The Finance Audit and Budget Committee, chaired by Commissioner Teteri and joined by Commissioners Michelle Long Spears and Shakira Johnson, met on August 11, 2026, to consider several financial items including a lease assumption for the Solicitor General's office, issuance of housing bonds, a financial advisor services contract, vehicle upfitting, and a water bill debt forgiveness program. The committee also approved a contract renewal with the Urban League for the customer assistance program.
Welcome back to our finance audit and budget committee and chaired by myself, Commissioner Teteri and joined by committee members, Commissioner Michelle Long Spears and Commissioner Shakira Johnson. All right, so we're gonna jump around on the agenda today because Commissioner Spears are trying to get to the ACCG meeting a little bit later. So we'll um kind of move around a little bit for priorities. Uh but let's first start with our meeting minutes from the July 13th committee. Motion to approve. Second. All right, motion and second, seeing no further discussion. All they raise and hand say aye. Aye. Chair votes aye, motion carries. All right, let's um I see our solicitor generals here, so why don't we just do that one first? I think I think it's pretty straightforward. Um so item 1211, this is the um solicitor general's office request to assume the lease for the vacant office space at 160 Claremont from the district attorney's office as of September 1st, 2026. The cost will approximately will be approximately 106,000 for the remainder of 2026. And Madam Solicitor, welcome. Thank you. Oh, yeah, hit the button there. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for allowing me to uh present this before you all today. Um this is a request to assume a lease with that presently is being held by the district attorney's office. Just to um bring go back a little bit earlier this year, my office requested additional space for employees. Um at that time, the request was denied. However, when we were broached by the district attorneys the district attorney regarding this space, it seemed like it was perfect. Um this is a space that is held at 160 Claremont by the district attorney's office. It in our request we do mention the 106,000 dollars, and that is just for the rest of this year. It's important to bring before this body, and what you should have in front of you is the breakdown that would uh assume the rest of that lease, which um extends into 2030. Let me tell you about our present status. Right now, my office has two separate leases in this building already. Those two leases, one will end in June of next year. The second will end in February of 2028. What I anticipate is that the time that those um leases end, I intend on renewing and requesting and will come before this body to re to renew those leases. Because the district attorney's office no longer needs the utilization of their space, we were broached and said, Hey, are you interested in moving from the space that you're in into this space? Their lease does not end until 2030. So their their lease is a longer period of time, um, one which we anticipate we will continuously need for the employees within my office if we were to get it. I bring this before you anticipating that if we were given permission to move forward with this, the 106,000 would be needed for this year based on the status. I believe that this is not a request at this time to um get additional funds for this year. I believe that those funds are within my office, and we would not need it for the year of 2026. However, it is important to note that there's I don't know a lease that goes for four months, so this is us really uh beginning the request until the year 2030. You will also note in there that um just to kind of give you some round numbers. If we were to move into the space and uh continue the lease until 2030, would which would also uh keep us from renewing the other two leases that we have, we anticipate a savings to the county of somewhere around 900,000 dollars. So at the end of the day, it's a benefit to um to this office as well as to the county for us to move into that space. Okay, great. Thank you, madam solicitor. Um questions, comments from the committee members. Yes, Commissioner Johnson. Question? Good afternoon, how are you? Good. Good to see. Um, just wanted to make sure.