things, as well as making sure that uh all of the information is online uh for us to see.

Um I will reserve most of my comments for Monday, but did want to say that uh in line with our mission as a county, I think it's really important that our budget protect our most vulnerable residents and our safety net services.

Um I do want to say um today that the work that we did on the essential county services fund and specifically the additional 20 million allocations for the next two fiscal years, that's incredibly important to many of our communities, and so I do hope that will be part of our um budget adoption.

Um I also wanted to remind folks that uh both myself and Supervisor Miley have been leading an ad hoc committee with um Alameda Health System and some of their labor partners.

That process has been um very very um I can use a lot of words to describe it.

Um it's been a very rigorous process, and we do hope to come to the board on Monday with some of our um ideas and feedback and recommendations regarding how we move forward to support our health system.

Um that I hope will be a big part of our deliberations next week as we uh zero in on what we would like to propose to the board.

Um, and that also includes making sure that patient services are really at the center of our health care system.

And then finally, I wanted to share um I wanted to ask whether questions we have asked, whether in our last meeting or over email, whether there will be written responses to those questions.

I did have some questions about vacancies in particular, and I have additional questions I could email in advance.

So, what is the process for uh uh sending questions and getting answers to them?

So, to the extent we have specific questions related to the proposed budget, we will plan to address those on Monday as we present the budget to your board.

Supervisor Miley.

Sure, thanks.

Yeah, appreciate the county administrator or staff for uh county agency and department heads for the work they put into this.

I really like the three wheels.

You might need a fourth wheel because I do think there's uh pressures that are put are placed upon us that are not um pressures that we that we initiate.

Um for instance, pressures to uh put measures on the ballot.

Um, you know, both we initiate some, but also we aren't initiating some, and there's pressures to look at that.

I think also on fiscal side, I think the wheel might want to include um labor um uh pressures and um uh their expectations as well, because I know we're very mindful of labor and our workforce and their expectations.

Um I would also um submit that in my dealing with people, for instance, the reparations commission, I try to manage expectations.

So I don't know if everybody tries to manage expectations, but I it's good that everybody can see the different interactions of the various um matters and the pressures that they're placing up on the county, so that expectations can be managed.

Um then let me see here.

I would also under policy maybe also add um uh measure C, because I think um that measure would be something that um might be considered uh policy.

Um then otherwise, like I said, I think it's fascinating to see how you've put this together.

Uh the visuals are really very helpful uh for both the board and the public.

And like I said, I just think there might be the need for a fourth wheel, just because they are pressures on us that we are not instigating or initiating, but nonetheless, uh they're coming to us, you know, pressures from the cities as they experience challenges, they come to us.

Uh pressures uh from community-based organizations and others who need resources and funds.

Um, you know, I don't know about the other board members, but I'm constantly being um solicited for contributions and support for and all these causes are worthy, but there's not you know, there's not like there's unlimited resources.

So I think once again, those pressures, and if you recall during the uh pandemic, we had a billion dollars of request uh just during the pandemic, and the needs continue to rise, and it's not like those, like you said, the needs are going away.

Um, so I just think maybe putting all that into context.

And the final thing I would just say is maybe you might want to add somewhere one of these wheels, the act the the desire on the part of some people to uh maybe for instance have the county um look at and um reprioritize or or uh pressures to uh deal with the the emerald fund or you know, reserves and things of that nature without recognizing the implications of some of those um uh some of those decisions and the pressures uh from folks who think they know more than what we know.

That's once again an external pressure.

Thank you.

We can pull out some of the external factors into a separate wheel.

Thank you.

A question that I always ask around budget time and it pertains to our budget, even though we recognize this is a um a plan that moves forward throughout the year that gets changed as uh new information comes, maybe we spend more or less in an area and shift our budget, but it's a plan in place.

But I always ask because pressures are always here, and this is a great elucidation of them.

But what do we do with our expenditures and our budget that allows us to identify cost savings or efficiencies or better ways of getting our work accomplished that cost us less?

And can we do more with less, or can we manage these pressures by being efficient with our dollars?

And I guess a question I have for now is how do we do that?

Do we have examples of them?

And if it's not today, then Monday, I would expect that each department would be able to share where we have either cut or been more efficient with our dollars.

And so, do we have any comment today on that, or is that better left for Monday?

So I would say that those efficiency efforts are underway on an ongoing basis in each of the departments.

What you're requesting is that departments highlight some of the specific initiatives.

Kind of a show the homework kind of thing.

If they're doing that all day every day, then just list them.

Would be the the and the dollar amount attached to that if possible.

That would be my request.

Whether we can get you all that information by Monday, I can you know commit that we can provide something to you before the close of your um budget adoption.

Okay, thank you.

I think it's important for the public to know about that.

Um, see no other questions or comments.

We'll go through the presentations.

So that's that was a schedule for Monday.

This is really now time for public comment.

Public comment, and then we're gonna ask that you recess and continue the budget actions until Monday.

Very good.

Everyone should know then Monday we're gonna go through the hearing schedule.

We're going to recess this uh meeting after public comment after today.

Then I'm expecting public comment will have been closed.

So don't wait till Monday, or do we do another public comment on Monday?

The agenda for Monday includes public comment on each item.

Okay, on each item.

Okay.

So today is a chance for the public to weigh in on today's presentation.

The schedule of hearings on Monday will uh appear, um, will be heard then.

Public comment can happen again then.

Um I'd ask the clerk to please count the number of speaker slips that we have in person.

And if you're online and wish to comment, um now would be the time to raise your hand for public comment on this item.

So if the clerk could um take a minute and count up, yes, President Halbert.

We have 19 speaker slips in person, and we have three online hands as of right now.

Great.

Let's have two minutes for each speaker, up to two minutes for each speaker.

And we'll do three in person and three online, and then we'll go back to all the in-persons.

Thank you.

First three speak speakers, Annie Banks, Christina.

You and Bach Emily with a translator.

At least she's asleep.

It's perfect.

Yes, I would like four minutes, please.

Hi, um, my name's Annie Banks, and I'm an organizer with Parent Voices Oakland and part of the Care for Kids Coalition.

I'm also a parent of three small children and a resident of district six in Oakland and district four in the county.

Um I would like to say a few things about a need for better support for families of young children in Alameda County.

Um, Parent Voices Oakland hosted a budget forum in March of this year, and many parents and providers shared that affordable housing and economic stability are foundational needs for families across Alameda County.

So our ask related to that is to include the recommendations from the care collaborative for unhoused families in the upcoming revised home together plan.

We came by this morning and dropped off that letter to all of your offices, so you should have that.

In addition, rising food costs are putting an immense strain on families and on family child care providers.

So related to that, we're asking for you to make a commitment to fund food access in ECE settings.

Um they're providing a lot of the food for our young people and they need support to do it because they're often coming out of pocket.

Um, as mentioned earlier, you know, measure C is so important.

The child care funds are now flowing, but the pediatric health care funds have not been spent.

Um, so we would ask that um we move on a measure C pediatric fund plan that meets the needs of the community and ensures that those funds are being spent appropriately according to what they were meant to do.

We know, as mentioned in Alameda County, 127,000 people may lose Medi-Cal coverage, and 20,000 people who receive SNAP will lose their benefits.

We really want to see the County of Alameda be sure to protect families and pregnant people in efforts to mitigate the impact of HR1.

And then lastly, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors has published a children's budget as part of their overall budget document, but it it was not included in this last year or the year previous, I believe.

So we want to ask to bring back the children's services budget in the next fiscal year so that we can track the spending on children and families.

Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, Board of Supervisors.

My name is Christina Yu.

I'm a resident of Oakland and a clinical supervisor at Maru, where we provide mental health services to immigrants and refugees across the Bay Area.

On June 30th, UELP Prevention Services and with it our ability to serve underserved communities.

I want to tell you about one of the people we served, a Chinese father, an immigrant who at the time recently unemployed because he had two chronically ill children to care for, came to us for services.

He had no insurance and no way to navigate a traditional mental health system.

He was isolated, overwhelmed, and navigating systems of care that did not meet his cultural or linguistic needs.

This father was trying his best to survive and hold his family together.

Because of UELP services, we could meet him where he was.

No insurance required, no diagnosis required, no rigid intake process that would have turned him away.

In a year with UELP programs, his father stabilized.

He connected to other resources and developed skills to support his own well-being.

This is what prevention means.

It means that we reach people before they go to the emergency room and before a crisis call.

ULP prevention is the only funding structure that allows us to offer insurance-free, diagnosis-free, flexible care, removing barriers for critical assistance.

Without restoration of this funding, there will be a gap where vulnerable populations will not receive the support they need to survive.

I urge this board to restore ULP prevention funding through Measure W or other county discretionary sources and provide the flexibility to continue serving existing communities while a sustainable long-term solution is built.

The cost of inaction is far too great.

Thank you.

I'm going to translate for her.

Okay.

I have been volunteering at Maru for 13 years and have received UELP senior services, including social services and mental health counseling support, and have participated in the Jikimi Senior Leadership and Wellness Program.

If I didn't have access to these services, I would have missed a big opportunity to gain a broader, more worldly perspective.

But I currently benefit greatly from all the programs that MARA offers, especially in the UELP program, where I am able to learn ways to help deal with my mental health struggles, get important support to reduce my daily stress, and have people support me, have people to support me and talk to during difficult times in my life.

Please protect the UELP program services that are essential for the elderly.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next we'll move to online speakers, Allison M.

You may have unmute.

Hello, my name's Alison Monroe.

I'm with families advocating for the seriously mentally ill.

I'd like to call your attention to budget demands of the coalition on carefirst jails last with helping the seriously mentally ill instead of keeping them in jail.

One of them is to invest 2 million a year in boarding cares in support of community housing land alliance.

One of them is to invest $5 million a year to support the mental health diversion court, and another is to advocate 125 million a year in deep rental subsidies for people with justice involvement and serious behavioral health needs.

I believe these can be funded at some point.

We can move money from the jail for the population that has been greatly over forecasted.

We can move money from the jail to other programs, and these are quite practical recommendations, and I hope to see them implemented.

Thank you, Brianna Wallace.

Brianna Wallace is coming.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Board of Supervisors.

First and foremost, I just want to thank you for welcoming public input today, and thank you for your time.

I also just want to echo uh with what Annie Banks said as well.

I am in total agreement with that.

So my name is Brianna, and I am here as a working parent leader of Parent Voices Oakland that has a special needs child.

I'm also a community and child care advocate that sits on the Measure C community advisory council as well.

And I just want to directly ask a question, because from my point of view, it doesn't seem like it's being prioritized, but why isn't child care being prioritized in the budget?

For me, you know, stability for working families like myself isn't just one-dimensional.

Child care is foundational, and without it, parents like myself cannot work and families cannot thrive.

Measure C actually was a community mandate, and it deserves the same budgetary attention and urgency as Measure W.

And I just really want to urge this board to ensure that your decisions reflect the mission, vision, and values that you were elected to uphold, and that the communities most directly impacted by hardship are not just invited to comment, but genuinely heard when it matters the most.

Thank you so much again for your time.

Linda Allen.

Thank you very much.

In particular, the issue of supporting quality board and care homes and which provide the most cost-effective and humane care for seriously mental ill mentally ill people, which um which refers to one uh of uh your board initiatives, um, and it prevents homelessness uh by investing upfront in uh prevention uh by providing uh the kind of care that's necessary that avoids uh future homelessness.

So, although there are a lot of fiscal pressures on the county, I urge you to consider the ultimate savings that will accrue from supporting um the community land alliance and its attempts to fill in the gaps uh for improving the quality and the number of boarding care facilities that are available to clients in the mental in the mental health system.

Thank you.

We'll go back to in-person speakers.

And to say finesse, oh I know I say, I know.

I'm tang, man.

I'll be translating.

Hello, my name is Chung Zapshan.

I live in Alameda County and have been volunteering with Maru, formerly the Korean Community Center's Chikimi program for eight years.

Today I urge you please protect UELP program services that are necessary for the elderly like me.

When I came to Madu, I saw many people facing hardship, wanting to be of help.

I began volunteering with the Chikimi Leadership Wellness Group and have been coming back ever since.

As part of the Chikimi Group, I have had the chance to meet and talk with so many people, make friends, and be a part of a community.

The joy of being able to help others and be a part of this group has made me happier too, and it has been a tremendous benefit to my own mental health.

Please protect the UALP program services that are so essential to our elders for people who are isolated and overlooked, even a small act of help can bring great vitality and renewed energy to their lives.

I kindly ask for greater support so that this work can continue.

Thank you.

Afternoon, my name is P.

Sey Finish, Program Director of Maru, formerly KC CEB and representative of the Prevention Matter Collaborative.

Since 2010, I've helped built the UELP prevention infrastructure in Alameda County.

I'm here because it is being dismantled in real time.

On June 1st, the board approved 47 million of measure W prevention funding and left out 10 organizations that have been serving this county for decades.

On June 30th, those UELP programs end no bridge grants, no replacement fund, no path forward.

Early intervention is not prevention.

90% of the EI scope of services require Medicaid enrollment and eligibility and a clinical diagnosis, which includes undocumented residents, the uninsured, people impacted by HR1, communities avoiding care due to stigma, and anyone not in crisis yet in crisis.

Those are exactly the people prevention is designed to reach.

The workforce, cultural expertise, and community trust that took decades to build cannot disappear in a single budget cycle.

We asked two things.

Please commit to restoring UELP funding, the measure W, the Prudent Reserve, any other discretionary sources, including organization that has transitioned to EI.

They did not leave prevention, prevention left them.

And please commit to providing flexibility to keep serving our community while long-term solution is built.

The clocks runs out on June 30th.

We need the board to act.

Thank you.

Last summer, I was able to support a young person who was experiencing high suicidal ideation to receive appropriate care and to make sure they stay safe.

This was possible because the UELP funding allowed me to provide care without asking about their insurance status and to focus on building strong report instead of focusing on giving them a diagnosis.

Without funding like UALP prevention, I'm not sure how this will have like play out.

Because to be honest, when we were looking for a facility for this person to, you know, go and receive care and stay safe, we were turned away twice because of the insurance status.

Can you imagine someone knocking on your door saying, hey, I might kill myself tonight, and all you can say is sorry, I don't take your insurance.

But the reality is starting July 1st, I might be the person who needs to say that.

Discretionary sources.

Thank you so much.

John Lindsay Poland, Warren Cushman, and Sin Yo.

Good afternoon.

Yesterday, this county passed an important milestone, which is in the first time in recorded history of the county, the jail population dropped below 1,200.

Now, with a jail uh jail budget of 426 million, that uh means that the cost of jailing somebody in this county is now 362,000 a year.

That is a lot of money.

You could pay for one person in Villa Fairmont subacute facility, plus a bunch of people on the prevention programs that you're hearing about today, plus several people in uh permanent supportive housing, plus uh people in uh licensed board and cares for that amount of money.

So, and and even though the jail population is that low, the number of people with a severe uh significant mental illness in the jail has remained the same in the last two years.

About 350 people.

The number of people who are not getting the care they need in the community and become sicker, including the former chair of the mental health advisory board who is in Santa Rita today, are not getting the care that they need and they end up in the jail as so much more expensive.

Of course, it's more harmful, but it is so much more expensive.

So when we're looking at license the funding for licensed boarding cares, when we're looking at deep rental subsidies, when we're looking at these deep um these prevention programs, think also about the fiscal responsibility.

It might look like we're in a tight budget year and therefore we have to cut these things, but in fact, it's going to be more expensive if we don't invest in that manner.

Thank you.

Hello.

My name is Yuopsin.

I am a Cambodian American who has been attending Syri since 2012.

I am here today to ask you, please to support funding, prevention service, for ECT, or immigration communities.

If this prevention was stopped, it would be very difficult for my family to solve any problem.

Siri is the place.

When I'm in a group with the other command, who also survived the Cameroon Genesis, I feel blessed.

And that's not me alone.

Not I'm not alone.

Sorry.

We talked about feeling our feeling, stress, laugh, cry, eat, and connect you.

Thank you very much for your time.

Good afternoon, members of the board.

I'm going to flip the script today.

I was originally going to talk about some other things, but behavioral health is the theme that we're all involved with right now.

So I'm going to talk a little bit about behavioral health.

I stand here as someone who has a behavioral health challenge.

Everyone can see the white cane when I am dealing with issues.

But what people can see is the behavioral health challenge I have.

Back in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic at the height of the COVID pandemic and the George Floyd situation, I was sent to John George.

So I know what it means to have a behavioral health challenge.

We need to fund care first jails last.

We need to invest in that.

We need to fund prevention dollars.

We need to invest in prevention dollars.

I recognize that the mental health space is a very difficult challenge with a lot of competing interests, just like your board is going to be dealing with around the entire budget.

But today we're talking about behavioral health.

I'm sure others' topics will come up.

Right now I'm asking the board to think about how to invest in behavioral health.

As a former member of the Behavioral Health Advisory Board and as a citizen of Alameda County, I want to thank everybody who came forward today to talk about behavioral health.

Let's fund those prevention dollars and let's fund care first child.

Thank you.

Kate Wadsworth, Mina Kuchi, and I apologize in advance.

Good afternoon.

My name is Kate Wadsworth, and I am the clinical director at the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants, Siri.

And I'm speaking on behalf of myself and Dr.

Mona, Dr.

Mona Afari, our clinical director at Siri, who is truly wanting to be here today.

I want to thank all of you on the board and the county for all your hard work on this and time and care.

I can only imagine how stressful this must be for you.

And I am here today to ask you to dedicate a portion of Measure W and other discretionary funds to prevention services.

Since 2001, with our UELP funding, Syria has served refugee and immigrant families who have fled war, genocide, political persecution, misogyny, caste oppression, and other forms of profound trauma along with our youth.

These families are low-income, speak very little English, and have little limited transportation.

They l lived with deep social isolation until they came to Syri.

For these communities, prevention is not therapy.

Prevention is community.

It is gathering around a table to cook the foods that remind people of home.

It is celebrating birthdays, new year's traditions, and cultural ceremonies.

It is support groups, community lunches, field trips, youth leadership, and elders sharing their stories.

It is to being surrounded by staff who speak the same language, understand the same history, and create a place where people finally feel like they belong.

This is where people stop feeling like displaced and unwelcome refugees and begin to feel like they belong again.

This is where the healing begins.

It is also where we discover who needs individual therapy, case management, housing support, legal services, and other specialized care.

Prevention is the front door to the entire continuum of mental health care.

The medical model is essential for providing clinical treatment, but could not fund community building work that prevents isolation to screw our crisis before they were require medical treatment.

Thank you very much.

And we ask for more support.

Good afternoon, board of supervisors.

My name is Serenian Lim, and I am a first generation Khmai daughter and program coordinator at Siri, the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants, a nonprofit mental health organization here in Oakland.

I stand before you today with our Khmai elders and staff, grateful for the opportunity to share our story.

The elders behind me survived the Khmer Rouge genocide between 1975 to 1979, displaced from everything they knew.

They came to this country as refugees and rebuilt their lives here with courage and grace.

But resilience alone cannot heal decades of loss.

Many of our elders carry unaddressed trauma, grief, and PTSD.

With English as a significant barrier, navigating health care and social services on their own is nearly impossible without culturally informed support.

They fall through the cracks.

Care coordination is not a luxury for our community.

It is a necessity.

As a daughter of this community, I have seen firsthand what happens when people feel unseen and unsupported, and have also seen what happens when they are given a space.

Sorry, when it's given a space to land.

Our early prevention and intervention program provides funding provides programs for weekly support group where members come together, share to be heard and to feel held in a confidential, culturally safe space.

We also bring our community together through cultural events and meaningful experiences that celebrate who they are and keep their sense of belonging alive.

We humbly ask for your support to keep these services alive.

Please help us make sure our community doesn't have to wait any longer to be seen and cared for.

Thank you for listening and for your consideration.

I can't cede my time to someone, can I?

Okay.

Okay.

My name is Mina Kucci.

I've lived in Alcove for 10 years.

I'm here as a mother with the kindergartner who's about to start their first year in public school at a highly rated quote unquote hill school.

I'm a homeowner in District 4.

I'm a Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer patient with decent insurance through my cis partner's employment.

Most likely, none of the funding that I'm asking for today is going to directly or impact me or my family.

But that's the beauty of living in Oakland in the East Bay.

This community is relentless and leaving no person behind.

Our community uplifts, provides foreign fights for those that have been abandoned by this county, those that have been scapegoated by governing bodies meant to be a safety net.

Instead, the government, the governing body of Alameda County needs to do more and catch up to those and represent the values that our community has proven they embody.

Instead, it invests in our jail, new toys and technology for our sheriff's office to play cowboys with under the guise of public safety.

When the data shows these investments are ineffective versus the investment investments that this community has been asking for that have been proven effective.

And I call for an investment of 2 million per year in the supportive housing community Land Alliance to help develop high quality board and care homes for residents with serious mental health issues and needs, 5 million per year to the public defender's office, and then allocating 125 million in fiscal year 2026 to 2027 to create and operate a dedicated care first jails, last uh flexible.

I just also want to remind that we spent 1.4 million dollars on a contract with Peregrine and $854,000 went to an extension to flock technology.

Thank you.

Edward Martin, Anya Koshwaha, and Anita Willis.

Hello, thank you so much for your time today.

My name is Noni Galloway.

I'm a lifelong Alameda County resident currently living in District 4.

I'm a mother of a four year or nine-year-old son.

I'm also the admin HR manager at Pair Voices of Oakland and the chair-elect of the Alameda County Planning Council.

Rising costs, rising food costs are putting an immense strain on families and on family child care providers.

Family child care providers are providing food for thousands of children in Alameda County, often at their own expense.

According to the Feeding America, there are 29,860 food insecure children in Alameda County.

Parent Voices Oakland put forward a tool, put forward in 2025 a 1 million ARPA request to ensure that family child care providers have post-COVID relief funds to provide fresh produce and healthy meals for Alameda County children.

Food sovereignty must include healthy meals for Alameda County children and families.

We ask that the Board of Supervisors to explicitly prioritize pregnant people and families with young children in the updated, excuse me, updated home together plan.

As this plan is finalized and Measure W funding is dedicated to its strategies, we believe this is an opportunity to address one of the most urgent and preventable issues facing our community, child and family homelessness.

Please make a commitment to fund food access in ECE settings, approve Measure C pediatric fund plan that meets the needs of community and shore funds are spent.

And also to bring back children's services in the budget fiscal year 26-27.

Thank you so much for your time.

Hello, my name is Edward Martin, and I'm a graduate student, PhD student doing research on community mental health and incarceration.

It's part of my project.

I interview system impacted families and mental health professionals.

And a story that I've heard again and again over the course of my field work is that this county has a difficulty preventing crises around mental health care.

Basically, what happens is that mental health care professionals and families can often see when their family member is getting dysregulated and that a crisis is about to happen.

But they it's very hard for them to turn anywhere to get the services that would help that prevent that crisis from happening.

An example of so even if families are able to get their loved one in care, a problem still happens.

A lot of the services are really temporary.

So for example, if you can get your family member in a crisis residential treatment center, that lasts two weeks.

And after that two weeks is over, you have to work out where your loved one is going to go.

Because of that system, what can often end up happening is that the person is not regulated.

They end up having an encounter with law enforcement in one form or another.

And then we have the entire problem with having people's mental health uh challenges in Santa Rita jail at great cost.

I'm saying these things, so to give context of why the care first jails last um recommendations are so important.

Is that having a licensed board in care with long-term care where someone can be housed and have access to services is the kind of thing that would help these crises prevent these crises from happening.

Having the parental subsidies would resolve the problem with housing that a lot of these families are seeing their loved ones struggle with.

And finally, having the public defender's office be resourced would also be really important for people that are involved with the criminal justice system to have somewhere to turn to so that they can access these resources.

Thank you very much.

Hi, my name is Anya, and I'm an Alameda County resident, social worker, and organizer at Restore Oakland, calling for a budget that puts care first, not cops, confinement in cages.

We're here today calling for a care first budget, and we speak on behalf of over 40 local organizations representing thousands of Alameda County residents.

We are a coalition of parents and families, health care providers, labor unions, small businesses, congregations, and faith leaders, formerly incarcerated folks, folks with serious mental health issues, and the advocates fighting for their care and survival.

Formerly incarcerated people are nearly 10 times more likely to be unhoused than the general population.

Black trans women are incarcerated at 10 times the rate of the general population.

The current proposed budget continues to underfund affordable housing, housing interventions for people with serious mental illness and mental health diversion, while the sheriff's office remains one of the largest offices in the county with a budget of nearly 600 million dollars.

This year, the county added 106 million to the budget for the jail staff and has filled less than half of those positions, leaving at least 20 million dollars sitting unused.

In a year of scarcity and drastic cuts at the federal and state levels, a care first budget requires a significant shift in your board's status quo budget policy.

It requires courage, critical analysis, and responsiveness to community.

We urge you to take a step forward toward funding the justice you have promised your constituents by funding the care first budget today.

Thank you.

Hi, my name's Anita Wills.

I live in Hayward.

Um, and I'm here about the CARES first, um jails last, on behalf of my son.

My son has serious mental health issues, and we dealt with it for a while.

I mean, it was over a couple of years.

He was living with me in San Leandro, and not um not doing well, and the police would come and take him to John George, and he would and they would keep him and then release him.

And I'm wondering where, you know, all the money that goes into John George, why they weren't doing a better job with someone who had serious, you know, mental health issues.

And um, so he would go to Santa Rita and that they would release him too.

He's doing very well now, but he's in Contra Costa County.

I think Alameda County can do a better job than they're doing right now.

So that's why I'm, you know, I'm supporting this, and I'm thinking about the young uh the young people who didn't make it like my son who's an adult who are deceased.

I have had three or four parents tell me their children were released here in Alameda County, and um were hit by trains.

You know, they're always sleeping in homeless camps and they're murdered, they're killed because the system does not care about them.

The system was releasing them.

And you know, so to me, I'm a you know, my son is a success story just for today.

He's a success story.

But I'm concerned about those people, the young people, the other people who are homeless here and are not getting the mental health they need.

They're not criminals.

They're mentally ill.

They have an illness, they have a disease.

Please, please do something to help them.

Thank you.

Madeline Stacy, Tasha Wen, and Maureen Chong.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Maury Cham, and I am the director of population focused prevention and early intervention at the Richmond Area Multi-Services Agency.

I am also a board member of the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants, and a member of the Prevention Matters Collaborative.

I come before you today, not only as a public health professional, but as someone whose life was shaped by prevention.

I was born in a refugee camp after my family fled the genocide in Cambodia.

My parents arrived in this country carrying profound trauma, limited English proficiency, and a little understanding of how to navigate the complex health and social service systems.

Growing up, I witnessed firsthand the barriers that immigrant and refugee families face when culturally and linguistically responsive services are not available.

I want to share a personal story about my older brother.

He's much older than me, and we were raised at a time when prevention services were not available in our community.

After the killing of my father, he went into severe depression.

However, nobody else saw it.

Everybody thought that he was navigating life very well.

But inside, he was in pain.

He felt guilt.

He didn't have community centers that prioritize engaging him and his culture as well as his language.

He resorted to substance use as well as abuse and was incarcerated until he was deported back to Cambodia.

I firmly believe that if there were programs that really offered prevention services for people like my brother, he would be here with myself, my child, our parents, and all of our siblings.

Please, please save prevention programs so that families can remain together, healthy, and a quality of life that is very deserving.

Thank you.

Madeline Stacy, we really need to democratize the budgeting process.

The CARES First or Care First Jails Last demands for fiscal year 26-27 aim to expand affordable housing and critical mental health support for residents in the greatest need and divert from incarceration into community-based treatment in our county.

The three demands are, you've heard a little bit about them already.

One, invest two million dollars a year in the supportive housing community land alliance to develop high quality boarding care homes for residents with serious mental health needs.

Two, provide $5 million a year to the public defender's office to meet critical staffing needs in Alamina County's mental health diversion court.

Three, allocate 125 million to create and operate and dedicated care first jails last flex pool, which is a designated source of deep rental subsidies for individuals and families at the intersection of poverty, justice involvement, and serious behavioral health needs.

We can make all of this possible by shifting public dollars from the bloated budgets at Alameda County Sheriff's Office and Santa Rita Jail, as people have already spoken about, and toward the upstream life-affirming solutions.

Your constituents recognize that we in Alameda County must address the intersecting crises of mental health, poverty, and homelessness in our communities, which disapportionately affect people of color, and that budget cuts from federal and state levels make local leadership your leadership on the issues more necessary than ever.

We know that you can and must do more to support our community members who have been locked up, locked out of opportunity, and left behind in this economy.

Budgets demonstrate if you truly put your money where your mouth is, please adopt a care first jails last budget.

Thank you.

Hi, I heard my name was called with a knife.

Just blacked out and forgot.

My name is Tash.

I'm the executive director of Restore Oakland.

We're here in the blue shirts.

We hosted a press conference downstairs with the Care First Community Coalition and Parent Voices Oakland.

And we have been organizing for over a decade.

We have sat and helped create multiple task forces, the gym task force, the care first task force, the Bhab Advisory Board to ensure that people who are living in the grips of incarceration, hospitalization, homelessness, and mental illness are actually served.

We come here year after year to these budget meetings because this is where we can ensure that you know our county is walking the talk, and that these reports don't sit on a shelf collecting dust, but that our people actually get the services that they deserve.

We have a budget demand calling for 125 million dollars for rental subsidies that would provide 5,000 vouchers.

That's tens of thousands of residents that would be served.

I know that sounds like an incredibly wild number, but what we're not we're not asking for new dollars.

The money is there.

There's $97 million in Measure W for housing that's not for shelter or for acquisition.

There's $22 million of BHSA for rental subsidies.

So what we're asking for is to ensure that people who are justice involved are actually prioritized because they are incredibly vulnerable.

Supervisor Haubert asked, how can we efficiently spend our dollars?

Well, you allocated 160 million dollars for jail staff this year, and over 20 million dollars was not used.

Additionally, 26 million dollars were allocated for capital improvements on a jail expansion that be that could be used for other mental health infrastructure projects.

Lastly, the CICLA has a lender that will pull out on June 30th if the county does not make a commitment in this budget cycle.

They are simply asking for two million dollars so that they can serve up to 20 people in a boarding care facility with the most serious mental health needs.

Please do the right thing.

Thank you.

That was the last public commenter.

Thank you very much.

Do we have any staff responses to any of the public comments?

Or can we maybe document any responses for Monday?

Just checking, we had a lot of uh comments.

Any board comments to public comment.

I'd like to thank all the speakers.

I think we have a well-organized group here.

Thank you for coming.

I know many of you have spoken before.

Some of you are new to speaking.

It's not easy to do.

I know it takes courage.

And I appreciate you as well as those online.

We're going to take this all into account and recess today, coming back on Monday for budget hearings.

Since we're recessed, technically the meeting is ongoing, but we will begin where we leave off and proceed with budget hearings from the departments on Monday.

Is that right?

And that's at 1 30 in this very 145 here in chambers, and you will hear more detailed presentations on each of the program areas as well as special budgets and other issues.

Very good.

Seeing no other business before us, public comment on items not on the agenda.

We don't need to do that today.

We're ready to recess.

We're now in recess.

Thank you all.