Good morning.

We have to go ahead and get started.

Commissioner.

All right.

Good morning.

Good advice.

Mayor is still in the chamber, talking to citizens doing the kind of work that we're all committed to doing in terms of our mission.

But she has given her permission for us to go ahead and start.

You want to be running for everyone's time.

So I'm believing Mr.

Paul.

I'm turning it over to you.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Good morning, Commissioners.

My name is Mahall Jr.

I'm the executive director of the City of Dating Human Relations Council.

I'm here to give you a brief update on HRC activity through course two.

I know that we are under time constraint, so I'll uh maybe skip slides that are just context and uh try to get to the meeting slides, the things that we think that uh most important we really want to know.

Um discussion topics.

So we'll start with the 2026 budget, just uh so you're aware.

Total budget a little over 1.1 million dollars, uh uh a little over a million dollars of that is personnel and then uh around a hundred close to a hundred thousand dollars is contracts and materials uh halfway through the year.

Um we are about halfway through those expenditures.

Um so we are in managing the budget very well, good standing right now.

Um, and more to come.

We tend to, as cases come in, spend spend more dollars.

But um we are in a good place right as of right now with our budget.

Um this is something that I know has been very um important to the commission is uh getting good staff uh and and fully being fully staffed over at the HRC uh going on three years almost uh in January three years for me.

Uh in January, we fully staffed.

We um brought in five new staff this year, January Deshaun Lumber, uh, who's a senior contract compliance officer in February.

Natalie Smith, our outreach coordinator, March, uh Reggie Troutman, our contract compliance officer.

Uh also in March, Solomon Mitchell, our office assistant, and then in July, uh Joseph Archer Love, who is going on, I think three weeks with us right now is the Equal Opportunity Specialist Two.

Uh, very good news that we we did have a hiccup in our uh hiring of the equal opportunity specialist one.

Uh the candidate didn't clear the civil service process, and so we did have to go back to the drawing board.

But I uh as of two days, yesterday, I think, as of yesterday, we received the uh offer letter back signed.

So we should be welcoming in our equal opportunity specialist one within the next couple of weeks, and that'll bring us to uh 10 persons, nine persons full-time, one person uh is temporary staffing, and we'll have 10 persons in the office.

Um I can skip this because we just talked about positions and vacant.

So I'm moving to business and technical assistance, these are our limited numbers, and this is as of uh July 13, 2026.

Uh, total PEP company is 11.

Um, ME 72, WBE 46, and of course SDEs, all of our companies in the PEP are uh small business enterprises, so they they that number should always match the uh total number.

Um of the good things we well, let me skip down to the actively interested.

We're tracking this now that we have a bigger team and we're doing more events.

You'll see more about that uh here momentarily.

But it's really nice to see that we have 46 businesses that are actively interested.

That is still a hurdle getting them over into the program, but they are engaging with us talking about being in the program of those 35 are MBE, 10 or WBE, and of course, uh all of them are small businesses.

Um, through July 13th, um, new certifications we did 31, cross certifications 12, renewal certifications 15, and then again at interest economies 40 plus businesses.

Um, as we are coming into this portion of uh of not having the M back and businesses in the M back uh would have uh had us retain and losing those businesses.

It is good to see that you see 31 new certifications.

So while the numbers are uh hovering around one 10, that's still 31 new certifications for us.

Um so we we are you should see that number continue to come on as we dig out uh uh businesses that we're losing to the not candidate business with the city of Day and that loss of the M back.

Um project review for a goal.

Uh we reviewed 20 projects through July.

Uh we set goals on 10 percent uh on uh 10 projects, which is 50 percent of that.

We're uh our our goal is 75 percent, so we're not quite there, but this does depend on the projects that we receive and whether we have businesses that can do that work, and that total is around uh a little over 2.6 million uh assigned for uh inclusion on projects.

Um this is just a closer look at BTA.

Um we have start to re-engage our uh expire PEP vendors, so trying to reach them before they expire, uh get them to stay in the program, especially if they can do work.

And so we have a 30, 6090 window, and we're trying to that people get notifications that they're going to expire and yet may still not act, or that person that uh signed them up may not be a part of their business anymore.

So we're trying to catch them before they expire.

It just helps us uh and it also helps the vendors as well.

Uh we're doing monthly office hours.

That's a compliance officers do that uh weekly, and that's where businesses can uh schedule time and have a one-on-one and talk about PEP certification and any other questions they have pertaining to procurement opportunities with the city and uh receiving help one-on-one from our uh from our compliance officers.