Good afternoon and welcome to the Public Safety Committee work session of Wednesday, April 29th, 2026.

Today we have four topics on the agenda for the operating budget and FY27 through 32 capital improvements program.

The first item is the Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.

The second is Office of Consumer Protection.

The third is fire and rescue services, and the fourth is a memorandum of agreement between the County and the Montgomery County Volunteer Fire and Rescue Association, the MCV FRA for the fiscal year 2027.

As we begin, I'd like to thank Ms.

Cummings, Mr.

Mia, Ms.

Farrag, and Ms.

Whalen, Whalens, for preparing the staff report for the topic today of topics.

And for once again, an always assembling most informative packets for us.

Unless the other committee members have any opening statements, I'm going to ask the first panel to please introduce themselves and ask if they have any opening comments.

And then we're going to ask Ms.

Cummings to please lead us through the packet.

Do you think afternoon, Luke Ashton?

I'm the director of emergency management Homeland Security.

Good afternoon.

I am Nicole Marcusy.

I am the Deputy Director for the Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.

Good afternoon, Councilmember Stair Kerrigan, Office of Management of Budget.

Thank you all.

Luke, do you have any opening comments?

No, I think seeing Ms.

Cummins packet, it's pretty complete.

You've got enough comments this week, have you?

So we'll see where that goes.

Please, Ms.

Cummings, if you could.

Thank you, Chair Katz.

Kristen Cummings, legislative analyst.

If you could be a little cle louder or closer to the mic, please.

Absolutely.

For the FY27 emergency management operating budget, the executive recommends an increase of $1,758,165 from the FY26 budget.

This recommendation includes three items that are subject to the reconciliation list per the council president's uh guidance this year.

The first one being an $800,000 allocation moving funding from grant funds to general fund reserves for the Everbridge Alert System.

Um this was previously funded by the Urban Area Security Initiative Grant.

425,000, um similarly moving from grants to general fund for response equipment, and $93,274, um, moving from grants to general funds for a position that was previously funded through urban area security initiative grants as well.

Starting on page two of the packet, we have a summary of the recommended budget coming in for a total of um $6.8 million.

Um a little bit of information about the department is found on pages two and three of the staff report.

Um emergency management operates through two main programs, the first being administration, and the second being emergency management planning response and recovery.

We've noted a couple of work sessions we've had through this past fiscal year.

Um, when in October, uh we had an overview of the nonprofit security grant program, and in January we met to discuss a supplemental appropriation to the capital budget for the construction of a public safety joint operations center.

Information on the OBET um analysis is found on pages three and four.

Um the OBED analysis um awarded a score of four, noting that the department demonstrates an emergent commitment to advancing racial equity and social justice.

And we also have um a reflection from the department on these pages as well on their work in this area.

Um if it's amenable to the chair, we can go section by section and stop asking questions.

Sounds good.

So going into section E for the budget discussion topics, we have our overview on page one, and we'll get started with the items that are on the reconciliation list.

So the first one is the Everbridge Alert System.

Um this was previously funded as mentioned by the Urban Area Security Initiative Grant, and this would be moving $800,000 from grant the grant fund into the general fund reserves.

Um the Everbridge Alert System is the operating support system behind Alert Montgomery.

Um they provide public facing alerts.

It supports critical county functions and a countywide internal contact database, um, as well as many, many other functions.

A full list of the functionalities that's provided through Everbridge can be found on circles 130 through 138 of your staff report.

And this will necessitate the expenditure to be transferred over.

And I did just want to note that the department has identified support for Everbridge system as a top operational need.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I don't think there's any question that we need to put that on the recluse and get a lot of head shaking up here.

And I think we need to put an asterisk with that, that this is a very, very important part of the REC list.