I call this March 9th meeting of the Government Operations Committee to order.

Let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Good afternoon.

Councilwoman Nash is unable to attend, so she asked me to lead this meeting.

And I wanted to welcome County Council Member Renee Knapp here.

We invited her to be here because of our first agenda item is a presentation from Family Connects, a home visiting program for parents in Frederick County.

And we thought that she'd benefit from hearing the information as much as we will.

And our second agenda item is a presentation from the building permits and code enforcement department about residential rental licensing.

One of my budget priorities, I'm recommending partial funding for the Family Connects program.

They're here to give an overview of the program, share findings, and discuss funding challenges.

And on a personal note, um, I have had the privilege of having a nurse come after my daughter was born and several of my friends too, and it was an invaluable experience.

So thank you so much for the work that you do, and thank you for being here.

So, Ms.

Pillar, um Olivo and the Family Connects team, I welcome you and take it away.

All right, great.

My name is Heather Kirby, and I am Vice President and Chief Population Health Officer at Frederick Health.

And I'm just gonna do a quick introduction of what we look to cover today, and then talk a little bit about our team.

So we're gonna tell our story, kind of how Family Connects came to Frederick County, talk a little bit about the Family Connects model, what we do, some of our outcome metrics, as well as you'll hear a few family stories, and then talk about our commitment to inclusion and respect.

So we'll share some of that with you as well, and then talk about our sustainability and the challenges into twenty twenty-seven and beyond.

So I am the executive sponsor for the program at Frederick Health.

Brandon Blake is our director of home care operations, and he is the director overseeing the program.

Lori Sprecker is here with us this afternoon, and she's our clinical manager, as well as we've worked very closely with PLR at Adepta and Dr.

Rachel Mandel, who have just been absolutely instrumental from the concept to implementation and through sustainability, as well as working with the coalition for a healthier Frederick County and Malcolm Fergle, who serves as the executive director.

So we know babies thrive when parents have the health care they need and have support from their community.

And the first few weeks after delivery are a critical time for for birth parents and babies.

We also are very concerned about what we see that non-Hispanic black women die from pregnancy-related causes at 2.8 times the rate of non-Hispanic white women here in Maryland.

We also know from the research that 94% of new newborn families of newborns have some kind of need or risk.

So it's very high, very vulnerable time.

We also know from the research on brain development how important serve and return activities right from birth are for building strong brain architecture and how that leads to lifelong health and well-being.

And I undiagnosed maternal and untreated maternal depression anxiety can leave a lasting impact on children's development.

So this on multiple ways, this time is a very important time for us to focus on.

So our origin story is that the hospital and the health department collaborate on a community health needs assessment every three years.

And back in 2017, now going way back then, a group of early childhood advocates was learning about the impact of adverse childhood experiences on brain development.

And they began raising awareness about the importance of this science.

The hospital and the community health and the Coalition for Healthier Frederick County and the health department identified adverse childhood experiences as a priority for the community health needs assessment and then also for health planning in that area.

There was six years of local health work done to plan to prevent, treat, and intervene for adverse childhood experiences.

I had the opportunity to lead that work group in a role for Frederick County.

As a result of the pandemic, the county received ARPA funds, as did the city, and county executive Gardner made a significant investment to launch Family Connects Frederick County.

The grant to Frederick Health was the single largest investment of ARPA dollars that she made at that time because she saw how instrumental the research could be.

She thought this could really set our community on a new trajectory.

As a result, we launched Family Connects Frederick County on January 1st, 2023.

So you're probably wondering why we chose Family Connects as the program that we would be funded for by this money.

This is just some of the research that we looked at that led us in that direction.

And this comes out of Duke, who did the original research for Family Connects.

It showed reduced ED and overnight stays for infants up to 12 months after their visit, reduced CPS investigations up to five years after the visit.

That's sustainability, right?

Reduced postpartum depression, increased community connections, and reduced health disparities for African American families.

So if we take a look at that data, at least just two components of it, and we look at it on the graph.

The family connects families are the blue line, and the families who did not get the service is the red line.

And you can see in terms of the ED and overnight stays for infants up to 12 months, there was significant reduction.

So even after six months, that still persisted and showed you that decrease in those admissions and those ED visits.

The CPS data I find incredibly compelling because we know what has to happen in a household in order for somebody to be referred to CPS.

There's got to be a lot of dysfunction, there's got to be a lot of negative activities in the home.

There's got to be real concern for how the children are doing.

And even after five years, there was a 39% reduction of the family connects families compared to the ones who did not participate.

When you get that kind of an improvement, not only does it impact positively the family, but it really is a community issue in terms of how it impacts all of us.

So it reduces racial disparities, and the data showed that there was a high rate of participation and acceptance across all groups.

And among black non-Hispanic families, there was a decrease in maternal anxiety, maternal depression, father non-support, child emergency medical care, and child maltreatment investigations.

All of these significant in of themselves.

So one thing that's really key about this program, and it's universal.

It's not risk-focused, meaning a lot of programs will screen people and say, you're at risk, we're going to provide a service for you.

What that doesn't take into account that a lot of people don't know that they may have an issue or a concern, or things may develop after the risk screening.

So the intent is that everybody is offered the service.

And part of that is to reduce stigma that's created by those risk-based models.

Oh, look at you, you have an issue.

That's really uncomfortable for people.

They don't like that, and they're less likely than potentially to pick up that service and run with it.

It also normalizes that service as something that's standard.

Everybody gets this.

This is nothing unusual or different about it.

So you just run with it.

So on a population health level, it increases participation.

And what people don't think about sometimes is that virtually everybody has a need.

Everybody needs something.

You might not think about it at the time, but everybody's gonna need something.

So it identifies families in a traditional risk-based assessment, but it also identifies all of those people who might not have had an obvious risk.

These risks turn up later.

They may turn up after they leave the hospital.

Maybe something they don't think about, or maybe it's after their support leaves and goes back to work or goes back to wherever they live, and then they realize they need some additional support.

And maternal health disparities for African American families crosses education, insurance, and income levels.

And sometimes it's really hard to identify the people that really need some support unless the program is universal, and everybody gets it.

Okay.

I'm going to turn things over now to Lori, our clinical manager.

Thank you.

Is this still one?

Okay.

Hi, I'm Laurie.

I'm the clinical manager for Family Connects.

Um, I just wanted to talk a little bit about the family and how it is universal.

It is an evidence-based model, as Dr.

Mandel had said, and it provides high quality care without the stigma because it's for all families, regardless of their income or background.

And the cost to the families, there's no cost because it's covered with the grant.

And we usually see um families around the three-week mark when they get home, and that's the time really between the time of birth and the time that the six-week visit is for their OBGYN.

And all of the visits are made with a registered nurse who has background in mother and baby um care.

We go over an assessment of the birthing parent and also of the baby.

And then we also talk to them about their health care plans, making sure they have their follow-up visits, make sure they're seeing the if they have a PCP.

Most people don't have a primary care doctor when they're young and they're healthy and they're seeing their OB for their entire pregnancy.

Sometimes they don't have a PCP, and we make sure that that's something they're linked to afterwards.

We also do a lot of education regarding the baby, um, child care plans.

Do they have immediate child care plans and how does their child care look in the future as they may be going back to work?

We talk about the parent-child relationship, how is that going?

And we're looking for bonding as we're doing our assessment.

We also talk a lot about infant crying, what's normal, what's not normal.

We typically do spend a lot of time on household material and safety.

We talk we do a an assessment of their home.

It's like a like a visual assessment, really, and also asking them what do they need?

What is it that they're lacking?

Do they need material supports?

Um, we also talk about a history of parenting difficulty.

How is their childhood growing up?

Do they want to do things the same way or do they want to do things differently?

And we can give them educationists and help support them in that if they want to do things differently.

We also talk about parent well-being, we do a depression screener while we're in the home, we ask them who their support systems are, and we also give them options to help them with support, especially if they're new to the area, we we really try to help them with that.

And then we also talk about substance use in the home, and if that's an issue for them, we can address that while we're there as well.

Can we talk about the intimate partner violence?

Sure, we do an intimate partner violence screener.

We also do a um alcohol and drug abuse screener, and as well as the depression screener.

Um, and we can, if both parents are there for the screener, then we try to find a different time to talk to them about interpersonal violence.

We don't want to create any sort of you know stress for the for either parent.

Um, and we do find occasionally where we need to give them some um resources related to that.

Oh, yeah, sure.

So one of the main things that we are um seeing in maternal health is high blood pressure.

And a lot of times that's caught at the hospital.

And but sometimes high blood pressure can creep on up after they go home, it's called postpartum preclampsia.

And when we have found patients with high blood pressure, which they didn't have at the hospital or before, that's really catching it early before they go back for their six-week visit.

And that can be a very dangerous thing if blood pressure sometimes they don't have any symptoms, sometimes they do have symptoms, but they don't recognize those symptoms.

So really helping them know about their blood pressure, and if it's super high, reaching out to the OB, maybe sending them to the hospital, um, or just kind of monitoring it so they know when that could be in a dangerous type of uh range.

We do um most of our visits are called the integrated home visit, that's at the three-week mark.

However, we do do targeted early visits.

So recently at a patient who called, um, she was home just one day and she was really struggling with breastfeeding.

Um so we were able to make an appointment for her the very next day, have a lactation consultant from our team go see them and really put her on that right path for um breastfeeding.

Sometimes um the nurses at the hospital may recognize that a patient is having issues with struggling with depression or anxiety, we can go see them early for that, or if a patient is uh baby maybe not gaining or has lost extra weight at the hospital, we can make that extra visit to do an early weight check.

And then we do targeted home follow-up visits for um parents who would like them.

Sometimes it's for they just want to have their questions and make sure that they're connected, but a lot of times it's for maybe a weight gain, or they want their car seat installed installed because they're not sure if it's correct, and we do have two members of our team who can do car seat installations.

And sometimes nurses get to the house and they recognize that there's some lactation issues maybe beyond what they're comfortable with, so they refer them to the lactation consultant as well.

So I I I just wanted to talk a little bit about our clinical staff.

Um we have one full-time manager, that's me.

We have a um medical director who's.

She's a pediatrician in the ER at Frederick Health.

Um we have uh clinic community alignment specialist that does the outreach to different community resources.

She's full-time.

We have six FTEs of nurses.

We really have 11 nurses on our team.

Um, but five of them are full-time and the rest are part-time.

And we do have a bereavement specialist on our team that sees patients who may have um experienced a loss during their pregnancy.

Uh we have two full-time program support specialists that work at the hospital that sign people up at Frederick Health, and then we have a community health worker who's bilingual.

Two of our nurses are bilingual, and one of our program specialists is bilingual as well in Spanish.

So this is great data.

So we have since 2023 of January up until December of 2025, we have served in the whole county um 3,997 families, which is awesome.

And this data shows you Frederick Health data, which is um where we have people stationed to sign patients up for those, and our population reaches a 65%.

So that means that 65% of the patients who uh are eligible and sign up have that home visit.

All county 40% of patients in Frederick County deliver outside of Frederick Health.

So we don't have those support specialists that are at those other hospitals like Shady Grove, Innova, Meredith.

And we rely on them to self-refer.

So that that population reach is still fairly good at 49%.

So half of the population in Frederick County is being seen by a family connects nurse, which is great.

Also, we just wanted to recognize that Frederick County was the um was able to be certified through Frederick Family Cat Family, sorry through Family Connects International.

We were certified in eight months, which is the fastest they've ever seen.

Yeah, the fastest site that was ever certified.

So we met all their criteria to be certified within that eight months.

And then we wanted to share that 65% of families that are being seen are uh Frederick City residents.

So the zip codes of 21701, 2, 3, and 4.

Um 65% of families that are being seen are Frederick County residents.

Frederick City residents.

Oh sure.

Um we're gonna skip the next two, but we I'd like to introduce uh Alyssa Frederick and Catherine Dorsey, um, who were on our leadership advisory council and also were participants in our Family Connects service.

Hello, good afternoon.

Thank you for allowing me some time to speak.

I decided to write my notes instead of uh going off uh the top.

So when I was discharged from the hospital after giving birth, everything seemed normal.

My medical chart looked good, my recovery was on track, and I felt relieved to be heading home with my baby girl Aurora.

I had no idea that within just a few days, a routine nurse visit would reveal a life-threatening condition developing silently in my body.

Looking back, I can say with absolute certainty, Family Connects saved my life.

After coming home, I scheduled my Family Connects nurse visit, which is a service I initially viewed as a helpful resources, not a critical one.

When my nurse Gillian arrived, she began with the standard assessments, checking on the baby, asking about feedings, reviewing my recovery, and then taking my vital signs.

That's when everything changed.

My blood pressure was extremely high.

It was 168 over 98, far beyond anything that I could that could safely be monitored at home and far beyond anything I'd ever experienced in my life.

I felt mostly fine and likely would have dismissed any slight discomfort I had been feeling, but Jillian did not dismiss it, and she acted immediately.

Within minutes, she explained the serious of my numbers and contacted my provider, and I was rushed back to the hospital where I was diagnosed with postnatal pre-clampsia, which is a dangerous condition that often goes unnoticed, especially in black women, because many women don't experience complications after being charged and discharged in good health.

Once admitted, my diastolic blood pressure maxed out at around 110.

The doctors told me that if another day or two had passed, the consequences would have been catastrophic.

So I owe it to Gillian and to the Family Connects team for intervening exactly when I needed it.

Even after I was stabilized and released, Family Connects continued to support me.

They checked in to monitor my blood pressure, helped me understand my medications, and ensured I had the right tools at home to stay safe, including a blood pressure cuff that I got to keep.

Beyond the medical care, the prog the program offered something I didn't expect.

Real support in everyday work of caring for a newborn.

Their lactation guidance after my second discharge was invaluable.

When feeding challenges arose, something no one ever prepares you for, they helped me troubleshoot, adjust, and regain confidence in feeding my baby.

Today, when I think about that first home visit, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude.

What seemed like a simple postpartum check-in ended up being the reason I'm here today.

Healthy and able to care for my body and my baby.

Family Connects isn't just a program, it's a lifeline, and in my case, quite literally, it saved my life.

Thank you so much for sharing your story.

Good afternoon.

Um is it baby blues or PMAD?

Is it stress or tiredness, or is it postpartum hyperdependent hypertension?

My name is Katherine Dorsey, and I'm here to give my support to Family Connects.

And you may wonder why I started with those questions, and it is because as Alyssa just alluded to, Family Connects saves lives.

And I know it sounds extreme when we say that, I can be dramatic, but it is my reality.

It's Alyssa's reality, and it's many of the others who have utilized the services of Family Connects reality.

If our friend Erica Blake was here, she would tell you about how her husband's best friend died by suicide as a result of postpartum psychosis and depression.

One in five women suffer from perinatal mood and anxiety disorder.

If you are experiencing baby blues in the first two weeks, that's normal.

If you're experiencing it beyond that, it is not normal.

And Family Connects is really bridging that gap to help women by coming out at three weeks to assess whether or not you're having any challenges.

Having experienced a second trimester loss in 2023, I knew it was important to have someone looking out for me and looking out for my baby.

I had a high risk pregnancy, and even with the support of a therapist, I didn't know what my mental health would look like or what my emotions would be or how it would feel physically.

So I thought having a nurse visit me would be a great way for my would be great for my well-being and in turn would be great for my child's well-being.

Lori was here.

She visited my home and she immediately made me feel comfortable through her conversational approach.

She included my husband and my son, and at no point did I feel pressured or uncomfortable or like she was judging me.

She completed a mental health screen, because again, one in five women, and they believe that number is actually more than that.

She checked on my baby's weight and health, and she completed a blood pressure track on me.

She checked my blood pressure three times during the visit, and it was slightly elevated at 127 over 85.

The nurse at my OB's office said they would not even see me for that reading, but Lori was concerned.

She went above and beyond.

She texted me, she said, if I bring you a blood pressure monitor, would you use it?

And like, sure.

So over the next couple of days, I watched my blood pressure climb.

And finally, when it got to 154 over 101, I reached out to Lori and she said, You need to call your OB now.

And now for me, this is new.

My blood pressure has always been excellent, so this was worrisome.

I I I really thought that I was doing it wrong.

She said, No, you're not, go tell your doctor.

My doctor got me in immediately, and they confirmed my blood pressure was 154 over 101 after checking it three times, and they immediately started me on medication to lower my blood pressure.

Postpartum preoclampsia, which while rare, is a serious condition that can cause serious complications, including seizures, brain damage, stroke, and death.

One in 10 women suffer from hypertension, postpartum hypertension, and it is a leading cause of readmission with 43% diagnosed after their initial hospital discharge.

And as a black woman, that risk is even higher as it affects black women at a rate 60% higher than white women and is a leading cause of maternal death.

If it weren't for Lori and her due diligence, I wouldn't have known about my blood pressure.

I, like Alyssa, would have just chalked it up.

Lack of sleep, I was getting, and I had a newborn baby, I had a five-year-old son, could have been anything.

I could have ended up in the emergency room and I could have died.

So when I say family connect saves lives, I'm not being facetious.

I'm not being dramatic.

They say it takes a village to raise a child, and family connects is part of that village.

They will look after you even when no one else will.

Postpartum women do not see their OB for six weeks after giving birth, even though complications are more likely to happen within the first weeks after giving birth.

Having Family Connects nurses who do home visits at three weeks helps to bridge that gap.

Even if nothing is wrong, Family Connects is peace of mind.

They're a powerful resource, whether they're providing supplies like diapers and formula, whether they're providing referrals for lactation support, wick, whatever it is that the mom needs, whether they're connecting into resources or simply checking in, they provide an essential service which every woman, regardless of race or economic status, should take advantage of and should have access to.

Thank you.

So one that's one focus that's very important to us is inclusion, listening, support, and respect.

Well, before we get to that, I want to share with you our most recent statistics about what percent, like what the demographics are of families to participate and family connects.

And they pretty closely resemble the the birth, the population of birthing parents in our community.

That's what we're trying to compare to.

And so you'll see the only variation has to do with multiracial, which is a function of how that's counted.

So in our system, multiracial is those who identify as any race plus Hispanic, and in the state system, it's just race and not including Hispanic.

So there's some variation there.

Um we worked with IRIS Inclusion, local inclusion expert, inclusion and equity expert to do a lot of training at this before at the start of our of our project.

And as we as we worked with Michael, one of the things that he encouraged us to do is think about how to have really explicit conversations with the family about our goals for inclusion, our enclosed our goals for respecting, listening, supporting them.

And this was a new idea for our team because I think as nurses, they felt that that is part of their profession.

But they came to see how important it is to really explicitly discuss what our goal is at the start of the visit.

So the nurses created a script for themselves that they were comfortable with.

We brought that script to our leadership advisory council, and they gave us feedback on how that script would go, how we would collect information about how that conversation would go with families, because we wanted to document it that the conversation happened during the visit, and we wanted to follow up and see if there was an impact as a result of that conversation and the visit itself.

So the conversations happens at the start.

If I made you uncomfortable in any way.

Um based on those families who for whom the the nurse identified a risk.

So we successfully connect uh uh with eight families with 80% of those referrals.

So that is very high, those we're matching families to referrals very, very well.

In 2025, we gave out almost 4300 referrals to families with newborns.

That's on average 3.1 per family.

So we're really connecting families to a lot of resources.

And I want to mention that at the start, when we before we launched this service, we actually tried to do listening sessions with families with newborns, and we tried to recruit through our local maternal child health service providers, and many of them really struggled to identify families who had very young babies.

We want, you know, the first six months.

Once you get past those, you kind of forget what life was like during that time because it's very absorbing to every period's very absorbing.

So we know that many of our local maternal child health service providers may not have very regular contact with families with newborns.

So we are connecting families with local resources.

We find about 50% of our referrals are for some kind of health care need, and a little over 30% are for some kind of material need, household support.

And that percentage has been actually increasing over 2025.

Families are experiencing increasing financial insecurity.

But when we talk to them about how listened to and how respected they feel across the board, and this is these are calls with over 1,400 families during the time period, and 99% of them said they always felt listened to, and the same percentage said they always felt respected by the nurse.

We're very proud of this.

So we've talked about referrals, but Family Connects is more than just a nurse visit.

It's it's more than referrals.

We are connecting to community systems, and we do have two community alignment boards that we have some representatives here from one of them.

But we interact regularly with the Frederick County Health Department's maternal child health collaborative.

We present quarterly to them on our performance.

We ask them questions about how we're doing.

Participating Heather and I and Dr.

Mandel participate in the planning solutions and identifying responses.

And then we continued to support the coalition for a healthier Frederick County through the ACES work group in doing performance reporting and alignment as long as that work group was in place.

It's no longer a priority for for um the coalition, but we continue to try to align with their work on um systemic racism.

So I mentioned we have two community advisory boards.

We convene a group of maternal child health service providers.

Um so they know what we're doing, how we can collaborate.

Um that's part of our accountability and transparency, but also how we can figure out where there are gaps in our community and how we can work together to fill those gaps.

And we also convene our leadership advisory council, and you met two of our members, um Kat and Alyssa, as families with lived experience, they participate.

But we also have um Councilman Derek Shacklford is that, former council county executive Jan Gardner is on that.

We also have birth dualers, um, black maternal health advocates also participate in that.

And I'd like to welcome Dr.

Ywande Oladende here as a member of our leadership advisory council to speak about about the Leadership Advisory Council.

Good afternoon.

My name is Ywande Ola Denghi, and I am I wear multiple hats, but for this purpose, I'm a member of the Leadership Advisory Council for Family Connects.

And I think it's also pertinent to note that I'm also one of the co-founders of Black Mamas Building Bridges, which is a group, excuse me, I just which is a group um founded by four um black mothers, and it's really about advocating for equitable maternal and child health in Frederick County.

So the leadership advisory council plays a vital role in the success of the program.

And the council includes, you know, like Lar said, mothers with lived experience, so Alyssa and Um Kat are two of the mothers, but also it includes other community members.

So we have, you know, I don't even know how many we are.

We have 11 people that are part of this.

And in addition, it includes people, you know, we have a pediatrician, we have a public health professional, we have um, you know, private funders.

So we have like Lee from the Oshaman Foundation, who's also a part of this.

And together we guide the program to ensure that it's responsive to the needs of Frederick County families.

So our role is really threefold, and the first is to provide strategic guidance and oversight.

So we help ensure that the program is implemented with fidelity.

So as you've heard, Family Connects is an evidence-based program, and there's certain um milestones that need to be met for you to be evidence-based.

And so Laurie and her team have done this phenomenal job in ensuring that um we meet implementation fidelity.

So as the leadership advisory council, we also provide that oversight.

And we also ensure that in addition to meeting implementation fidelity, that it's also meeting the unique needs of the diverse families that it's supposed to serve in Frederick County.

And the only reason we can bring that um oversight is because we all come from diverse backgrounds and we represent different uh facets of Frederick of the City of Frederick and the county.

The second role that we play is that we help in strengthening partnerships across the community.

So one of the greatest um strengths that I think Family Connects has is the ability to connect families to the services they may need.

So whenever the visits are being done, um different needs are identified.

And I don't know if this was mentioned before, but I remember that in I think it was 2023, during one of our leadership advisory council meetings when I think it was Laurie that was presenting at the time, and she talked about when the nurses went to visit a home, they realized that the family needed diapers, and they were coming across that need when they go to different homes.

And so during the meeting, we had a brainstorming session, and Lee was right there, Lee from the Oshman Foundation, and she was like, Well, you know, we can the Oshaman Foundation can support the need for diapers.

And I think before the end of that year, we had like what, 90,000 diapers.

And the beauty of it was that because we had different community partners there, they were able to, we're all able to come up with um distribution, how they would be distributed, the diapers, so churches, community-based organizations and things like that.

Can I just add?

Yeah.

So the partnership is very interesting.

It it involves the Frederick Rescue Mission.

Frederick Health uses its purchasing powers to take that gift from Osherman Family Foundation, and $20,000 becomes two million diapers.

So the challenge is distribution.

It's a distribution challenge because it's a lot of diapers to distribute across our community.

Um, but they are now distributing at rescue mission, at CareNet, at the Judy Centers, at Asian American Center, at we did have a diaper bank, but it's it's been closed for a bit, and as well as many elementary schools.

Almost all of the county operated uh child and family services also request diapers through this partnership.

So that's one way I think the leadership advisory council also plays a role because we come from you know this diverse backgrounds and we're able to help you know come up with different ideas along with the team to um address some of the needs that are identified.

And then the last thing, the last point I want to make is that we also champion equity and access.

So you've heard that the program is universal, right?

In the sense that you know everybody has access to the program in Frederick County as long as you're a Frederick County resident that you know has a baby, delivers a baby.

And so it being universal, you know, we also realize that it's not a one-size-fits-all approach.

So you still have to be targeted in the sense that you may go to a home and find out what the needs are in that home, and through the leadership advisory council and with the staff, they're able to, we're able to come up with okay, is it food?

Are they food insecure?

And um, what are the options for them to be able to get food to that family?

So it reaches families who may not otherwise seek or receive support.

And um the council ensures that the program remains inclusive, culturally responsive, and accessible to all families, regardless of their income, background or circumstance.

And um the last thing I want to mention, I think somebody had mentioned it before, is that you know, sometimes the focus is always on the mother, right?

The mother and the newborn, and sometimes the fathers uh not really the main um center of attention when it comes to this.

And so I've heard stories during the process where you know the nurses go to the home and they also check on the father.

I think there was one that resonates with me where uh Laure had shared that one of the nurses was talking about, you know, also talk to the dad to see how the dad was doing, and and the dad was shocked that you know nobody really asks how the dad is doing when it comes to this.

So, with all that being said, um, as a leadership advisory council, we're committed to ensuring that the Family Connects program continues to grow as a trusted resource for families, and also looking for um possible approaches to make it a sustainable program so that more families can benefit in the county and this in the city and in the county.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

So I'd like to share um Heather mentioned that we are just completing an independent evaluation.

Um, American Institutes for Research is our evaluator, and the interim evaluation report is out now.

So, what this is uh we did not do a random control trial.

We did uh used a quasi-experimental design to compare what was happening in 2022, just before the start of the service, to the following two and a half years.

And what the researchers found is that there was a rising trend in healthcare spending on mothers and babies through emergency department visits, overnight stays, and observations, and then in the subsequent two and a half years.

First there was an immediate drop in the in drop reduced spending and then a trend in lowered spending over that time period.

So these are trends.

The results were not significant according to conventional statistical measurements, but they feel that this is a strong trend.

It's economically meaningful, and the trend results in a return of an return on investment of $4.10 for every dollar invested in home visiting services.

I want to mention that this interim report, the data was not stratified by race, ethnicity, and insurance type or college or education level, but that uh stratification will be done in the final report.

So our path to sustainability.

Um as we looked, I mean, part of the charge as for this project was always to identify a path to sustainability.

And as we looked across the country to what other the Family Connects is is not unique to Frederick County.

There are two other sites in Maryland, there are 60 other sites across the country, and what we're seeing is that increasingly states were saying this is a model that should be implemented for all families across our state, and that enables them then to implement insurance reimbursement through Medicaid and private insurance to help defray much of the cost.

So these states, Oregon, New Jersey, Ohio, and New Mexico are now implementing statewide.

Um Louisiana is big is looking at um institute beginning a statewide implementation.

Oregon is using private and Medicaid insurance reimbursement, and that's through a mandate.

Um Jersey, Ohio are using general funds for at this point, but they are implementing across the whole state.

Um I'm not sure about how New Mexico is funding their statewide implementation.

I think many states begin with general funds and then they move to implement mandates so that because it can take time to do that.

So when we looked at that, we thought, okay, that's a a path to sustainability that that we we need to examine because grant funding for a project like this is um it's kind of beyond the scope of what local funders will take on.

Um so uh we're very grateful that delegate Ken Kerr and Senator Karen Lewis Young saw the opportunity of Family Connects.

Um they sponsored legislation to implement Family Connect statewide.

Over the course of that um last legislative session, it became a work group uh on newborn home visiting services.

Um the governor signed that bill, and the work group was convened and met last year and can finished its final report.

I had the opportunity to serve as vice chair, Senator Karen Lewis Young was also on that work group.

And the work group um did issue uh recommendations to implement a universal plus targeted home visiting system of services for all families in uh in Maryland with newborns.

Um there are many, many uh points to that, but um, but there's both an infrastructure side of that as you can imagine, there's data alignment, there's uh both the service delivery as well as how do you have a workforce when you have a nursing shortage, uh all kinds of financing discussions, resource needs, but the bottom line is the recommendations include are focused on a universal system of home visiting for all families with newborns, as well as a mechanism to do to implement braided funding, which would combine private insurance, state and federal funds, um, and the uh so that and so that is all in there.

The state recommended identified they thought it would take three to five years to implement all of the recommendations.

And this is sitting right now with the Maryland Department of Health, who sees it as its, you know, it's it's within its purview to move these recommendations forward.

So the other components have to do with public awareness and governance.

As you can see, it's very important to have families with lived experience helping to shape the project.

And this final report calls for that as well.

So we are excited about the moving these uh final rec these recommendations from the final report on the work group forward, but at the same time, we have a fantastic set of services here in Frederick County that we want to keep going.

All right.

So I'm gonna close this out and just talk briefly about some of our challenges.

So as PLR mentioned, we were very fortunate to receive a fantastic seed funding from the county executive.

That funding will run out November 30th of 2026.

So that's fast approaching.

And we have been pursuing a variety of options for some gap funding until we got to the point where hopefully the state can make that recommendation and fund the universal implementation.

So right now, Maryland Department of Health is estimating, as PLR said, that could take three to five years.

So right now we're looking at what does that interim funding look like?

Our gap for fiscal year 2027 is about 960,000.

So again, we have funding through November.

We need another 960,000 in order to continue to operate the fund the program through June, and then another 1.7 million to continue operating the year beyond that.

Next slide.

And we are happy to answer any questions that you have.

Council members, do you have any questions?

I have I've got a couple.

First, thank you all very much for your presentation and for your testimony.

It's really a great program.

Uh understanding you have done the analysis on dollars over months in terms of savings, about $3,000.

Um do we know I'm sorry, per participating family.

And that's a great metric.

And I'm just wondering from a moral standpoint, we ought to be doing this.

But just to back up to the economics, do we know if infant deaths and maternal deaths and maternal depressions have all decreased?

We have the economic data that you shared, but do we have any of the other count data?

Um we don't have that data.

So the maternal mortality review commission report for 2023 has not been released yet by the State, so we don't know to what extent maternal deaths have changed, and they do a kind of rolling average over five every five years.

Um we don't have that data.

Okay.

And I understand, but I'm just thinking about other ways to explain the value of this program.

So FHH has FHH done an independent study from its perspective to say, oh, yes, emergency room admissions for this population are down or yeah, we have seen a reduction in emergency room visits as well as the cost of care for families coming to the emergency room.

So we have seen that reduction.

And I will say on the Frederick Health side, fortunately, Frederick County has a pretty low infant mortality rate.

So, you know, we're anxious to see what the state data looks like.

Great.

Thank you.

Uh are we able to help undocumented families where there's a newborn with their needs in this world that we live in?

Is uh there's extraordinary needs that those families are experiencing?

Yes.

We are able to help them.

We've seen that families welcome a nurse visit their home.

We've seen no drop off.

We we don't collect immigration status.

So we have no information on that.

All we can say is that Spanish-speaking families accept the visit at have been accepting the visit at a very consistent high rate, and we see no drop-off.

The concerns that nurses bring to us is that it is very difficult for them to advise and connect families to local resources because they are reluctant to leave their homes.

Sure.

You had mentioned that the State of Maryland has NDE, Maryland Department of Health has said yes, we're going to do this statewide.

Was that funded and we're waiting for the State to put a program together, or is that unfunded until the program gets put together?

Was that funded and we are waiting for the State to put a program together, or is that unfunded until the program gets put together?

There is no funding in place yet.

Okay.

There is a funding mechanism.

It is called the Maternal Child Health Population Health Improvement Fund.

It is a fund that is going to expire on December 2031, 2027.

So that fund would need to be made permanent and probably adjusted for inflation.

It's actually funding a lot of maternal health improvement programs right now, like the doula, like Medicaid reimbursement for doulas, Medicaid reimbursement for centering pregnancy, as well as home some of the Medicaid reimbursement for two home visiting long-term home visiting programs.

And is that funding being cut because the state is in a deficit situation and there is just not enough funds or no, it's not being cut.

It's just it's just expires.

So it has to be reauthorized.

It has to be reauthorized.

And is our delegation aware of that?

Senator Lewis Young is aware.

It was one of the recommendations of the Maryland Work Group, and she was very supportive of that.

Okay, great.

The time period for reauthorization would be the next legislative session.

Next May or next January, February.

Yes, next next January.

Thank you.

And the last one is if the if it's a $960,000 gap, am I correct in my logic of multiplying 65% of that since 65 percent of the clients are coming from the City of Frederick to see what the hypothetical City of Frederick share would be?

Is that well you could certainly do that, yes.

Is there a better way?

We would be very happy with that approach.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

That was it.

Thank you.

Those are great questions.

Just to follow up with what Peter was asking.

Um these are general questions.

You don't have to get into the very specifics, more touchy feely.

With the Federal and State level, are you seeing do you get any funds from these from the Federal or State?

We have County ARPA funds.

Okay.

100 percent.

So you don't have funding sources outside of that from the Feds and the State?

Not yet.

Okay.

That's what I would I was gonna say, not yet.

Yeah.

We we are planning to apply for Federal support for the program as well.

Okay.

Um and do you have I know it's early?

Do you have a commitment from the county for additional funding?

We have a county executive Fitzwater has been extremely supportive of Family Connects.

It has been a legislative priority of hers last year and this year.

Um she is supporting our request for a congressionally directed spending.

I just sent the letter of support to her this morning.

She has we have both a grant request in front of the county as well as a budget request.

I only have one question, because I know a lot about your program, and I love your program so much.

But you did mention two other um home visiting programs, and that's um well, I'm familiar with two.

Um Nurse Family Partnership and Healthy Families America.

Are families in Frederick eligible for that?

Oh, thanks for that.

We have one uh Healthy Families program here in Frederick County.

It serves about 60 families per year, but that is 60 families with children who are newborns or prenatally until they are age five.

So long term?

They are long-term, it's a long-term intensive program.

It is operated by the Mental Health Association of Frederick County.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

No.

No, yeah.

Another budget question.

Uh you mentioned county grant, county budget, uh, federal grant.

Uh there might have been a fourth one I'm missing.

Could you develop a simple spreadsheet of what funds you you are asking for, what you think you'll get, because that would help me at least when it comes to city budget discussions, understand kind of the range of what the ask would look like.

Sure.

And and then is all of this, all of this funding is needed starting in on July 1, 2026 for the 2027 or the year after.

Actually, December 1st, because our ARPA funds will support the program through November 30th of 2026.

So we have funding through the end of November.

So then we need funding to pick up on December 1st.

And is it the $960,000 or the $1.2 million?

And is it the $960,000 or the $1.2 million is it full year or half year?

That's from December 1st, 2026 until June 30th, 2027.

That's the portion that we need to raise for that time period.

Thank you.

So really the budget for the year is almost double that.

Our annual budget is 1.7 million.

Got it.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for everyone that came and your testimony.

This was this was very invaluable.

And then for for Councilmember Knapp to be here.

So we will continue to gather information and the request that Councilmember Brem had about that spreadsheet.

That would be very valuable for us.

And then so we'll gather the information to determine our next steps.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next up, we will update on the rental licensing ordinance.

Good afternoon, Dustin Newsbaum, Chief Building Code official for the City of Frederick.

Good afternoon.

Brittany Parks, manager of code enforcement for the City of Frederick.

So this afternoon we're going to run through the residential rental license report that is required through the ordinance.

So to start the first slide shows you the rental housing licenses, new license for the calendar year of 2025 was 519 new license issued.

And you can see with the pie graph the different numbers that were pooled through apartments, condos, single families, townhomes, and duplexes.

And as of 2025, there was a total of 8,063 total rental licenses.

This slide here for is the random inspections, which is the 15 percent or at least 15 percent of random inspections that is required through the ordinance.

You will see that there was a total of 1,182 random inspections completed.

And at the first inspection, 1,01 of those passed that inspection.

And I think Brittany is going to run over a couple of percentage points that is a comparison to last year's numbers to this year's numbers.

So last year we completed 802 uh random inspections compared to this year's 1182.

Um and again, last year, the first inspection, we had 65 percent of them pass on the initial inspection.

That number is up this year, up to 85 percent passing on that initial inspection.

So what that is telling us is that the education of the program um is working.

Property owners and tenants are understanding what the expectations are on those minimum maintenance standards, and then we are starting to meet those maintenance standards.

The next one, the next slide is the number of inspection reports issued, which those inspection reports are issued once an inspection fails.

And it gives the um property management, the property owner, some direction on what they need to correct.

Um as you can see, the the majority of the exterior requirements was operable windows.

Um painted shut, cult shut, which we need to have emergency egress rescue openings in each bedroom, is what that is.

Um for the interior inspections, uh smoke and alarms is a high number, and then surfaces, which would be general cleanliness of those services.

Can you give more of an example of surfaces and cleanliness of it, especially if there is a renter occupied and is it about their cleanliness?

You know?

Sure, absolutely.

And we also let property owners know what we are inspecting too.

Um that information is posted on the city's website, so property owners are prepared when we come out for that inspection.

Um but to answer your question, interior services would be things like a water leak, um, a hole in a wall, um, a lot of property owners with children banging doors, and then we don't take care of those things.

Um so it's all the interior services within the structure.

Thank you.

And then the next slide that shows is this the special fund of the funds that have been um or expenditures that we have been provided out.

So you can see the rental assistance fund has 150,000 and then affordable housing was allocated to 263,000.

Is this how much money we have right now?

No, it isn't it is not.

That is what's been allocated for the expenditures.

Oh, okay, thanks.

Uh I can give you that data.

Just give me one second.

I can actually the total fund of the special funds.

Right now the balance is 921,106.

Which you can see in your special in your executive summary.

And then just in conclusion, we want to to uh reiterate that the city council's goal in establishing the proactive residential rental license program to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public.

Uh we would like to thank all the property owners, their agents and tenants for their cooperation throughout the registration inspection process and for ensuring that the properties met compliance.

Anyway, feel free to open with any questions.

We got Jody with HHS here to jump in if if needed.

Thank you.

Question.

So just to make sure I got it right, I did a quick add here, but of the 921,010, based upon council directions on how to spend the money, we could spend 404,053 for affordable housing conservation and 517 and change for rental assistance.

Is that a correct understanding?

Yes, per the executive summary, correct.

That that is what is in that bat.

That is what is in the special fund right now that can be allocated.

Based upon the percentages that council voted on the last time we voted on how to spend the money.

Correct.

Yeah, because it used to be three, I believe it was three separate funds and they merged it to two, right?

Correct.

And so then the next question, thank you, Jody.

But the the question is uh what why do we have those funds let is there not a need for rental assistance?

Is there not a need for affordable housing funds, or is there something else afoot in terms of why the money is sitting in a bank account?

Yes, because no program has been yet been developed about how to conduct that advertising, the grant application, and how we will assess how that will be distributed.

My understanding is that there was some amount of pressure to get a distribution out because of the funding that was sitting in the fund.

So this was some sort of interim decision and grant making process until my job was created.

So this certainly is on my radar as well as Director Stewart's radar and probably will be part of the output from the task force.

Um I I guess related to that and uh without beyond shelter and habitat here.

Do you know if they could use now those funds beyond shelter for rental assistance and habitat for the affordable housing?

Yes.

Uh one of the things uh that I want to point out, and I'm sorry I just caught this, Dustin, is that the rental assistance and the affordable housing numbers are backwards.

Okay.

They're flip-flopped.

So um I did have a lengthy conversation with Habitat, um, and they still have some of this funding.

So they haven't spent all their money.

Okay.

Um I have not yet spoken to beyond shelter about it.

And the reason I ask, and this is of course a council decision.

I I wonder if we shouldn't make another emergency, let's make sure the money is not in a bank account, but out helping people stay in their rental units decision before we have uh an application program in place.

I don't know.

Right, right.

I mean, I could reach out to uh Nick and find out if they still have any of this funding.

I mean they were allocated.

Um the 263s, I don't know if they've expended all that.

And by the way, they just actually received that funding in December.

Yes.

Why did they just receive that funding in December?

It's a long story.

Um, but it took a long time from the application that started in February of last year to the final council meeting, which I believe was in October.

And then it took some time for the distribution.

Sorry, what was the time?

Can you walk me through the timeline again?

I'm just trying to take notes.

Yep.

They made the applications were due February 25.

I believe there were two additional council meetings after that original one.

I think they told me one was in June and then the final one was in October.

And then once the ones were done in October, it took time for grant agreements to be signed and checks to be cut.

So they literally just received the funding in December.

Is there anything council can do to speed up the grant making process?

I don't know.

I mean at this time I don't really know.

We're hoping to come back to you with a good process that you'll be able to give input on.

But right now we don't have one.

Okay.

And has the mayor's task force been formed yet?

Yes.

Is it met?

No.

March 19th is the first meeting.

So that's April, May.

Okay.

I'm I'm again this is just talking out loud.

I wonder if there isn't a way that we could speed up the timeline for getting the application processes created prior to the conclusion of the mayor's task force.

I will bring that up to Director Stewart.

We're presenting for you tomorrow on the same issue and other housing programs for the city.

Maybe I can find out a little more information between now and then for you.

Okay.

And again, just philosophically, and I know you share this.

Money sitting in the bank is doing tenants no good.

We need to get it out on the street and in the hands of people who can use it.

So thank you.

That's it.

Councilmember Atkins?

Uh quick easy questions for you.

When was the program established?

2023.

Yep.

Um how many inspectors do you have for the Do you have a dedicated inspectors for is they doing double duty?

So the the all the inspectors, which is a total of nine uh good enforcement inspectors, they all participate in this.

Two, correct, Brittany, were allocated as part of that.

They were new employees when this program was established.

Okay.

And then the question is you mentioned that rounding it off, 1,200 inspections were completed.

Is that what we should expect every year about 1,200 inspections or give or take?

I I would say give or take.

Um so last year was probably the lower number because that was the first poll.

Right.

Now that we've had two years of complete rental license, I mean, hopefully we have them all, but that you know, when a new apartments lose, you know, after eight years, that's when they would have to apply for the rental license.

Okay.

And then the last question, I'm sorry I forget your name.

I'm sorry, I don't even know if I introduced myself.

Jody.

Jody Ostech, Housing Policy Advisor.

Jody Joe.

Um for the rental assistance and the affordable housing.

What do we this is more of a Nick Brown question, or whoever receives the funds?

What do we expect them to do with the money?

Is there like are we helping with rent assistance?

Are we helping keeping people in their house by upgrading their or replacing their central air or what exactly is involved?

You're on the right track.

Okay.

So for beyond shelter, yes, they would do exactly that.

They would help prevent evictions, um, possibly utility payments and things like that, which really goes to whether or not people can retain their housing.

Sure.

Uh for habitat, they are using it for their owner-occupied home repair program, which is typically uh senior population that they are doing modifications on homes for them.

So usually it's health and safety.

Okay.

Um then uh I guess Jody, maybe not for you.

Um it's more in your department.

Um CDBG program.

Is or is this tying in with the rental assistance and the affordable housing, or are you taking that off in a different direction?

Um CDBG is not tying into this.

It is its own beast.

Right.

Um we're actually in the middle of the granting process currently, so I know that we will be in front of the council for our funding recommendations for that.

Okay.

Um I think that's it.

Thanks.

Okay.

I have a few.

Um first.

I love this annually to look back at the numbers and how things worked.

So in your opinion, what could be improved and what are the barriers to meet the intention of this ordinance?

So with this is being the second year of the inspections, we're trying to and honestly the first year of renewals.

So as of January 1st, the renewals were, you know, they were supposed to be all renewed.

So we're working through that.

And once we get through that process of what's our barriers and getting um property management companies to renew things of that nature, that's when we would have more like a recommendation to kind of you know fix, tweak the ordinance where it needs to be tweaked.

Okay, thank you.

Um so you have a list of how many um rental license you have.

And these, okay, can you tell me who needs to do this?

I heard that if it's newer than eight years, they don't need to apply for a rental license.

Is that correct?

Correct, yes.

Uh grab that ordinance.

So it's it's it's any residential rental property that is that had obtained a CO, use of augment or search for certificate of occupy that has been longer than eight years ago.

There that's the one of the triggers.

The other exceptions, exemptions to this ordinance is state funding, if they're receiving state funding, county funding, which then is required in an inspection by the state or county.

That that is really the trigger that doesn't require a license as if they are um obtaining an inspection from another entity.

Okay, and that goes on the assumption that newer newer properties wouldn't be deteriorating.

Sure.

I I believe that's why yes.

Okay.

Um do you also um handle complaints?

So going on off of that eight-year, are you seeing complaints from any any units that are newer than eight years?

We do.

Um our department handles both residential rent rental licensing as well as just general code complaints.

So to answer your question, yes, but not under necessarily the rental program because they're currently exempt.

Um the standards that we use for the rental program are the same standards that we use for property maintenance.

Um so the the International Um Code Council has the international property maintenance code, which was adopted by the City of Frederick.

We just recently adopted the 2021 version.

Um there's a subset of those standards that have been adopted for rental licensing specifically just for minimum maintenance.

Um, but we use that entire book for all properties throughout the City of Frederick.

Um so to answer your question, yes, we do see complaints.

Would it be possible for you to share the number of complaints and also um if this isn't too much of an ask to see the difference between the newer ones and the older ones?

If you can filter it that way.

Just want to make sure that this number of eight years or this uh threshold of eight years makes sense.

Um another question: do we know how many total units there are in Frederick?

Since we are capturing some of the this information, but I think I know the answer.

Yeah, at the time we started the program, uh what we found was we were expecting there to be around 10,500 um rentals in the City of Frederick.

Right now we license about 8,000 of those.

Um of the things that we are doing on the code side is when we do get a complaint, staff now goes into our registration system to determine whether or not that property has a rental license.

So we are starting to capture sort of those other properties that didn't come in on the initial inception of this program.

Um are short-term rentals included.

Yes, they are.

Okay.

So do we have a list of all those short-term rentals so we know how many there are?

We do not separate them, so a rental is a rental, regardless of whether it's short-term, long-term, any duration.

Um it's just defined as the housing unit, if you're renting it, it is required to be registered.

Okay, so would that be possible to going forward to collect that information if it's an Airbnb or VRBO or something else?

Um I don't think just off the top of my head, probably not, because we're not asking those questions when we go in for the rental.

Um we have a property in order, they register, the inspector just goes in and does the inspection of the property.

So we're not asking those questions at the time of the inspection.

I just I just have a little bit of a question.

Just have a little to add on that.

So just to follow up with Brittany, I mean we have an application process.

Could we ask those questions?

Is this a short-term rental?

We could.

Okay.

But how accurate that would be the license is good for two years.

So if it's a short-term rental now and then the homeowner decides to change it to a long-term rental, we we wouldn't capture that if that makes sense.

But so to build upon Council Member Taylor's great questions.

Uh public works tomorrow, we'll hear an overview of rental licensing, pilot, MPDU.

And then we're going to come back for a deep dive on rental licensing.

And part of that is going to be to talk about the database and the licensing process.

And the other is going to be to talk about how we spend those funds.

And that's why I'm interested in a faster timeline on how we could get those money out to the public.

But not for today, but what I would like you to think about and come back and share with us is what are the advantages and limitations?

This is a public works question now.

What are the advantages and limitations of having every rental in the city, not wait for eight years?

The day it's built and given a C of O, we put it in the database.

And ADUs, they go in the database.

Right now it says they're an exemption, but I'm I'm so I'm I'm spending a tail for all this, but ADUs, Airbnb, or the short-term rentals, new new units and all that.

How we and the other question is can we separate the fee?

So if it's an ADU for mom and dad, maybe the fee is ten dollars for two years.

I'm making that up.

And but where if it's a it's a commercial rental, it's the $240.

If it's under eight years, maybe it's a lesser fee as well.

I I don't know.

But to me, because the ordinance says we have two goals.

We want to make sure we have quality living spaces for our tenants.

And the second is we want to know how many rental units we have out in the population.

And so back on your good point about how do we police Airbnbs, right now it's a complaint driven, not the inspections, but the way permitting generally works is complaint business driven, is that correct?

So the feedback I've had from District 3 neighbors is if the Airbnbs are wrecking their life.

And so when the complaint goes in, then we'll know A, it's a rental, and then the inspector will discover, oh, it's an Airbnb, and now we have fines that can be kicked in.

I'm making all this up as well.

I'm just spinning kind of the direction I would like us to head as it relates to the rental licensing database and and how the fees work out.

And again, you are hearing my opinion, not the council's opinion, and they may say, no, we're not going to do that, and that's okay.

So j just to just get clarity on some of your questions.

Sure, sure.

Airbnb would it possibly be a different fee than a regular question?

I'm I'm imagining that, but maybe not.

Okay.

Um then just to go with the the units that are newer or newer than than eight years old.

Um yeah, I mean, could could we capture them?

Yes.

Um it's just a policy change of on what exemptions I mean, right now, like you caught the ADU, they are exempt because if the you're required to live at the property if you have an ADU, it's got to be your primary residence.

And then if you have one rental, then it is not required.

If you have more than one, then that's when that would kick it in.

Correct.

Um but I mean, honestly, that's a department decision, council members' decision to make um on that.

Now, staffing, because if and that's up to you on the inspections.

I mean, we we could possibly, you know, you're gonna add another I don't know, three three to five hundred inspections to staff that we are not equipped with right now.

Right.

And there's a good example.

Uh is it possible, and this may be from a system standpoint too complicated to accomplish, but could we make sure that the new unit is registered at some different fee than the $240, and it's waived from an inspection standpoint for eight years?

Because again, my goal is to get a database of all of the units, not necessarily raise $240 from every unit or make every unit be inspected, because again, I understand eight years seems like a reasonable time before it it might could need an inspection.

Uh uh agreed.

Um our application, you you can go online and look at that application and open gov, um, and it's just a question and answer.

We can put whatever questions we want in there, but the applicant has to provide the correct data.

Do you does the council want staff members to go in there and look at STAT for every 10,000, 12,000 properties to say, here is when the property was built, here's when the CO was obtained.

It's gonna, in my opinion, fall back on the applicant to give us those answers.

Right.

So maybe maybe the database has a timer that says, oh, you registered in 2005, every year the renewal is your seven years, six years, five years, four years, up this year you have to pay, or go for the inspection, whatever it is.

So anyway, uh not today, but just at some point we're gonna come back and revisit the rental licensing database and and the fees.

So I just wanted to tee that up.

And you may have other ideas about how we could expand it.

But my ultimate philosophical goal is a database that has every rental unit, whether it's a house, an apartment, a condo, an ADU, it's all in there because then we have knowledge in order to take action when we need to on different things.

So agreed.

And just uh just for food for thought, you could uh capture all the rentals, and then the ones that are exempt don't pay a fee at all.

That way at least we have those rentals in a bucket.

We have them captured.

So that's just a an another thought.

I think if we're not doing if we're not even going to I mean if we don't issue them a license, we don't do an inspection, that's what that $240 is for on our end, and then to go to the special fund as well.

Good, good.

Well again more to come as we get further along in public work.

So thank you.

All right any other questions?

Me neither.

All right thank you so much.

This is really informative.

And that is that completes our agenda.

So our meeting is adjourned.