The meeting began with roll call and public participation instructions. The committee received federal and state legislative updates from The Picard Group and Full Moon Strategies, and voted on one action item: to support H.R. 8355/S.5267. An informational item on EEOC rulemaking was noted. The state legislative update covered end-of-session activities, governor actions, and wildfire legislation, but no action was taken on the state action items listed in the agenda during the portion of the meeting captured in the transcript.
(No consent calendar items identified.)
Note: The agenda date is September 21, 2026, but the instruction specifies using September 22, 2026 as the meeting date for the summary.
Good afternoon and welcome to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors Personnel Administration and Legislation Committee meeting for Monday, September the 21st, 2026. May I have Roll Call Peace? Supervisor Fortunato Bass. Present. Supervisor TAN. Present. We have a quorum. Thank you, Tisa. Would you like to go over instructions for participation? For in-person participation, the meeting site is open to the public. If you'd like to speak on an item, fill out a speaker's card and place it in the box for online participation. Use the raise your hand function. Thank you. Welcome back. And let's start with our federal legislative update from the CARD group. Good afternoon. You've got Emily Bacche Desilva here and Curtis Erdman as well. And it's been a while, so it's it's good to see all of you. But I was just kind of thinking to myself that the House is out again. So you know, last time we talked, I believe, was at the end of July when both the House and Senate uh were leaving for the August recess. Um the House ended up coming back, I believe the week before uh Labor Day, um, and then they were in session for uh three days last week. They ended up adjourning on uh last Wednesday evening, and they are not returning uh to session until November 9th, until after the midterms. The Senate came back last week and is scheduled to be in uh in DC through next week, although uh most folks believe that they could leave as early as the end of this week. So again, you know, we'll we'll see um if if the Senate ends up going home to to let their folks campaign. I think the biggest issue again is um federal funding, government uh funding. And as expected, you know, there's no threat of a government shutdown before the Senate left for the August recess, they ended up passing um a continuing resolution that would run through December 11th uh in a strong bipartisan vote. And when the House came back from its August recess before Labor Day, um they ended up passing that same continuing resolution. Uh and so because there's no threat of a shutdown, I think that's also a reason that they can get out of town um and go home and campaign. Uh, but there are a couple things that we just wanted to uh bring to your attention because we know that they um are priorities um for the county, and one is um la heep, the low-income uh heating program. And I know we talked about it last year because if you remember in the fall, we were in the middle of a government shutdown, and so that LA heap funding was not getting released. Um with uh a CR passing the FY27 continuing resolution included a statutory deadline requiring HHS to distribute no less than 90% of the total LIHEAP allotment by November 1st, 2026. So that's already been signed into law. But um 31 senators did sign a bipartisan letter to uh HHS Secretary uh Kennedy on September 17th, urging the department to release uh the full LIHEAP funding as quickly as possible once funds became become available on October 1. So they're saying let's do it sooner than um November 1st. And you know, they're citing the pressure consumers will face this winter and the fact that state agencies and tribes are already standing up their programs for the coming season. Um so just wanted to flag that and in the notes, we'll have a link to that letter. You can take a look. Um, another issue we've been tracking, we've been working with health care services, is just the HUD COC for um FY 26. That notice of funding opportunity uh was made available on June 1st, um, making 4.04 billion available. Um, but there were two changes that could impact existing grantees. One was reduced renewal protection, and the other was a new project set aside. Um, a coalition of states and nonprofit providers challenged the NOFO in court. Um, and the central claim was procedural rather than substantive. They basically said that a policy change of this magnitude required notice and comment rulemaking, which HUD did not conduct. So it's it's making its way through the courts. But in the meantime, just a couple weeks ago on September 11th, HUD published a notice seeking public comment on incentives for certain homelessness activities. No revised NOFO has been issued, but this notice for comment is widely read as HUD building a record to address the procedural defect. And I believe that the county that healthcare services is working on comments. And then kind of the other big issue that did pop um last week in the Senate. And at the end of July, the Senate AG Committee uh was trying to mark up its farm bill.