Montgomery County HHS Committee Meeting – April 23, 2026: FY27 Budget and Supplemental Appropriations
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Montgomery County Health and Human Services Committee Meeting – April 23, 2026
The Health and Human Services (HHS) Committee met on April 23, 2026, from 9:34 a.m. to 1:48 p.m. to consider the FY27 Operating Budget and FY27-32 Capital Improvements Program for the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as a supplemental appropriation. The committee reviewed funding for homelessness services, public health programs, and minority health initiatives, approving most recommendations and placing several items on the reconciliation list for full Council consideration in May 2026.
Consent Calendar
- Supplemental Appropriation #26-14: $3,064,158 for emergency family shelter services (motel overflow and Stepping Stones shelter capacity) – approved by consensus.
- FY27 Services to End and Prevent Homelessness (CEPH): Approved all County Executive recommendations including $2 million for SHARP, $1.9 million for overflow shelter, $1.1 million for adult shelter gap, and $438,909 for outreach gap.
- Public Health Services – Montgomery CARES: $1.5 million for primary care reimbursement rate increase – approved.
- Montgomery CARES Endodontic Care: $19,440 – approved.
- Care for Kids Dental Equipment: $50,000 – approved.
- Care for Kids Specialty Dental: $8,761 (5% increase) – approved; committee added additional $62,947 on reclist to serve 125 more children.
- Contractual General Dentist Hourly Rate Increase: $196,642 – approved.
- Dental Equipment Replacement: $75,000 – approved.
- East County Dental Pilot 5% Increase: $15,000 – approved.
- Emergency Preparedness Response Staff (1 FTE): $185,000 – placed on reconciliation list.
- Nursing Home Inspection Staff (5 FTEs): $400,000 – placed on reconciliation list (MOU pending).
- Ryan White Grant Reduction (1 FTE): $362,122 – approved.
- Babies Born Healthy Program (1.5 FTEs): $201,905 – approved.
- Tobacco Enforcement (1 FTE): $77,561 – approved.
- TB Program Backfill: $170,000 – approved.
- Hospice Volunteer Training Reduction: $17,715 – approved.
- Medical Reserve Corps Reduction: $27,715 – approved.
- American Diversity Group Free Clinic: $202,600 – approved.
- Asian American Health Initiative (AAHI) Conversion: 3.5 FTEs from contract to merit – approved.
- African American Health Program (AAHP) Conversion: 4 FTEs from contract to merit – not approved; committee requested more information on scope, evaluation, and unspent funds before decision.
- Latino Health Initiative (LHI) Reductions: The committee restored $537,562 in case management cuts and placed on reclist, noting that legal/housing services would be covered by the Lighthouse initiative (to be discussed separately).
- Maryland Vietnamese Mutual Association (MVMA) Contract Elimination: $92,638 – restored on reclist per Councilmember Mink’s amendment; contract funds tutoring and senior wellness services.
- Montgomery County Pride Center: $500,000 (two tranches of $250,000) added on reclist to maintain FY26 funding level.
- Muslim Community Clinic Oral Health: $135,548 added on reclist to achieve parity with other dental providers.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No public testimony was taken during the meeting. Written testimony from the Montgomery CARES Advisory Board and Commission on Aging was noted in the packet.
Discussion Items
- Services to End and Prevent Homelessness (CEPH):
- Chief Hong presented an overview of CEPH operations, including a 26% reduction in point-in-time homelessness (1,117 counted), driven largely by the SHARP program which housed 299 families (nearly 1,000 people).
- Councilmember Friedson raised concerns about moving from a shelter-focused strategy to a Housing First model. Chief Hong affirmed commitment to housing first principles but acknowledged need for more individual housing interventions (chronic homelessness increased 14%).
- Discussion on outreach challenges across 500 square miles; understaffed teams (3-4 FTEs per region) and risk of reduction if outreach budget gap not filled.
- Committee requested detailed contract-by-contract information on outreach funding by geographic area before full Council.
- Public Health Services:
- Dr. Ashford highlighted a 38% reduction in dental wait times and successful East County dental pilot.
- Discussion on tuberculosis services: state grant reduced from $170,000 to $25,000; county backfill needed to maintain compliance.
- Emergency preparedness: FEMA and HUD grants uncertain; one position moved to general fund to avoid loss of capacity in a landscape of reduced federal support.
- Nursing home inspection MOU with state still pending; training takes one year; committee deferred funding until MOU is finalized.
- Minority Health Initiatives (MHIPs):
- AAHI requested conversion of 3.5 FTEs (community health workers and grants administrator); approved.
- LHI presented reductions in case management and helpline due to declining call volume and duplication with Lighthouse program; committee restored funding pending further clarification.
- AAHP requested 4 new merit positions (manager, maternal health nurse, data analyst, program specialist) citing underperformance of current contractor and need for data-driven evaluation. Committee declined due to insufficient information about unspent contract funds and lack of standardized evaluation across all MHIPs.
- Chair Sayles emphasized the need for a standardized, third-party evaluation process across all three MHIPs moving forward.
Key Outcomes
- Supplemental #26-14 approved for $3,064,158; Council consideration in May 2026.
- CEPH FY27 budget approved as submitted by County Executive; all four line items (SHARP, overflow, adult shelter, outreach) approved.
- Public Health Services budget approved with amendments: Care for Kids dental increase placed on reclist; emergency preparedness FTE placed on reclist; nursing home staff placed on reclist; Pride Center, Muslim Clinic, and MVMA funds added to reclist.
- AAHI conversion (3.5 FTEs) approved.
- AAHP conversion (4 FTEs) not approved; committee directed staff to provide detailed scope, unspent fund analysis, and a standardized evaluation framework for MHIPs before a decision at full Council.
- LHI case management reduction restored ($537,562) and placed on reclist; county executive’s staff clarified that legal/housing services will be covered by Lighthouse.
- Tobacco enforcement FTE approved as state-mandated.
- Next Steps: Full Council consideration of all budget items scheduled for May 2026. A joint HHS-PHP work session on rental assistance programs will be held April 30, 2026.
Meeting Transcript
Good morning and welcome to the Health and Human Services Committee. I am grateful to be joined by my colleagues, Council members Don Ludke Friedsen and our guest, Councilmember Mink. So we have three items on today's agenda. And so we are going to be starting first with a special appropriation, a supplemental appropriation to Ceph. And I am going to turn things over to Tara to uh brief us on this supplemental appropriation for FY26, and then we will go through the remainder of the budget. We will go back to item one. So we're starting with item two. We will go back to item one and then we will end with a deep dive into quite a few items with the Department of Health and Human Services. And then we have some items that were recommended by colleagues, and we will touch on those in item three. Anything else to add, Tara? All right, let's get started. Thank you. Good morning, and thank you, Chair Sales, and good morning to the rest of the members of the committee and our guests here from DHHS. Just to set the scene, as co as Chair Sales said, we have about 30 items that require the vote of the committee today. If not, we will have to have a follow-up work session on April 27th. So our goal is to ensure the committee can move through the items and uh so that they can be voted on at full council. We are starting with item number two, the supplemental appropriation 26-14 for services to and to prevent homelessness for emergency family shelter services in the amount of $3,064,158. The main items that this supplemental covers are support for um overflow motel sheltering, approximately 85 rooms and 2.9 million that will sustain Ceph through the end of the fiscal year and help to house families. There is 50,000 requested to cover maintenance costs associated with the use of those facilities and um the and utilizing those facilities long term. There are just maintenance issues that occur that are not budgeted for currently within within using overflow motels. And the third item is for um the stepping stones family shelter to move its operating to 100% capacity, but the budget only covers 70% capacity. The uh Stepping Stones Family Shelter operates under a um open solicitation, and so when they applied and were awarded the funds, it was the expectation that we would only need 70% of the capacity, but that has changed due to the need in the community. So the $54,000 is requested for the up until the end of the fiscal year, and Ceph has informed us that uh additional funding might need be needed in FY27 to support 100% capacity as well. But right now that has not uh been part of the FY27 budget. So I will stop there and see if there are any questions for me and um go back to the committee. Thank you. No questions. I'll turn things over to HHS, Dr. Bridgers. So good morning, everyone. Good morning, uh HHS Chair Sales, Councilmember Freedson, Councilmember Lukey, and our honorary member, Councilmember Mink. Thank you for joining all of the sessions. Day five of day six. How about that? Um there's a lot to discuss today before I turn it over to Chief Hong. Just wanted to say this. Uh we appreciate all of the efforts and the input on the CE's recommended budget. We uh appreciate the um the candid, sometimes tough discussions that we've had with the with the committee. Uh we have a lot of our community partners behind us, and I want to thank them for all of the input, the feedback as key stakeholders as we continue to um move forward and supporting our underserved and at-risk communities. Um a lot of tough conversations have been ahead, and we know that we need to do more work in this space, either for sustaining our programs, evaluating the program effectiveness, and just the overall impact in the community. So thank you, community partners, for your ongoing support to HHS and our committee. As I like to end and begin, we will get there together. I'll turn it over to Chief Hung now. Thank you, Dr. Bridgers. Thank you, um HHS Committee and Councilmember Mink for all your support of our work. So the this supplemental request is very important because as you all know, the number of families we've seen in particular in our county has um in the past year increased. And we were able to do really incredible work with the SHARP program, and we'll be sharing data on that and our successes in our presentation after this. And we continue to see families presenting in need of shelter. And so when our permanent shelters, and we have three of them are full, we still rely on our motel budget to place them temporarily in motels as shelter.
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