Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to this joint committee session of the Government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee and the Health and Human Services Committee.

Today we are discussing a supplemental that has two pieces.

The timing of these things can be a bit funky as we are starting our budget conversations.

But just as a reminder to us all, this supplemental is for our FY26 fiscal year, the one we are in now currently.

And decisions on the FY27 spending will get decided in committee sessions and full council discussions.

So I think we'll dig in, but I'll see if my co-chair wants to say any opening remarks.

No, not very many opening remarks.

Just looking forward to, you know, both committees seeing how this new technology is going to work and optimize what we have been so used to doing across our government agencies to ensure that our residents can access government services more efficiently and in on demand ways and being able to, you know, uh ensure that our staff has more time to, you know, evaluate and quickly respond to the information that they receive.

Um this is the direction that we want to go, and so I look forward to the conversation and any subsequent questions about how we're going to get there and what we've learned since we started this technology upgrade.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

All right.

So we're going to dig into the community connect portal, and this was launched the creation of it in FY22.

We are now again in FY26.

There is a request for $2.2 million supplemental for HHS as well as an $800,000 supplemental for TEBS to do a physical feasibility study of the Community Connect portal.

Uh Ms.

Aradigas Hernandez, you did an excellent packet.

I'm gonna turn it over to you first to set the stage and then I'll turn it over to Director Bridges.

All right, good afternoon.

Would you like to go through the entire staff report first?

I think just give us an overview and then we can um have it turn it over to HHS.

Okay, great.

Great.

Good afternoon.

Um as the chair noted today, the committee will be reviewing that $3 million supplemental appropriation to the fiscal year 26 operating budget for the Department of Health and Human Services and Technology Enterprise Business Solutions.

I'll note in addition to our directors of TEBS and DHHS here, we also have Dr.

Nemhard from DHS Online as well.

Um as the chair noted, 2.2 million dollars of the supplemental request is allocated for DHGS to continue the Community Connect portal, and $800,000 is allocated to TEBS for a feasibility study on the portal and a potential expansion.

Both utilize general funds undesignated reserves, and the executive originally transmitted the supplemental appropriation request on January 5th, with the council introducing it on February 3rd and holding a public hearing on it on February 24th.

However, there was no testimony provided on the supplemental appropriation request.

As the chair noted, this initiative was launched in fiscal year 22 to help ease the application process for residents staff and private providers through GHHS programs.

The chart on the bottom of page two provides you with the standard application lifecycle for an application submitted into the community connect portal.

This is where residents can electronically submit their application rather than via email or paper.

Um staff are able to review, process, and assess eligibility through this application in the portal, and they're able to communicate with the resident as well as that third-party provider.

And the third party provider can also communicate with the resident and request any additional information as needed, receive those referrals, and also streamline their invoicing and payment processes.

The Department of Health and Human Services Administration and Support Division initiated this project, and so the Community Connect portal lives under that division within HHS.

HHS notes that the primary challenge with the portal has been the administrative burden in managing the complex IT project without the dedicated IT positions for the IT project management, and that the existing programmatic staff have had additional strain placed on them to serve as the subject matter experts on the CCP.

And I will note that TBS was not originally consulted in the start of the project back in fiscal year 22.

Page three provides you the utilization of the community connect portal to date.

Currently, six programs under the Department of Health and Human Services are included in the CCP.

That's three of the county health programs, including adult dental, senior dental, and care for kids, two related to early care and education, including the working parents assistance program and the community-based head start program for subsidized child care.

That's three of the county health programs, including adult dental, senior dental, and care for kids, two related to early care and education, including the working parents assistance program and the community-based head start program for subsidized child care, and the final is for the rental assistance program for referred individuals who are homeless or have the imminent threat of homelessness.

In the Community Connect portal, the applications can be translated into seven languages.

That's English, Spanish, Amharic, Chinese, French, Korean, and Vietnamese.

And the chart at the bottom of page three provides you 2024 and 2025 data of applications received for the applicable programs and what languages they were input in as.

DHES notes that the program performance measures that they track for the CCP include the total volume of applications as well as the utilization amongst the seven supported languages.

However, they're evaluating the potential for implementation of a data correction log to track the reduction in data entry errors into their case management system within HHS, which the Community Connect portal was originally established as this bi-directional infrastructure support tool for applicants and applications to be entered into the portal and also connected to their enterprise case management system that they already have.

The joint committee may want to understand further the processing timeline for manual versus applications submitted within the CCP and request future data on the impact on error reductions, as well as any demographic demographic breakouts of CCP users and non-CCP users, the utilization of any DGS facilities to apply for the CCP utilizing the computer labs, or any additional information on the percentage of non-CCP applications compared to CCP applications since the launch for each of these programs.

To review the funding that the Community Connect portal has received so far, as the chair noted, this project was initiated in fiscal year 22.

Approximately $5.9 million in IT consulting and technical services have been allocated and expended with two vendors.

Primary funding for the CCP originally stemmed from the early care and education non-departmental account, as the working parents assistant program was the first to really launch into the Community Connect portal for users.

About $4.5 million was utilized to build the foundational infrastructure from fiscal years 22 to 24, with about 75% dedicated to development and 25% dedicated to ongoing maintenance.

In addition to the $2.2 million request for HHS in the fiscal year 26 supplemental, DHS is also requesting $2.5 million in fiscal year 27.

If all is approved, that's about 10.6 million dollars for DHHS specifically for the Community Connect portal.

The bottom of page four and the top of page five provides you the scope of the Community Connect Portal project.

And I will note that the fiscal year 26 and fiscal year 27 requested funding would be allocated to phase four of the project, which includes enhancements to the provider portal, provider referral functionality, additional contracted services for reporting and data sharing, as well as the expansion of additional programs within the department.

So to jump directly into the executive's request, as we noted that the executive states the supplemental appropriation is needed to expand and enhance the community connect program to improve efficiency, streamline services, and broaden resident access.

DEGES expects to allocate the funding to ongoing platform development, and $800,000 for TEBS is for that six-month feasibility study on the countywide government-wide expansion of the CCP.

I'll note that DHS expects the oversight responsibility and continued expansion to transition to the Department of Technology and Enterprise Business Solutions in fiscal year 28.