Good morning.

Today is Tuesday, October 7th at 8 32 in the morning.

And I call the late county health and community services committee meeting to order.

In addition to being able to attend in person, remote attendance has been made available to the public via Zoom at the link on the agenda.

The meeting is being recorded through Zoom.

Per county board rules in the open meetings act, attendance via remote means is permitted for qualifying reasons as long as the majority of committee members are physically present, which we do have today.

Do we have any?

No members have requested to be uh available via Zoom.

All right.

Can Member Kenesnik join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

In the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under an indivisible with liberty and justice.

Thank you.

All right.

May I have a roll call of members, please?

Yes.

Question Altenberg?

Here.

Member Kasman.

Here.

Member Cunningham.

Yeah.

Member Dan Forth.

Member Kinesnik?

Here.

Member Maine.

Chair Parrett.

Here.

All right.

We have a quorum.

Is there any addenda to the agenda?

No addenda to the agenda.

Do we have any public comments?

No public comment.

Right.

Uh, chair's remarks.

I don't have any.

Just welcome everyone.

And uh big.

Sorry.

Anything else?

Mine.

Chair's remarks, unfinished business, any unfinished business.

No unfinished business.

All right.

Regular agenda.

Let's move to a regular agenda.

The consent agenda 8.1.

Is the is the approval of the uh minutes from September 22nd.

I have a motion.

Motion by Member Cunningham, second by member Casbin.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

8.2.

So our regular agenda is a joint resolution approving the first amendment to the program year 2025, United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Annual Action Plan.

May I have a motion?

Motion by Member Altenburg, second by Member Cunningham.

Welcome, Dominic.

Morning committee.

Dominic Strazo Community Development Administrator.

In our initial program year 2025 annual action plan, we had allocated funding to three projects that were seeking low-income housing tax credits in the 2025 round.

One was successful, two are not.

Of the two that were not, one of those projects had both CDBG and home dollars allocated to it.

So in this amendment, we're proposing reallocating the 200 roughly 200,000 of CDBG from that uh project into projects that would be able to spend in time for our timeliness test coming up on March 1st.

Um the projects would come from the full circle communities project.

That was the acquisition rehab and apartment complex in Wakanda, and it would go into two acquisition projects, one with community partners for affordable housing or SEPA, another one with Clearbrook, and then a sidewalk replacement project with the city of Zion.

And that is all driven by the timeliness test coming up in March.

Um, CDBG tighter timely, tighter spending requirements than home.

And uh we do have some home dollars allocated to the full circle project.

They are have full intent on reapplying for tax credits in 2026, uh, coming up in February.

All right.

Um, thank you, Dominic.

Questions from the committee?

Come uh, member Kasman.

Uh not a question, uh, just a comment that I won't be able to vote on this due to being on the PADS board.

Ah, okay.

Any questions from the committee?

All right, seeing those.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Abstain.

Any opposed?

Motion passes.

All right.

We'll move to item 8.3, which is a presentation on the completion of the emergency rental assistance program.

Welcome, Director Wagner.

Good morning, members of the committee.

Uh, this morning we're celebrating the success of our emergency rental assistance or ERA fund closeout.

This is a multi-year program that was initiated deep in the COVID pandemic through federal funds designed to mitigate the economic and housing related dislocation effects of the pandemic and to help facilitate the long recovery process.

Dominic and his team are very modest about their successes, but I feel this is an opportunity to recognize their incredible achievement in running this successful program.

Before Dominic begins his presentation, I'll note that the county's program helped thousands of residents during the pandemic and after, at a time when housing instability was at its peak.

It was hard work, but more importantly, it was very strategic work.

Their strategy was unique among states and counties across the country.

Community development built our own program rather than deferring their eligible funds to the state of Illinois in order to maximize dollars spent within Lake County itself.

They ramped up their staffing with temporary support and partnered with finance and the Bronner Group to develop a smooth and accountable workflow and to prevent fraud.

They also enlisted community partners to process applications, including several townships to reach low-income residents where they live.

And also nonprofits like Catholic Charities, Manawamano, and SEPA to do outreach to racial and ethnic minorities.

Their program was so deep and far reaching that they successfully spent all of their initial funds and were able to get an award of additional reallocated federal funds to do even more programming.

And finally, they were able to maintain program flexibility by pivoting in the latter stages of their ERA program to eviction prevention and housing production.

All in all, this is perhaps the largest and most successful federal housing initiative that our community development team has ever led.

And it was a sight to behold.

I'll now introduce Dominic who walk us through the success of the program.

Thanks, Eric.

So with the closing of federal fiscal year 2025 on September 30th, the performance period on our emergency rental assistance fund or ERA funds also came to a close.

So it's a good opportunity for us to come back to committee and kind of talk about how things went.

So here ARS is the funding source we're talking about.

There were two funding rounds within ERA, ERA one and ERA two.

And I do want to kind of start at the beginning.

That initial appropriation of ERA $1, that 20 million dollars came through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021.

That was signed into law in December of 2020.

And there was obviously a lot going on during that time.

We had a good idea on the size, or we knew that the need around housing was extreme.

So that 20 million dollars certainly was a relief for us to receive.

But the decision to accept those funds, as Eric mentioned, wasn't as straightforward as you might think.

There were some significant strings attached to those dollars.

The big one being the initial performance period was only a year.

They were set to expire in December of 2021.

And to give you an idea of scale, you know, 20 million dollars.

The action plan we just amended contains about $5 million of our funds.

That's usually what we handle in CDBG or in it within our entitlement program.

So this is four years of funding in one year to spend it.

Um it was not a straightforward decision.

And a lot of eligible entities chose to defer those funds.

The total appropriation amount uh across the country was about $25 billion for rental assistance.

Over a billion dollars was voluntary reallocated.

And that was mostly from cities and counties allocating their funds to the state program.

And we were having those conversations as well in December.

We met with Ida, they're the entity that administered the state housing rental program.

They were used to running rental programs.

We were not, they were used to that kind of amount that scale of dollars.

We were not.

But ultimately, the negotiation broke down around the guarantee that the 20 million dollars would be guaranteed to be spent on Lake County residents.

So the decision was made to stand up our own program.

Um, it was not a decision that was without risk for sure.

Um, but ultimately it was rewarded, again, as Eric mentioned, and that is in that second column, the additional funding column, although the dollars there are relatively small compared to the initial appropriation.

Just being able to be eligible for those dollars, I think was a big achievement.

Um, within just ERA one, over 361 million dollars was involuntary recaptured by entities across the country.

So for us to be put in a position where not only we didn't have any money taken back, but we were able to give more was a significant achievement.

And then along with ERA too, um, that second appropriation, over a hundred entities chose to completely not accept that round of funding.

We were able to accept those dollars, administer a program, and then get additional funding.

So at the time we didn't really know kind of what we were doing, I would say.

Um, but looking back, uh there was a lot of good work being done.

any money taken back but we were able to give more um was a significant achievement and then along with ERA too um that second appropriation over a hundred entities chose to completely not accept that round of funding we were able to accept those dollars administer a program and then get additional funding so at the time we didn't really know kind of what we were doing I would say um but looking back uh there was a lot of good work being done so that's a little bit about the funding here's the programs and kind of how we spent it and it does get a little confusing with some acronyms here it helps me to think about these chronologically the initial program that we put out was FARA the federal emergency rental assistance program that was the main one I'd say over 90% of the ERA dollars went through FARA and I'll show that distribution in a second here but the second one Lake County rental assistant LCRA very similar to FARA in terms of eligibility the big difference there is the timing and the idea behind LCRA was we were already starting to look how to sunset the rental assistance program.

We knew the subsidies were coming to an end so that was a little bit of a step down in terms of the amount assistance the dollars and everything was kind of trending downward at that time and I did want to mention the third program that some a very small amount of ERA did go to support that's the eviction prevention program.

There's a little bit overlap in terms of time but a main difference there with that program is around eligibility to be eligible for those dollars you had to have an action active eviction case with the courts much smaller in terms of eligible recipient the the people served and the dollars amount but there was some ERA funds that went to support that program just a little detail on the programs themselves fair again this was the big one total program costs around 35 million dollars that does include include administrative cost for us and our partners just shy of 5000 household serves Eric mentioned some of the providers we had eight townships along with Catholic charities community action partnerships CEPA the YWCA and several others this was true truly a community coming together to get these dollars out we knew we couldn't do it alone the housing authority also played a big part in terms of helping us get applications in and process these dollars some of the rules around it were maximum of 12 months of assistance those are some of the things that we could pay for including late fees utilities and security deposits and internet this was the biggest one we did again chewed up most of the dollars the second one uh LCRA much smaller in terms of dollars uh and households assisted we only worked with six providers here including Catholic charities CAP SEPA the housing authority mono waukeegan township and those were then that those were the six providers we stepped down cut the amount number of months of assistance in half and if you did receive funding in the first program that counted toward your six month maximum as well so there wasn't too much duplication there as well and again I should mention all these household assistance are all the data today is unduplicated households there's not no duplicate between programs or or with the state as well and then lastly the eviction prevention program the smallest dollar amount smallest household assistance really only worked with two providers and that was SIPA and Mono and O I mentioned you had to have the current court case and a maximum of 12 months assisted so those were the the programs that spent those dollars I'd say roughly 36 of the 37 million dollars went toward rental assistance including a piece for administration but the direct costs was substantial this was a pretty lean program we capped um the admin cost at 10% which is pretty good looking back considering we were kind of building this from scratch so here's some of the the numbers around the direct rental assistance FARA was 32 million dollars and if you kind of pencil out the households assisted it worked to be a roughly six thousand dollars per household LCRA a step back from that and then the last one 7,000 again that was the 12 months of assistance so that one was the most expensive per household and just again the funding sources ERA was not the only funding source within these programs FARA was mainly 99% ERA but with LCRA and EPP there was some ARPA slurf dollars in them as well and SLURF is the state and local fiscal recovery funds those were the dollars appropriated obviously by the county board but they went to help those last two programs just a little bit um of some like crosstabs on the households assisted this is strictly around the ERA one and two so this is by funding source um that too much um standing out within here the data and the demographics generally represent kind of our rental community I think the big one is the big number on the bottom just shy of 5,000 households assisted with ERA dollars um that's a that's a pretty substantial number and those are successful applications.

This one, the beneficiaries by income level.

There is some some conclusions to be drawn here.

The big one being obviously that the majority of beneficiaries being at the lowest income level.

That was by design.

We were tried to be strategic about who we were reaching.

And that was also an um stress by treasury.

They wanted to see these dollars reach those in the most need.

So our program design, um, the data from our program reflects that we were successful in targeting those at the lowest end of the income spectrum.

So that was good to see.

And then moving on from the rental assistance portion.

I mentioned we talked about sunsetting that program, and there was a decision in 2024, we had about a million dollars of ERA2 funds left.

The statute around ERA2 allowed for some alternate uses.

I think the thinking being they needed a way to close out these grants.

So they did allow for funding to support the construction and development of rental housing.

And so in July, the board approved just over a million dollars to support the development of Starlink senior apartments.

And that was a new construction low-income housing tax credit project in Lake Villa.

And those dollars obviously were allocated to that project.

Construction started in September of 2024.

And they're about finishing construction now.

Um, so just information on that project itself.

Um, the million dollars of ERA, it's 40 units, senior 55 and older, 15 units for lower under 30%, and 25 for less than 60 percent.

They are at the point where they don't have a certificate uh occupancy yet, but it will be within the next, I'd say for certainly within the next month, hopefully within the next week.

They're accepting applications.

Um the project itself looks great, and it's a it's a nice successful project out in Lake Villa.

And that um that is how we wound up the dollars.

That was the last million dollars of ERA to left, but just kind of looking back on ERA in general, some of the big numbers that we went through.

Over 11,000 applications were reviewed and received.

Not obviously not everyone was funded.

The the funding rate was around 56%.

Um if you take the households and kind of extrapolate out, there's over 12,000 residents assisted.

We paid for over 38,000 months of rental assistance, and then of course, we did create 40 units of permanent affordable housing out in Lake Villa.

So a lot of money, um, a lot of time, a lot of effort.

This, if you look at the time frame, um December 2020 obviously predates me.

This project and this effort was led up by uh my predecessor, Brenda O'Connell.

She deserves a lot of credits, and um certainly other CD staff, namely Penny Rafelson and Michelle Slaugh played a big role in getting this project across the line.

So thank you to them as well.

And just questions on ERA.

Question Kasmin, Member Kazman.

Um, thank you.

And I can't tell you how impressed I am uh by this program and the fact that you were able to keep all of these dollars in Lake County by taking on a whole lot of work.

And I'm sure there was a lot of anxiety and stress.

I think federal funding is always interesting.

There's always a lot of compliance.

And I just want to say I really appreciate all of you, Brenda, the staff.

Thank you.

Um one thing I've learned in housing is that an ounce of prevention definitely equals a pound of cure.

I was wondering, is there any, and you may not have this right at off the top of your head, I don't expect you to, but is there any research that's been done since these dollars have gone through that estimates the amount of dollars total saved um by taxpayers by preventing people from losing their apartments, losing their housing?

Or is there a general guideline?

I don't think there's too much quantitatively, but anecdotally specifically around that eviction program, the feedback, you know, um CD staff worked closely with the courts on that and the feedback we were getting from the courts, the judges and the people worked within the eviction prevention program.

They were very excited to get those dollars.

They were they would talk about how to keep funding going because they don't know, I didn't they weren't quantifying it, but they were giving feedback on how happy they were with the program and how it was helping them see benefit on the back end.

I don't know about certainly it's true.

I mean, housing saves money, keeping people in the homes and um, but I don't I don't have it's it's tough to quantify that.

Sorry, is it okay to question?

Yeah, thanks.

Um I think it'd be very interesting to work on finding some permanent funding source for an eviction permanent eviction pro prevention program.

I'd be interested in working with you on how much money that would be per year based on the number of cases that come through and where we might seek that funding.

So let's do that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I just had one question.

Do we have a sense of the uh geographic breakdown?

Is that possible?

Could we see that ultimately?

I believe we have it by zip code.

Okay.

We do have it by zip code.

Okay.

Thank you.

I mean, obviously, really, oh, member Altenberg, did you have a question?

Yeah.

Okay.

I just real well, I mean, obviously, yeah.

Thank you so much.

I mean, it was really impressive to see all the work that and I know Brenda was really uh involved deeply back then.

So thank you for for all the great work.

Um I I mean, I'd love to see at some point just like if you guys can present this in in um in to other counties of like how how well you've done this and and best practice.

I don't know if you guys have done that yet, but uh I think there could be learnings for other communities as well.

We talked with them, all that uh you know, the dozen or so recipients, you know, we're all on that those state calls, and there was there was a lot of back and forth on that whether to not to accept these funds.

It was it was a tough call.

Thank you.

Member Altamer.

So again, I don't want to be repetitive, but you guys did an incredible job, and I know how hard Brenda worked on these things, and um, you know, much appreciation goes out to her, goes out to all of you because this was a very heavy lift.

Um are we the only county outside of Cook that like started our own entity like this?

I I think that one of the unique features of this program is that we enlisted so many community partners to help us with the program.

And and as far as we can tell, that is that's a really unique strategy across the country.

There might be a handful of other communities that have done it that way, but we really felt that in order to deeply penetrate within the community, we needed to have essentially boots on the ground.

We needed to meet people where they were at, and that's why we enlisted both the townships and the nonprofits to achieve that sort of target of you know working with low-income residents and uh ethnic and racial minorities.

And it was very successful in that regard.

If you remember the statistics that Dominic shared with the uh slideshow, so I I'd say that um, you know, this is an example of sort of building the airplane while you're flying it.

But we managed to fly it.

I mean, it was it was flight worthy and it kept going for you know, for the last several years.

And so that's um that's a testament to how adaptive and creative people can be under that kind of unique pressure.

I think the next time we have you know some major crisis at the national lever level.

Well, we're we know we've ex we have experience in the trenches in figuring out how to how to accommodate the community needs as as you know expertly as possible.

So I think this is a good, you know, to the the question about like best practices.

I think we have an example of that here where we were able to build a program from scratch and run it effectively and be rewarded by the federal government for doing it so well.

Thank you.

Member Kneesna.

Thank you.

Um I just really want to say um these are the share some of the thoughts have been going through my head while I've been listening to your report.

Um for you know, I'm 53 years old, and for my entire adult life, I've been hearing from the culture around me that you know government is the problem.

And as we're heading into an era at the federal level of a renewed intense focus and determination to impart fiscal austerity.

Um I, for one, would love it if my fellow board members would join me in trying to really lift up and celebrate and spread the word of this incredible story of government working the way it should when you invest in people.

And I also ask that we celebrate the program, but that we also point out, you know, directors Wagner, Strasso, and their entire team are so gifted and talented, and they could be using their skills in the corporate world.

And I, for one, am going to try to really spread the word and and lift up and share what a successful program that is this is, but also how it's an example of when you invest in really good people and trust them, uh, and you do it in government um or through government.

Um, the world's a better place, right?

And uh, so I just uh really stress enough how impressed I am with you and your team.

And I'm just I'm so humbled and proud to be any part of Lake County government.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Remember Cunningham comment about being on this committee 23 years.

Long than you have I've been on this committee ever since I came to County Commissioner.

And I just want to say to Dominic, I know Brenda started.

We had quite a few uh uh quite a few come through here.

I know Brenda started, but it's the one that finished it and keeps it.

That's what I look at.

That's what I get a credit to Dominique.

You you did such a great job.

Uh what Brendan left off on.

You picked it up and you kept it rolling.

And uh that's what we need to look at.

We can't go back what somebody else did.

But I know Brenda was good.

I can't say she wasn't, but I'm looking at what's in the front, what's in the future.

The future is what counts to me.

And uh I see this, and I see how hard Domini were he worked it hard before Brenda left, because he helped with this with Brenda.

So uh we we we have to look at what we got now, and we want to keep Dominique.

We don't want to lose because you got this county going real, real well.

And uh so these eight, these uh I get many calls about rent being need rent to get paid, and I called Dominic, he takes care of the business.

So uh uh I don't know how much the other commissioners know about all this in this program, but I did.

So uh we have to we have to support what we got, and Dominic knows I always gonna support him because what he comes up with is gonna be right.

He's for the the people of the county, not just uh having a job.

He's for the agency, he works with the different agencies.

I was at uh at uh um NACO.

I served on economic development and uh workforce board at NACO, and I hear the same thing there, I hear here.

Hyde works there.

So uh, and one lady from from uh DuPage, she said, you guys got a great housing development for y'all Lake County.

I said, Yes, we do, and no, like you don't think you're gonna steal him.

So uh you don't know who looking at you because our county is growing.

And when it growing, but we as county commissioners, we have to stand together because as we fall, the whole department's gonna fall.

So we have to stand together and say who we are because we represent the people's too.

He just taking it, taking it out for us and support, we support what he brings to us with no question.

So Dominique, keep it up.

You've done a great job.

You got a great person said and sat you air, Eric, I go back with Eric.

Great person.

I wake I don't work real, real closely with you.

So uh you that come on later, you don't know.

We got good staff.

So thank you.

All right, thank you.

Well said.

Any questions from the committee?

All right.

Thank you again so much, Genela.

Thank you.

All right, 8.4 is a joint resolution approving emergency appropriation of 40,355 for fiscal year 2025 and accepting additional funding from the Illinois Department of Public Health Comprehensive Health Protection Grant.

May I have a motion?

Motion by Kniesnik, second by Cunningham.

Welcome, Director Kritz and Director Hoff.

Thank you.

Great, thank you.

Just want to introduce and say you've got eight resolutions in front of you this morning, accepting additional funds for the health department.

Um that reflects the really hard work of the health department staff to try to secure additional resources for Lake County residents.

So it looks like a lot, it is a lot.

Um, but I think it's a good testament to bring your resources to help take care of our community.

So please introduce Lisa Kritz, the director of prevention.

Most of these programs fall under her purview, so she's here to share an update and answer questions.

Morning.

All right.

Um, yeah, I just to um follow up with that.

I was looking at all of these, and no new staff is gonna be hired with this money.

Um, maybe um an additional contract, but uh we're really excited because as we've all been discussing the federal cuts that um we may be seeing.

So it's nice to see this money coming in this year.

So the first one, um, do you want me to just go?

I mean, can we should I take one by one by one?

Or can we just go through all what's what's the easiest?

Um it's really up to you.

Yeah, we could do one by one.

Okay, so um the first one is 40,355 for um from IDPH for the um comprehensive pub uh protection grant.

Um this really goes to our communicable diseases program, our immunizations program, and then our environmental health um programs.

Um and uh as I said, um this is gonna go for existing salaries.

Um and uh continue that work.

So that's the first one.

Okay.

Um, you know what we could do is if you want to go through all of them, okay.

You can do is just take a vote at the very end on catch.

That's easier.

Okay.

Okay.

Um, then the second one is 40,000 um from the Greater Chicago food depository for our WIC program.

Um that funding actually came from the Illinois Commission to end hunger because they um believe that you know, WIC is a great way to um help with that initiative.

Um, and we are using current staff to do additional outreach and inreach, make sure we were keeping the clients and getting new clients.

I will just say as a sidebar here, because I saw that you'll be discussing impacts of um the federal shutdown.

Um, so I just wanted to say WIC, which is probably my biggest concern in prevention.

Um, the state is saying that we're good through October on funding.

So kind of we're waiting to see beyond that.

Um questions.

All right.

Should we go to I think there's questions?

Oh, Anne, please.

Member Main.

Thank you.

Um, this is this is not for the food.

It's for getting people to get in the program.

Correct.

Got it.

Thank you.

Yes, yes.

And keeping them.

And remember Kneesek.

Next.

Uh correct.

Yes.

October of this month.

This through this year.

Yeah.

So the one we're a week into.

Yes.

Um, so we're, you know, there the state had a meeting yesterday with WIC uh providers around the state.

They said they're good through October.

Um, and then it's sort of they'll see how much money then they have left to move forward.

I will say though that WIC is in the White House um uh proposals for funding, interestingly enough.

Good.

Um, but I will also say that I have concerns about what eligibility will look like um at some point, but um okay, so that's where we're at on that one.

Um, then there's uh $10,000 for our SUPS program.

That's where we go into schools and work with coalitions around Lake County um on youth alcohol and substance prevention.

Um currently schools we're in is Liberty High School, Libertyville, Highland Park Junior High Schools, and Fox Lake High School and two middle schools, but then there's other subs programs um in the county that do other areas.

Shall I continue?

Okay.

Um 129,822 for um our child and family connections program.

That's our early intervention program.

Um we uh increased salaries in that program um because we were woefully um behind, and so we we used it um for that.

Um and uh we there was more money put into the state budget last year for early intervention, so we were happy to see that.

Um then uh there's 413,800 for the better birth outcomes grant than that.

I just wanted to explain a little bit that our family case management program has the state changed it to better birth outcomes.

Uh some of the changes really have to do with age.

It used to go up to age one and two.

Now it's up to infants six months.

So pregnant women and infant six months, it's supposed to be more intense services, more nursing based, which we're very lucky because we have nurses.

Many uh areas around the state do not have nurses.

The state has been very pleased with our model because we are gonna send a nurse and a community health specialist out to the for the first visit so that we can um assess not only medical needs but um Esto needs.

Question by member main, sorry.

Yeah, I just wondering how holistic that services, like besides it's not just like a lactation consultant, it's broader just seeing that you know the study that came out the other day that black children.

Yes, yes, yes, and mostly related to education.

Keep them it's it's kind of amazing.

I look at pictures of my boys in their cribs with like bumpers, books, right?

One in which his face is like this because two brothers have crawled in his crib.

I mean, it's no bumpers anymore.

A lot of stuff, but um yeah, we understand things differently.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I think that um that's all 100%.

We've talked a lot about what kind of outreach we want to do.

Um, there's a list of eligibility, but um fortunately the state realized they can't kind of came out a little too narrow on the medical pieces, so they've expanded what we can do in terms of social determinants of health.

Um, and that gets into education.

And actually, another grant that I'm gonna discuss a following for IGRO also connects our families to um home visiting and educational programs.

So we just I just wanted to say so.

I'm also on a Cook County Commissioner started a panel discussion amongst all the collar counties, and I'm on that committee, and we go to these meetings and everybody is talking about the programs they're doing and comparing and trying to give each other ideas of how we can do better outreach in this area.

And I think it's it's really important.

And it's really interesting to hear what everybody's doing.

And there are so many services you would not even believe that the counties are offering to our families.

So I'm always impressed to hear the amazing outreach and you know what what mothers who feel like there isn't anything for them.

There is actually a lot for them, and we need to get spread that word out there that there is a lot of services to be had.

So thank you for talking about this.

Thanks.

Um, so the next one is 25,000 from the Stains Family Foundation, which is for IGRO, um, which is coordinated intake for precisely um home visiting and early education type of programs.

Um, and so we um do events and go to libraries and many libraries and try to sign up folks, and then we have a staff person that will say to a family, oh well, there's this, this, and this, let's let's figure out what's best for you.

And then those programs are talking to each other so that you're not in the midst of um several programs.

Um you get a or a member of Casmadu a question.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

I'm just wondering is there coordination or outreach with hospitals?

Um we j yes.

Um we are working with hospitals and especially for the better birth outcomes because we're trying to get um pregnant women and we are doing um uh a lot of outreach with the maternal fetal medicine programs, so because they'll be high risk by definition, and then we can um try to do our case management for those patients.

Um the next one is six thousand two hundred and fifty uh for the um it's for opioids, but I'm trying to remember which one.

Um, yes, it is the comprehensive health protection grant.

And this they added last year some money for um opioid overdose prevention, and we are using it to coordinate and expand our nalaxone distribution.

Um, and then uh we have 11,958 again from the comprehensive health protection grant.

This is new.

This is money for uh the RTB program, and um they specifically want us to uh do do um do direct observation therapy, make sure people are taking their meds for TB, and we already do that.

Um, but so we're getting funded to do that, which is really nice.

And um yeah, I have one question then and uh Chair Hart on the the Nalopzone are are we old are we distributing it or do we giving it to partners to distribute around?

Um we distribute it.

You can call the health department and get from the next person from all of the federally qualified set, or where do we from yes?

We have it there.

We have it with our need to know program, which is our STI program.

Um, then we have it in our behavioral health program, and they distribute it.

Um, so it's it's you know, we it's pretty easy to access through the health department.

There's other partners that actually do it.

Discuss that.

Um, but we're one of those partners.

Excellent.

Chair Hurt.

Thank you.

Just uh by the way, this is super impressive.

So thank you so much for this presentation.

And um, so this is a new program.

Can you please remind me?

So the TB people who have active TB, they have to be um, what is the word?

I should know it.

Sequestered or isolated.

Yeah, isolate.

Yeah, quarantine.

I should know it from COVID.

My goodness.

Um you black it out.

Yeah.

So is that still the case?

And that's why is that is that what we do?

And that's how you guys are monitoring.

Um, well, it depends on the situation, but the reason we monitor is because there's a lot of meds that go into um active and or latent cases.

So we want to make sure that they're taking them when they're supposed to take them.

Um, and there's numerous ones.

It's not necessarily because they're isolated, it's more because we're just ensuring that those meds get taken.

Got it.

And if somebody does have an active case of TB, are they isolated somewhere within the health department?

Like uh, or they're just in their home at home and okay, gotcha.

I mean, sometimes I mean we, you know, that's the plan.

And yeah, sometimes we have people that don't agree with that plan, and then we have to talk to the state's attorney's office.

But luckily, we've never had to act on anything.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

Would a member like to ask set a motion to take eight, four to eight eleven together?

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, amend the current motion.

Member can I say amends the current motion.

Amend it, Mary Ross Cunningham.

Second it.

All right.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

We're gonna move on to 8.12 with Director Sorino.

8.12 is a joint resolution approving a subaward amendment agreement with the College of Lake County for workforce development to provide services under CEGA workforce hub project authorizing an emergency appropriation amount of $697,862 and the increasing the authorization authorized food full-time headcount for the workforce development department by three positions.

All right.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by Member Cunningham, second by member Maine.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Um, CJ, the Climate Equitable Jobs Act is a state-funded initiative.

Workforce development works closely with the College of Lake County.

Um, this award was given last year, um, July 1st, 2024.

Um, and it took us about six months working collaboratively with CLC to build out the program.

Um, and then we did launch our first cohort in January.

Since January, we've had over 600 inquirants coming to us asking about the program, um, 275 applications, 96 individuals enrolled in the cohorts.

We have a cohort monthly that happens at Lakeshore Campus CLC.

It's a four-week program.

Um, 86 individuals completed that program, and 33 went on to no, that's wrong.

Um, over 50 went on to technical training, technical training in energy audit training, home inspector training, uh EV repair or HVAC, all taking place at College of Lake County.

We've had 33 complete that program, which includes four energy auditors, and that requires them to sit for three different state um certifications as well.

And they've been successful with all of those certifications.

Um, through this program, we uh serve um a large percentage are justice impacted, a large percentage have housing issues.

Um we serve individuals that are aging out of the foster care program and also displaced energy workers.

Part of this program is to ensure individuals are successful.

So we pay them to attend school for that bridge program, that four weeks we pay them for hours of attendance, as well as technical training as well.

We give them a stipend as well as some financial assistance to help definitely with housing, with some bills that they may have, um, as well as transportation.

We find a lot of times individuals need assistance getting their cars repaired in order to be successful in this program.

To date, we have 25 individuals that have found employment through this program as well.

Um so continuing to work with College of Lake County, our community partner, the community works as well.

And over the next year, we're looking to target another thousand individuals to inquire about the program, um, take about 500 applications, and then again, working with them on a monthly cohort.

And when the demand is there, we'll have two core hold two cohorts each month to serve an additional 172 through the bridge program.

And then again, transition several of them into the technical training.

HVAC seems to be one of the top training programs individuals are interested in and employers have the demand for as well.

Through this, we're going to be adding three positions because we're adding numbers.

Excellent.

Member Cunningham.

And this is a great program.

And it really helps all of especially our young keys and ones that lost jobs and ones that uh uh work board does a great job when it comes to when they need it when they go there.

They do so much.

I didn't know that they had the hand in so much till I got on the board three or four years ago.

And it really really helps the whole Lake County.

The whole Lake County.

And I it just I'm just uh amazed what all what all Jennifer and her staff does over there.

Because people called me, I said, go to workforce.

And believe me not.

I had a lady call me.

Uh I just got laid off.

I sent it to Jennifer to workforce and she got working here at the county in one day.

That's just how fast they get people to work.

They is good.

They good over there.

And that's why I support them all the time because I know what they're doing.

And I use it just amazing.

But now, can I vote on this by me on the executive board?

And oh, no, right.

That's right.

It's just information.

But anyway, Geneva, you keep it up because you got you got good people working for you over there.

They'll put them in the work.

They help them set up their resumes.

They do a lot for them in this in this program.

So and I love it.

I'm happy to be on it, but thank you.

Member Casbin.

So the um R3 zones, what are the qualifiers for to be identified as an R3 zone?

Oh, I do not have that in front of me.

So that is identified through the state of Illinois and it has a lot to do with the poverty level.

Okay.

In those areas.

So they look at the highest poverty levels throughout the state.

And I know that's one of the qualifiers, but not the only qualifier.

We probably Google it, right?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Um, I had a question, Director Sereno, for for the HVAC.

Is it just traditional HVAC type of work or do they focus something around climate specific?

So it is around climate specific.

So it is the traditional training with special training as well, um, integrated into it around clean energy.

Okay.

Um, and so most of your HVAC training today does entail clean energy integrated into it.

Okay.

Excellent.

All right.

Any questions from the committee?

All right.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

Yeah.

All right.

We're moving on to 8.13.

Which I believe we have Ashley here today.

So we will go through a presentation and update on the Lake County Opioid Settlement Funds with our opioid coordinator Ashley Watson.

Welcome, Ashley.

Okay, good morning.

I'm Ashley Watson with the um county administrator's office.

I am the new opioid coordinator within that office.

And I'm just gonna give you an update today about some of the work that I've been doing, uh, some of the impact that these dollars have already begun to have.

Community, and um just gonna share some of the progress with you.

Um, so in total with our opioid settlement funds, um, the lawsuit is comprised of of multiple different organizations that are having to pay out.

And in total, uh the United States is getting 5.7 or sorry, 57.1 billion dollars.

Um, this dollar amount does not include settlements that are still pending like that of Purdue Pharma, which is by and large the largest of the settlements that is expected to come from this money.

Um sorry, that five points or 57.1 does include Purdue Pharma, but when I do speak about the state and local levels, we will not be able to include Purdue Pharma in those amounts because they have not been settled.

And for that reason, we do not have the exact amounts allowed.

Um, Illinois is receiving 1.4 billion.

Again, that's not including Purdue and the other class actions that have not settled.

And Lake County currently, as of today, is looking at 9.25 million total.

The number is expected to increase when we have settled completely the Purdue and other class action lawsuits, which we are participating in.

I believe in total, there's at least three class action lawsuits in addition to Purdue that we are still waiting for funding from.

Do you know how much of the of the 57 billion is Purdue?

I do not know, unfortunately.

No, I don't have those numbers, but I'm happy to find them for you.

Currently, um, this is a spread of what has been allocated for Lake County.

Uh, all of the agencies are on the left hand side there with the total that they are expected to appropriate to Lake County next to them.

And then in the years or the columns that follow, you'll see year 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and how much we've received from each entity entity.

Um, and the left hand column where the names are listed, you'll also notice where it says PIF paid in full.

So some of those agencies have already paid entirely the debt that is owed to us.

Um, in total, we are expecting that 9.2 million, and we've received about half of that as of now.

Um, so we've received 4.5 um million as of so far today.

And then we are expecting another 4.6 again, not including that, which will come from Purdue Pharma.

Member Maine.

Thank you.

And thank you for letting me ask a question right now.

Uh, and maybe I missed something.

I'm a little confused by by this slide.

I don't know if anyone else is.

So you've listed all the places to the pharmacies.

So did the money go to them and then they send it to us, or some money coming directly from them to us because uh these are who these are who we've settled with.

Yeah.

So that's that's what I'm asking.

I I just hadn't seen it spread out this way to understand that all of those um, like the pharmacies and stuff like that.

Yeah, so there's several uh individuals who created the and manufactured the pills.

There's individuals involved in the case who are distributors of those pills.

These are like I'm looking at the distributors because PVS wasn't making their own.

Correct.

So they were a pharmacy spot.

They they were part of the settlement, yeah.

Um, and so yep, no problem.

And then again, there are a few that are not listed that have not settled yet that are also primarily by and large um distributors as well.

As um, there is a couple marketing agencies that were pulled into it as well for their role in.

Um Publicus is an advertising agency.

And McKinsey's the consultants.

Right.

So they all were, I think, positively also included in this in the settlement.

Uh as far as money out goes, we have begun spending more funding um this year with the rolling out of the grant program that we are doing.

Um, as you can see, these are our expenditures for 23, 24, and 25 as of August of this year.

Um primarily personnel is for the salary for the opioid coordinator as well as their benefits.

Uh, there's been small commodity purchases for laptop computers, office supplies.

Uh, the larger contractuals are for our strategic report that we hired Third Horizon to help us navigate, um, looking at and surveying the county to get a better idea of what the opioid impact looks like here and how we could best use this money to be the most effective.

And then also the money that was provided to the regional office of education via contract to create the opioid education program, which is curriculum for K through 12 that can be distributed and used within our schools here in Lake County.

Um, and then a small bit that was for travel and training.

Uh so far this year we've we have allocated $533,000 to grants and other things to support the work of the opioid settlement.

Uh and all of these things, anything that this money goes to has to go through the Illinois um opioid allocation agreement, which means it's bound to make sure that it's going specifically towards any work for those affected by the opioid epidemic.

So our grant program is the largest basis of what we are doing.

It is um currently a program of seven grantees that we awarded funding to back in April with them starting the grant year in May.

Uh, when we started the grant program, it was the goal of making sure we were doing evidence-based practices and supporting things that we know are working, looking to uh strategically target any disproportionately affected areas where we have a larger impact of the epidemic.

Um, this is primarily our areas where we have a larger population of persons of of color, primarily our black population who has been hit disproportionately by this epidemic, and then where we see our um the most of our fatal and non-fatal overdoses occurring.

And then again, just uh making sure that we were following the state overdose action plan and the core abatement strategies supplied for the use of these funds and making sure that everything that we are funding does fall within those categories.

Oh, Member Dan Forth, sorry.

I'm just curious.

You you're saying that the state of Illinois portion was allocated at it was over a billion dollars, you know, what that figure was.

Uh I think it's 1.4.

I'm just curious.

I mean, Lake County is such a large county.

We were divided up and just say there's 100 two counties, let's call it 100 counties.

We're getting one percent of the total amount, but we're such a large county.

Why how what is the criteria for the distribution of the fund funds?

Obviously, it's not population.

So it is by population.

Um, but there is a population component where they have to be over like 500,000 persons to be awarded a portion of the funds that the local level separately.

But the state level, primarily the money is going a lot of it is um over being dispersed still throughout throughout the counties.

So we still may see some of that Illinois money.

We can apply for that money as well, in addition to what's been allocated to us locally.

There's only what is there, three or four counties that are in excess of 500,000 in the state.

So we got allocated our own pool of funds.

Correct.

And then that's um in addition to the state's 1.4 billion.

Yes.

Okay.

So it's not that we are getting a portion of that 1.4 billion.

There is 1.4 for the entire state to treat this problem, and we've been awarded 900 um or I'm sorry, 9.2 million for us to do it here just locally.

When will we know what the state, if anything, is going to give to such a large county, Lake County?

So they have begun already.

Uh, there's an Illinois remediation board that meets um bi-monthly, and they have already begun to approve expenditures of these funds, and they have grant programs which are already in existence that we can apply for.

Um, I do know that the health department had interest in applying for some of these funds separately for the purpose of carrying out opioid settlement work.

And so that funding is already available, but it is upon an application basis.

It's not necessarily that we'll see a portion of that Illinois, but it is available available to all entities within Illinois.

And then one last question there are additional funds that potentially be available when the other entities settle.

Correct.

Okay.

Yep.

So as we move forward, those numbers will grow.

Yeah, primarily Purdue.

Thank you.

No problem.

Um great questions.

Thank you.

Really good question.

And then for our uh grant program, we wanted to look at something that was effective um at in decreasing our fatal and non-fatal overdoses by making sure that we were investing in those evidence-based practices, which show that they do just that.

And so all of the funding we did for our first year grant recipients all were evidence-based practices, which we know strategically lead to a decrease in fatal and non-fatal overdoses.

Um, and then we oh, member, member Maine, sorry.

So causal as opposed to correlative evidence there.

I mean, drug overdoses have cyclical trends anyway.

And there's with education, there's going to be a lag.

So how do you show that it's causal?

So the short answer is you can't.

Okay.

Uh the short answer is we're seeing a downward trend nationally of overdoses as it is, whether or not we're putting this money into it.

Right.

What we do know is causal is that the investment in these programs does decrease one's likelihood or their participation in these programs does decrease their likeliness to have an overdose, right?

So we can look at the level of individuals who receive case management, peer support services, and um harm reduction services are less much less likely to have an overdose happen, whether that's fatal or non-fatal.

So we cannot say for sure that we put X amount of money into Lake County, and that is the exact reason why we're seeing a decrease in overdoses, but we can say that we are funding programs which are statistically showing a decrease in overdoses as a result of individuals partaking in them.

Okay.

I'm not saying don't spend the money, but uh I get concerned when I see things like that, because as you said, the trend is downward right now, anyway.

And a lot of these things have uh have a lag, have a lag period, which makes sense.

So, how are those?

I understand what you're saying.

You're saying we're investing in programs that show that they are effective.

So, how have they shown that they are causal and not correlative?

Um, insofar as like the participation by the individuals is leading to um, because it's creating uh recovery capital for the individuals, which is by and large just the structure which causes individuals to be more successful in their recovery, that is being connected to individuals, being able to get jobs, being able to get housing, um, and having all of those safety inputs that allow them to be successful in their treatment.

And then obviously the end result is they're not overdosing.

Um it is kind of big picture, right?

There is no saying we put money into this and we know for sure this was the cure, right?

This isn't we're not paying for a um a treatment of some a fix, but it is an investment in programs which do show that they make a difference and that by and large are life saving.

Okay.

So I I think the the question is that five and 10% are great, but could they have naturally happened also to degree given the cyclical nature and we're we've seen a downward fund, I think, for at least two or three years now, right?

So but it's still great, right?

If we couldn't get it, again, I'm not saying we shouldn't spend the money.

I I'm just always concerned when we're making just funding decisions and we're putting metrics out there.

Uh are these are these metrics are they, and I know this is uh complex multi-factoral problem.

Are these enough?

Like, is there a natural five percent?

If we're putting that much more money into it, um and that actually for this sort of thing, that seems so when did they get the funding?

In May.

Okay.

So it just seems like super short time to say, hey, this is effective.

Should you be looking at metrics like different ones, like more people who went through this program.

We put more money into existing programs and thus more people were able to get jobs or other sorts of things.

I'm just not totally comfortable with these metrics from a public health point of view.

Sure.

And so each uh grantee does have their own key performance indicators that does track that at a more level to show more output.

This was our overarching goal just to have some direction for the funding applicants to argue why their grant would be in support of these goals.

Their KPIs, however, their key performance indicators that they've identified will show exactly how many case management services they provided, how many individuals they've provided naloxone to, how many individuals have secured insurance, how many individuals have gone to treatment.

And so at the grantee level, they each have more specific breakdown, which does um show exactly where the dollars are going to and who's being served.

So then there would be a final or yearly annual report that's going to integrate hey, money here, money here, money here.

They've sent this thing at the end, almost sort of like we saw with the housing, right?

Yeah.

X number of people applied, X number of people got housing.

Um, are we going to see something like that?

Yep.

So I actually have the next slide up here.

Um, some of the KPIs.

That's right.

The rest of us don't.

You're good.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, oh, and then one other bit was for our grant programs for the first year, we did want them to be uh creating new services that were going to be present in our area to make sure that we weren't funding programs that were already in existence because we did want there to be more services available uh for this population specific.

So all of the programs that came out of this grant funding year are new programs which do target that evidence-based service area.

Remember Casman?

I'd be interested in um seeing at the end of the year, along with that detailed report.

Um how we do versus other counties of similar okay.

Thanks.

So we are um constantly always um trying to look at what the other counties around us are doing.

So we did make sure that as we were looking for ways to spend this money, we've compared ourselves and what they're doing constantly.

And we are in communication.

I'm a member of several different um local, regional, statewide boards of individuals who are overseeing these funds.

And so I will be able to provide that kind of information as well.

Our first quarter of grants data that came to us was from the month of August.

At that time, we had four out of seven of the agencies providing direct services.

And here's where you'll begin to see more of a breakdown of exactly how many individuals have begun to benefit from these dollars being allocated.

16 individuals received case management services, 81 received harm reduction services, 48 individuals were able to start medicated assisted recovery medication.

If you're not familiar with what that is, it is the leading medications that will prevent an individual from having an overdose from getting cravings.

It's fantastic.

That's being initiated initiated through Erie Family Health Center here in Waukegan.

And so they've gotten 48 people started on that medication.

30 individuals have received recovery support services from a peer, and there's been four staff either partially or completely funded by service providers.

And so these quarterly reports I am getting from the grantees every three months, and I will continue to compile them and present them out to you so you'll be able to see a running number.

In the first quarter, it does take individuals some time to get their programs up and running.

So like I said, only four out of seven were active at the time of these.

I do expect these numbers to have climbed significantly come our November reporting.

Ashley, can I just ask is the medication recovery?

Is it methadone or so it all depends?

We offer um Suboxone, they offer methadone, they offer Vivitrol, anything.

The thing with the medicated assisted recovery is it's not a one size fits all.

So it really depends on what's going to be effective for the client.

But we do have through Erie the option for them to receive uh methadone as well as Syboxum.

Thank you.

And um a big component of the grantee um process that I I've really come to enjoy, and I think is really beneficial for the work being done here, is we've begun to form a collaborative with the grantees.

Uh so instead of individuals just receiving money and reporting back to me, they're meeting with each other as well.

And so we are doing quarterly meetings uh as a cohort.

And during these meetings, the grantees are presenting out about the purpose of their grant, their mission, um, their key performance indicator indicators, and sharing any kind of progress and barriers that they've had while trying to implement these services in our area.

And organically, they've begun to network and uh build a referral system amongst each other.

And so individuals who are going to ERI for the medication component that uh Eerie is offering them are also being referred to receive peer services through NERCO and some of our other agencies.

And so while we have money invested in different um parts of the recovery process, they are working together to make sure individuals are getting like kind of all-encompassing services.

So it's really great.

It's been a great learning experience.

Um, and it's really cool to see them sort of working together as well.

Since Lake County has traditionally been a very siloed system, especially in terms of treatment.

Uh so breaking down those silos and having this collaborative is is game changing.

Um, so it's been really cool.

Ashley, can I ask um the nine million then?

Sorry, well, I'll ask at the very end.

Sorry, go ahead.

Are you sure?

Yeah, yeah, wait, sorry.

Um so the grant process was initially created um prior to me getting here, and it was created with the idea of how it was it was very much a pilot program.

They started off with a one-year pilot program with an overarching goal of decreasing deaths and overdoses in general here in the county.

Um throughout the past few months, we've really looked at the grant system and seen how we could be more effective, seeing what other um surrounding counties are doing and how we can improve the program that we are offering to better the um impact here in Lake County.

Uh so the first year grant programs um have or will be up for a renewal here in the January um timeframe to receive funding again for an additional year of services.

This will be granted upon the um after we'll like kind of review the whole process of their quarterly reports and making sure they're reaching those key performance indicators and having impact and being successful.

But the goal will be to renew all services that are being offered at this uh same rate for an additional year.

This will help us do a couple things, but may primarily it will allow us to measure the impact over a longer period of time and ensure that they're successful in carrying out the services that they've promised.

We also want to expand our lens of what kind of grants we are offering to the community so that organizations are able to apply on a more widely basis but um making sure that we're still falling in the scope of what is effective.

And so we are ex um in addition to renewing the 500 applicant or 5000 for our current applicants opening up another grant cycle which will allow for the implementation of new services as well as potentially providing funding for existing services.

And so this will put us on a spring and fall grant cycle where we will have our applicants renewed for another year and then fall will reward um a two year grant period for those individuals and so the longing cycle I will show you this on another slide um bring it down a little bit further.

But I also wanted to make sure that we included youth provides education as a pump's area we would um because it is also very much an evidence based practice that does show that it works when we end up our strategic planning model that was what came up as well as one of the big conversations with individuals from the town halls and also people who came together for Agua any of the conversations about the um all the selling plans they all really wanted to implement the use and programming so we will be opening that up in the fall with individuals to be able to are as well and still kind of do this.

But if you want to just keep talking early slides still recording in progress um I don't know um I can I can kind of go I can continue to talk about why we're doing these changes.

So with the renewal of the grant process I began to kind of talk about why we are renewing the grants uh one thing if anyone's ever worked on a grant program that you may know a year is a very short time to implement something get effective data to even know that you've made an impact um and so we've decided to you know take another year and allow for time for us to make sure that all the grantees are taking measurable amounts of data that we're able to track that data and that we're continuing this collaboration that's built amongst the cohorts continue to engage with one another about the projects that are being done um and so uh as you can see here I have the pros and cons of one year grants versus multi-year grants and while one year grants do allow for us to have like um lower long-term commitment from our grantees and they're really you know pilot friendly programs that give us an idea of of what's out there what's interesting um what kind of interest there is from the community to apply for these funds they do you know not allow for us to have sufficient relationship building amongst the grantees and they also have kind of this risk of like superficial impact.

So when you're talking about the data collecting things over a year there's so many variables of what happens over a given year for instance the government shutdown is inevitably going to be impacting some of our grantees and so having that longer time period just makes more sense.

So we've going to going forward we are going to have all of our grantees have two year periods of awarding um this will provide more stability for the grantees it will allow us to track those longer term outcomes uh it helps us with our budgeting to know exactly how much we're going to be spending and allocating to this funding um and it and while it may be um providing less opportunities it will be providing um more beneficial opportunities and we'll be making sure making sure that we're investing in things that are actually making a difference.

So it's exciting um it's good stuff I think uh the work that's being done already is great but again having that extra traction and the length of time is huge.

So as I mentioned we'll be renewing renewing all current grant recipients for April and we'll be asking them to submit a buyer of intent in January with their funding to be received in May all of this funding will be subject to review of their key performance indicators whether or not they've met them an evaluation by me of their participation in the cohort um how much they've been um you know turning in the documentation for their invoicing and um how transparent they've been with their process and then I will be sharing that information with the opioid work group and we'll be um deciding whether or not to fund them but we do want to provide opportunity for them all to be renewed should there be interest and they are meeting their goals.

And then I will be sharing that information with the opioid work group and we'll be um deciding whether or not to fund them.

But we do want to provide opportunity for them all to be renewed should there be interest and they are meeting their goals.

And then come October, we'll be starting that new funding cycle.

And so that will be a two-year funding award.

Um the applications will run during the summer and they will be awarded in November.

And that's a smaller amount that we're doing.

It's a 200,000 dollar amount.

It will be the same uh setup as the initial grants to have the $100,000 as the cap per agency.

And we really were trying to decide on, we knew we wanted to increase more funding and putting the dollars out in the community, but we didn't just want to be throwing money.

And so we kind of settled on just adding an additional 200,000 to allow for there to be more programs and new programs, but not um running through this money because right it is it's a it's a definite time.

The money does run out at some point.

So that is our goals for this coming up year with our grant process.

Um as I started to talk about um some of the other parts aside from this grant project of things that I'm doing to make sure that we are in the know and that we're making um great choices in in how we're using these dollars.

And so I've been doing community presentations to the um places like the Lake County Opioid Initiative as well as the intergovernment um intergovernmental meeting that happened a few weeks ago.

Um I'm taking part in the Lake County Opioid Initiative, um, recovery oriented systems of care, which is a regional space where they're talking about applying for the Illinois portion of the funding, and then the Northern Illinois um public health consortium, which is again a different regional approach to applying for these dollars.

Um, and all of these agencies are ultimately working together to just do what what I've said, right?

Collaborate, see who's doing what, what is DuPage doing, what is Kane doing, and then coming together to write applicants for the Illinois Opioid Remediation Board, who will then be um out like providing the Illinois portion of the funds out through grant programs.

So for instance, um NIPHC, the Northern Illinois Public Health Consortium, they wrote a proposal that they wanted money to go towards um like safe use sites, and they also wrote that they wanted money to go towards um youth education.

And so then the Illinois Opioid Remediation Advisory Board, like they approved it, and then that money became available for plate people to apply it throughout the the state.

So it's um kind of a there's a lot of thinking that goes into it.

There's a lot of um oversight and making sure that people are having um strong proposals submitted to the boards, and so I'm participating in all of those discussions.

I'm I'm monitoring all of the boards that are coming forward.

Um, and then just continuing to do surrounding area research.

Um within had me do a deep dive into all of our counties and kind of see what how they were spending their money too.

So it's been really great to just make sure we're on track with what everyone else is doing.

And um, the biggest part of this that is um important to me is that there's a fair and transparent process with the way these funds are being used.

And so we've created a web page, which is the um opioid response web page on the county page.

Um, and there we break down the funding, similar to how I showed it to you today, what we're expected and what we have received, um, as well as what we've spent money on.

There is a breakdown of those key performance indicators and um letting us know what our grantees are doing, and then any additional project developments that we decide to put money into, we will also display on that webpage that the public can continue to follow along with the way these funds are being allocated.

Um then we're continuing to try to involve the community in the use of these funds by holding uh we will be holding focus groups um later in the year to kind of get an idea of you know how the community feels about the way these funding has been spent thus far and where they think we should allocate the funding.

And then uh we will be using a small portion of the funds to interview persons with lived experience who are either currently in addiction or are in recovery from addiction to get their insight on how this population may want to see us use these funds to make sure that we're bringing their voice to the table too, which is really important to um this line of work to make sure that we're not just guessing what people want or need.

Okay.

That's all.

Thank you so much.

That was really um quite a lot to cover in such a short time.

So thank you.

I just had a question on the 9 million, is it 9.25 million?

Correct.

Is there a general time frame where you'd like to see those dollars spent by knowing that we might be getting additional funding as well, right?

Right.

So uh one of the things that I've done is um looked at the expected totals.

So some of the agencies can pay out as far as 18 years into the future.

So they're allowed to, they've been paying much quicker.

We've gotten a lot of uh a front load of funding, but they do have some of them until I think it's 2038 to pay up totally.

Um the way things are going, we should have all the funding much sooner.

It's looking more like 2030 when everyone will be paid up, except for again Purdue Pharma, who is our kind of wild card.

Um, I have taken those dollars and I have stretched them over a 10 year time period with the spending amount of 700,000 for grant programs and then additional funding for things like um trainings and trips, my salary, um, and then the like funding for like the interviews with people with lived experience and other small projects that we may have interest in.

And I without Purdue Pharma's increase have been able to spread this money over a 10 year time period.

Um, and so once we have an idea of what Purdue Pharma's portion looks like, then we can make decisions on if we want to slow or increase the amount that we're spending.

Um, but the situation is is delicate, right?

Because people are dying every day from this, and we don't want to just be sitting on the money and not making decisions.

And so it's this balance of kind of making sure we're spending enough that it's having an impact and measuring that, but also just not blowing through it, as we've seen some places in the nation do, unfortunately.

And the the reason you you said it so nicely, the only reason I was asking is like just maybe trying to accelerate the funding, right?

And trying to save lives now, knowing that we do have this potential big settlement coming with Purdue still, we still have the funding from the state, like not, I mean, being careful, obviously, but like trying to use as much as we can now to impact as many people as possible that's responsible.

Yeah, no, it's it's definitely a delicate discussion.

And then I feel like we are constantly having it within the work group.

We meet on a monthly basis, and that's one of the things that is constant topic of conversation is do we want to put a lot of funding into it now and then kind of pull back?

Or do we want to strategically um have a steady flow of funding?

Um, and what it's too early for us to know yet, right?

We don't know how effective this grant program is yet.

We won't know for another year, maybe.

Um, we don't know how much money we're getting from Purdue Pharma.

But the important thing is we're keeping keeping a pulse check on all of those to make sure that when we do have an idea of what is effective and what money does look like in the future, we can adjust accordingly and push more funding out if we feel that we are more comfortable with that choice and and what we have to invest in.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Member Maine and then member Alton.

Thank you.

I had a question that was uh on slide nine about youth prevention education focus.

How are you trying to balance certainly education is not is not one and done, but being duplicative is not helpful either.

We had a long conversation with the regional superintendent of schools, which we don't need to rehash.

But you know, there was an earlier slider mentioned that they got a big grant program for education, and those of us who live through our children bringing home little lions for dare know that complete ineffectiveness of that program.

So if we've given money to the ROE to develop a comprehensive program for all the schools available, what is this education focus?

Or what are you looking at that that is different and it's not going to be duplicative of somebody else who has the widest scope of youth in the county?

Sure.

So there's a couple ways uh to look at that.

The first is uh the amount of money that we put towards the curriculum that was built um bought by or built by the regional office of education really was not a large amount.

Um, I believe it was something like 12,000 that we put towards building that curriculum.

And that curriculum is something that can be used, but is not mandated by any means for the schools to use.

It's something that is available should they choose to use it and meets all the markers for Louis Law.

When I'm looking at youth prevention education and opening up our scope to include that, we want to take into consideration some of the other agencies in our area which are doing youth prevention work, um, which is which will cover things outside of that curriculum.

The curriculum is built to do kind of an overview.

It's not really a deep dive.

And there are prevention programs which do more of a deep dive into the education of the harmful effects of substances, the importance of mental health with substances, the importance of peer pressure.

So the curriculum that was designed is meant to be a sort of um, it meets the needs of the school, but doesn't necessarily provide a deep enough dive into education.

There are community providers like Nikasa, like the health department who do provide youth education in our schools, which is proven to be much more effective because it is a long-term relationship building that they have in those schools.

So for instance, um, Sarah, who works at the health department, she's been in the Libertyville school system for a long time doing talks.

She has relationships with the kids there.

Um the kids in Libertyville have received education from middle school and high school, and their numbers are trending downward as far as um showing the use in Libertyville.

And that's because we can essentially say again, causal versus you know correlation.

Um, these kids are getting a deeper dive into prevention education because their school has asked for it and have professionals coming in to present to them.

Um, and so it's just opening up the scope and not necessarily saying that you know we're only gonna fund youth focus, but we're going to be open to taking applications that seem to be effective with the youth focus.

Thank you.

Um, member Altenberg.

Thank you.

So wonderful presentation.

I really think you did a great job, really getting everybody to really understand what's what's happening with the grants.

Um, so I also serve on Al COI, and we're so happy, you know, to be working with you.

Um, how does it work with the um the grants for the state?

Is that something you would apply for?

Or is that something that somebody at the health department would apply for?

Or who who handles that?

So it would be more like the health department.

So that funding would be provided for or would be applied for by service providers.

I myself am not applying services of any kind.

Um, however, if there is funding, um, at this time, all the funding that has been put out for grantees is for those that are doing direct services.

Should there be funding for investing in uh infrastructure or something that I would that we would be able to apply for as a county entity, then we absolutely could apply for it.

And I do plan to apply for them should they become available.

At this point, they're not available at that level.

They're really the boots on the groundwork, they're really the frontline individuals that are receiving the funds.

And who in the health department works with you on this?

Just wondering.

Everybody.

Yeah, I make sure uh if any everyone will tell you, networking is probably my strong suit.

I make sure that I have everybody at the table and we're constantly having conversations.

I every time I get an alert from uh a potential opportunity that I think the health department would benefit from.

I'm forwarding it to Lisa and making sure that everyone's in the know.

Okay.

All right.

And have we been able to apply for any of those grants yet?

Have they made them available?

Yeah, they have.

So the health department, I think, applied for the SORG grant.

Is that correct?

Anchor, anchor grant.

Um, so that's one of the ones that went out through the Illinois opioid uh money.

So uh so yes, they are applying um and trying to obtain those funds as well.

Okay.

Terrific.

I think I'd love to see in a future update.

You did such a great job today.

Thank you.

Um, I'd love to hear more from the health department too about the what kind of things we're able to do with the Illinois money and and how that's getting utilized.

And just I'm just curious about that too.

Okay.

We'll make it happen.

Any other questions?

Member Kevin.

I just want to thank you.

This is a great presentation.

I learned a lot.

Um, and I still want to get together with you to talk about the district specific stuff.

So thank you so much.

Of course.

All right.

Well, thank you so much, Ashley.

Really appreciate the the presentation today.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

We will move on to 8.14, which is committee action for the permanent destruction of executive session recordings for the health and community services committee from October 2, 2012 through February 26, 2019, in accordance with the Illinois Open Meetings Act and is a recommended on the attached document.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by Member Kniesnik, second by member Altenberg.

Thank you.

Yes, Dan Hall, Assistant County Administrator.

So if you recall, we went reviewed um open session, um, executive session minutes and open them.

The attachment shows you where those minutes um occurred, were approved.

They're at the 18 month mark and eligible for destruction through OMA.

So we've gone with the uh state's attorney's office, reviewed them, and our recommendation is to just uh move forward with the destruction in accordance with OLMA.

Any questions?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

Let the destruction begin.

Yeah.

Excellent.

And just uh thank you to Teresa to make she's been working hard on that project.

Um, for the county administrators report, I know we've mentioned it a couple times.

I did want to open it up.

If you guys had any questions on federal funding, we still have the departments here that represent those that are um dealing at with the federal funds.

So if you have any questions of Director Sereno, Director Wagner, or executive director Hoff, they have waited patiently.

Yeah.

I member Altimmer.

Yeah, I I think I'd love to hear from each person maybe for a couple minutes, just on your concerns.

And we have our budget season coming up, and we are going to have to make kind of a plan B with our priorities because we're not sure, obviously, hour to hour what's happening and um what money we're not gonna get in the coming year, but it seems pretty certain that something like that's gonna occur.

And um, I I don't think it would hurt to hear and if Chris could come up and first and talk about your thoughts.

Um I'm the most concerned, honestly, in a lot of ways about the health department, about humans and what kind of services we can provide them.

And um, you know, we want to take care of everybody's health and make sure they have access to what they need.

I have a lot a lot of concerns about that.

Sure.

Yeah, so I'm gonna just give a quick update.

Um, sure, answer is it's incredibly disruptive, even though we haven't seen immediate funding changes.

The day-to-day nature of like, is this impacted?

When is the deadline?

How much money is there across every program we have is incredibly disruptive.

Just like the grant stuff was earlier this year.

It's been nonstop since a week before the shutdown, including through today, and the information changes every day.

So happy to continue to share updates.

Um, thankfully, right now we haven't seen immediate changes in programs or funding for most things.

Um, we're drawing down federal contracts that we already have awards for.

The state is using block grants that they have access to to keep funding programs.

Um, WIC is the one Lisa mentioned, is the one we're most concerned about.

We heard late yesterday that Illinois program office through Department of Human Services is fairly confident they'll get through, get us all through the end of October.

Um, but beyond that, they're not sure what access to federal funds they would continue to have to fund both the food benefits for women, infants, and children, as well as the staff and administrative support needed to administer that program.

So for right now, you know, things are okay.

We're telling our clients, we're telling our staff, keep going, keep coming, keep getting those benefits.

We're gonna keep trying to do as much as we can for as long as we can, but we have concern the longer this stretches on.

Um we have been in contact with all the state agencies.

They're trying to get updates to us on the stuff that flows from feds to the state to us.

For the most part, again, they've said, you know, keep going status quo for now.

But again, the longer it drags on, the longer those things um become risky.

Um we have seen some stuff disrupted.

We have a bi-weekly call with CDC on infectious disease situations and reporting.

Um Ebola is emerging in Democratic Republic of Congo.

We've got a parasite that's moving up from Mexico that's really insidious.

Um, those calls have been suspended for the duration of the shutdown.

We get a daily uh infectious disease surveillance report.

Uh, that's shut down for the duration of the of the government shutdown.

So there are things that are being impacted.

Thankfully, not massive programs that you know enable benefits to residents, but it is extremely impactful.

So I mean, I'm hoping you'll make of some you'll be talking to Patricia making some recommendations about you know what your priorities are for your department and what are the most important things we need to keep going.

Yeah, happy to keep talking about it.

They're all staggered.

I mean, the the trouble, the the challenge is that nothing's on the same exact cycle.

There's grants that you know started October 1st or some that go fiscal year.

We'll absolutely communicate what our priorities are, um, help keep you up to date.

Um, but it's not as clean as like, well, it's all done, and we start fresh.

So, what do we prioritize one, two, three?

We've got concern about all of the programs.

Okay.

Thank you, Chris.

Thank you.

Um, kind of a similar story with community development.

We were lucky enough to contract with our program year 2025 funds before the government shut down.

So we do have access to our main sources of funding.

They continue to flow.

The main disruption is kind of the day to day stuff.

We've lost access to our field representative in Chicago, who I communicate with regularly on kind of the day to day grant administration.

There's been a lot of changes, policy changes and proposals coming out of HUD DC.

So he's the one who kind of keeps us informed on how those are going to be interpreted and implemented.

So losing contact with him has been disruptive.

Also, kind of tangentially, some of the folks we work with, like at the housing authority within the team of care.

Um, it's impacting them a little bit more.

I would say they're more heavily reliant on federal funding and a more frequent intervals.

So disruptions for them will impact us eventually, but right now our funds do continue to flow.

Thanks, Dominic.

I'm gonna repeat, there's not an immediate disruption.

Um, we have access to all our active grants.

Um cash is flowing through the state.

Um, they're able to do drawdowns from U.S.

Department of Labor.

There is one of our grant that is on a dual um federal fiscal budget year cycle.

So we don't have access to those funds during the shutdown.

Um, also relaying that in the job center, we work with 14 different partners, all receive federal funds to deliver workforce development programming.

So we keep an open line of communication and leaning into one another to make sure that we're continuing our services to the individuals.

Job center is open.

We continue to go into the community and assess the individuals for what they need.

The disruption that will happen as this goes on is as you know, a large percentage of our funds goes to pay for tuition for individuals as well as training wages, and we will put a pause to that, but we'll continue to work with the individuals and connect them to employment opportunities assessments, and what training we can be providing to them in-house as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

There is a need for executive session.

So we'll need a roll call or a vote to go into executive session.

So 10.1 is an executive session to discuss a personal matter pursuant to five ILCS 120 forward slash two C1.

Can I have a motion to go into an executive session?

Remember why member main we have a second one.

Oh, we'll do two.

Sorry, yes.

And then 20.2 is an executive session review closed session minutes pursuant to five ILCS, one, two, zero, forward slash two.

C two one.

Can I have a motion?

Motion by member Cunningham, second by member main.

All those in favor.

Do we now take a roll call vote or right?

Umberg.

Mara?

Mara?

Say hi.

Hi.

Uh, member Kasman?

Aye.

Member Cunningham.

Hi.

Member Dan Forth.

Aye.

Remember Kenny Sley?

Aye.

Member Maine?

Hi.

Chair Park.

Hi.

All right.

Welcome back.

Item 11.1 is the committee action approving the health and community service executive session minutes from September 24, 2004.

24?

24, 24.

I guess.

All those in favor say our motion by Dan Ford, second by Casman.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All right.

Those are approved.

Item 11.2 is committee action approving the health and community service committee executive session minutes from August 5th, 2025.

Can I motion?

Motion Cunningham, second by Kasman.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All right.

Item 12 is member remarks.

Any member remarks?

No, are you sure?

You guys sure?

You sure now?

Yeah, we're sure.

Okay.

Item 13 we're adjourned.

Thank you.