I got a lot try-logging.

This is like protein related.

There you go.

Okay.

Good morning.

We'll call the order of the budget and audit committee meeting for June 16th, 2026.

We're getting underway a little late.

We apologize for that.

I think it's probably smart to establish a quorum.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Telemonte.

Here.

Councilmember Maple.

I am here.

Councilmember Garrett is expected momentarily.

And Chair Dickinson.

You have a quorum.

Thank you.

And Councilmember Maple, would you mind doing the question?

It would be my honor.

Please rise if you're able.

Rice for the opening acknowledgments in honor of Sacramento's indigenous people and tribal lands.

To the original people of this land, the Nissanong people, the Southern Mighty, Valiant Plains Miwok, Petwin Winchu peoples, and the people of the Wilton Rancheria, Sacramento's only federally recognized tribe.

May we acknowledge and honor the native people who came before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather today in the act of practice of acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's Indigenous People's History, contribution, and lives.

Remain standing, salute, and pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God and divisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you very much.

If you um want to make public comment on any IMR agenda, you're welcome to do that.

Please be sure to spit fill out a speaker form and deliver that down front here to our clerk, and we'll make sure to call on you with appropriate time.

Keep in mind that public comment is limited to two minutes per item, and uh there'll be a clock ticking down that'll be visible from the podium.

So keep your eye on that to make sure you get everything said that you want to include in your comments.

Uh and with that, I think we're ready for item number one, which is the audit of the city's homeless response evaluation and cost and outcomes of sheltering programs.

Chair, we do have a consent calendar, item number one.

I'm sorry, I jump to I jump to that.

Yes, we thank you.

We have a motion and a second on the consent items.

If there's no further comment, all in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye, opposed say no, any abstentions or objections.

Hearing none, the item carries unanimously.

And now that I've read item number one, I'm not gonna reread it, but I'm gonna welcome our city auditor.

And audit committee, I'm Farish Darari, your city auditor.

Uh with me today are Joyce Chi and Ricardo Sanchez Molinero, who are primarily responsible for conducting this audit.

Uh, the recommendation before you is to accept the audit of the city's homeless response evaluation of costs and outcomes of sheltering programs, and uh the accompanying fact book and forward it to the full city council for final approval.

So I apologize.

This presentation is gonna be a little bit longer than typical because there's so much to cover.

Um, but first it's a uh recap of our audit objectives at a high level.

The audit sought to analyze the various city-funded sheltering programs to understand which shelter program types are most cost-effective and most successful in helping individuals transition to stable housing, with the broader goal of informing future policy decisions and investment strategies.

More specifically, the audit examines several areas, including the different shelter models currently funded or operated by the city, the relative costs and outcomes, how effectively program different programs serve diverse populations and needs, and what characteristics or practices appear to be associated with stronger housing outcomes.

The audit also aimed to identify broader opportunities to improve the efficiency, coordination, and overall effectiveness of the shelter system, and then we also included a review of our good neighbor policies in that assessment.

So I want to emphasize that this audit was not designed as a deep operational review of any single shelter.

Our objective was to step back and look at the shelter system more broadly and how different program models function together, what patterns emerge across the shelters, and where broader structural factors may influence outcomes.

And we recognize that shelters serve different populations, operate under different program designs, and contribute to outcomes in different ways.

So we focused on homeless sheltering programs that are operated or funded by the city from July 1st, 2022 through July 30th, 2025, which is fiscal years 23, 24, and 25.

Certain analyses focus primarily on fiscal year 24 and 25 based on data availability and the relevance of more current information.

And some information also reflects current operational procedures and practices because of timing.

As part of our methodology, we interviewed both city staff and service providers, visited all shelter, active shelter sites, conducted additional research on different shelter models and practices.

We also reviewed contracts, financial and operational information, HMIS client and services data, as I mentioned, good neighbor policies, including feedback from surrounding neighbors.

And note that not all shelters were included in every analysis, depending on the relevance of the data or the methodology used.

This audit has six findings and makes 12 recommendations to increase shelter capacity and further strengthen performance measurement, resource allocation, and program implementation to better understand program effectiveness and maximize the impact of shelter investments.

There is a metrics table that analyzes performance metrics across all shelters in the audit report.

And this audit report is also supplemented by a separately issued fact book that provides additional background and comparative information on the city's homeless sheltering programs.

The fact book presents information on program characteristics, operational priorities, outcomes, and costs across sheltering programs to provide a broader factual context and illustrate similarities and differences amongst the programs.

And together, the audit report and the fact book are intended to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the city's homeless sheltering system.

And my presentation today, though, will be focused on the audit report itself.

So during our review period, the city had 14 active city-funded sheltering programs throughout the city.

13 programs were active during most of the period, and as of June 30th, 2025.

One program was active but was not utilized, and three programs were inactive as of June 30th, 2025.

So the various sheltering programs can be grouped into five different categories by physical design.

So we have the safe grounds, fully congregate, semicongate, partially non-congregate, and fully non-congregate.

And the physical design and the population served is typically how the Department of Community responds.

DCR has grouped the shelters in the past.

A major part of the audit was trying to group the shelters in a way to better compare them.

You'll see in some parts that we use DCRs groupings, but we did try to also create a smaller group size, and we chose to group the shelters into three different groups reflecting operational priority.

These groups are generally similar to DCR's groupings but focuses on what the shelter is trying to do as its main priority.

We found that this grouping is actually quite consistent with patterns that we saw in the numbers as well.

Essentially, these priorities align with the city's sheltering objectives, which are to shelter as many unsheltered individuals as possible, assist them in their path towards stable housing, and provide them with services that ensure individual well-being.

And we go into this in more detail in one of our findings.

The first group includes those trying to resolve a crisis or emergency situation.

Clients typically enter through street outreach and are provided immediate stabilization and safety.

Based on our review, these clients overall may have higher acuity levels or not be ready to engage in services quite yet.

The next group are those focusing on sheltering and supporting housing progress.

So in short, these include most of the bigger shelters and most entered through the coordinated access system.

They focus on providing stabilization, supportive services, and pathways toward improved or permanent housing outcomes.

Finally, the last group includes those that focus on resolving homelessness and supporting long-term wellness.

These shelters have a stronger emphasis on wraparound services and longer-term wellness support, and they often are part of the providers' portfolio of various homeless support programs.

I also want to clarify that we realize that some shelters do all of these things.

It's more to indicate what stands out as their primary operational priority comparatively.

And again, we're going to go into this a little bit more in one of our findings.

Additionally, we have identified many more characteristics to group the shelters, and these will show up throughout the report depending on what we're analyzing.

So this is just one framework that we used.

So as I mentioned, clients may enter the city's various sheltering programs through different avenues.

34% of the clients entered through DCR Street Outreach Team and 65 through the coordinated access system.

1% entered via other means.

Overall, our analysis of fiscal year 24 and 25 data found that 20% of the clients that exited during this period had permanent positive exits out of homelessness.

28% were improved but not permanent exits.

39% were exited negatively, and exits of 12% of the clients was unknown but most likely negative.

So now we're going to go into our findings.

Finding one focuses on how shelter costs may vary across program types.

We compare the different cost structures across all programs, and most cost differences align with the program design.

We also found that costs overall tend to emphasize sheltering and stabilization roles rather than longer term outcomes, which may suggest that cost structure could better align with program intent.

While cost per bed and client also vary across programs, there may also be opportunities to improve cost efficiency and some higher costs per bed programs.

So this graph shows the total program expenditures for fiscal years 24 and 25 by shelter.

We also include the average occupancy to show that higher total costs are generally consistent with more clients served.

The city spent approximately 63.2 million dollars for these various sheltering programs during fiscal years 24 and 25.

And according to DCR, approximately 27% of the funds came from general fund or measure you funds, and 73% came from other sources, such as the state homeless housing assistance and prevention funds.

Here are our estimated costs per occupied bed per night for fiscal year 24 and 25.

There is quite a lot of variation in cost per bed per night.

So differences in shelter costs appear to reflect program design operating models and facility types, but the cost is not, the city has not clearly defined or evaluated the trade-offs between maximizing shelter capacity and investing in services that may improve client outcomes.

These trade-offs are reflected in both how much the city spends on different program types and how those programs allocate their costs.

Some programs receive more total funding and each program allocates resources somewhat differently, leading to different cost structures.

At the same time, differences in program costs are not driven by these trade-offs alone.

They are also influenced by factors such as the number of participants specified in provider contracts, policy decisions that shape the program size, and the availability of potential sheltering sites.

However, without a framework to define and evaluate those trade-offs, it's difficult to clearly assess program value and understand how different approaches support system goals.

So we try to compare each shelter's positive exit rate with its cost per positive exit.

Overall, the relationship between cost per positive exit and the positive exit rates appear weak and inconsistent.

If the higher spending consistently produced better outcomes, we would have expected to see a clear upward trend.

Instead, shelters with similar costs often achieve very different positive exit rates, while some lower cost shelters achieve outcomes comparable to or better than higher cost programs.

For example, EBH at the Grove and the City Motel program achieved relatively strong positive exit rates without having the highest cost per positive exit.

And overall, the analysis suggests there is no clear correlation between positive exit rates and cost per positive exit, indicating that higher spending does not consistently correspond to better outcomes.

This suggests that there are factors that are beyond spending levels, such as the program design or service delivery that may play an important role in influencing the outcomes.

Finding two focuses on shelter capacity and utilization across the system.

Overall, we found that some shelters may have additional capacity available under their existing occupancy limits, and that larger congregate shelters may be able to serve additional residents at relatively low marginal costs.

So we reviewed the process for determining capacity limits and largely concluded that existing capacity was an operational decision and not a regulatory constraint.

And as a result, we recommend evaluating whether capacity at certain shelters should could be safely expanded within existing resources.

And this finding focused on our larger congregate shelters and the number of individuals that we did our analysis on is between one and five.

So this figure illustrates conceptually what we're referring to.

Essentially, there are gaps between the contracted capacity, basically the operational capacity, and the maximum occupancy, which is what's posted in the buildings now as determined by the building and fire codes.

Not included in this figure is also that there might also be a gap between the maximum capacity and the full physical capacity that's within regulatory limits.

So we compare the occupancy of the shelters with the cost of each of the shelters in our review.

We assess the fixed cost, depth fixed cost, and variable cost of the shelters to estimate the nightly cost of an additional bed at each of the shelters.

As you can see, the cost range from less than $6 to $23, which is significantly less than the average cost per bed per night that we covered earlier.

And given the city's ongoing efforts to expand shelter capacity and current fiscal constraints, prioritizing cost effective expansion options can be beneficial.

Lower effort, lower cost approaches, such as maximizing capacity within existing large congregate shelters where operational thresholds permit should be considered a practical option to serve additional unsheltered individuals.

Finding three focuses on how shelter outcomes vary across different program types and populations served.

Overall, we found that differences in outcomes often appear to reflect program design, shelter roles, and client populations more than the immediate indicators of program effectiveness.

We also found that the city shelter programs exceeded the statewide average for permanent housing exits, while larger shelters accounted for a significant share of exits due in part to their size and the number of clients served.

This finding is largely descriptive and intended to provide context around how shelter outcomes vary across different program models and populations served and does not contain any recommendations.

So this figure shows a lot.

It shows how we group the shelters into three groups based on operational priority.

The averages, it shows the averages by group and it shows each of the shelters' exit rates as well.

The goal is to compare across and within groups.

Our main conclusion is that the positive outcome averages, those in solid green, are directionally consistent with the intended function of each of the three operational priorities.

Similarly, the averages for the negative outcomes in solid red are also consistent based on each group's objectives, but expectedly in the opposite direction.

And this slide combines the positive and improved exits into a single measure and compares them against negative and unknown exits.

So the clearest path is that a pattern is that outcomes generally aligned with each shelter group's intended role within the shelter system.

So shelters focused on long-term wellness achieved the highest rate of positive or improved outcomes at 69%.

And by comparison, crisis focused shelters averaged 44%, and housing progress shelters averaged 41%.

This is consistent with expectations.

Programs designed to support longer term stabilization and wellness would generally be expected to achieve stronger exit outcomes than programs primarily intended to address immediate shelter needs.

However, we still see some notable differences amongst the shelters within the same operational group, suggesting that operational priority alone does not fully explain the outcomes.

So finding four focuses on the city's ability to evaluate the impact of shelter services on client outcomes.

Overall, we found that current HMIS data limitations constrain meaningful analysis of which services are most cost effective, and that broader structural barriers outside of the city's control may also influence housing outcomes.

As a result, the recommendations focus on improving data collection, standardizing data entry, and better tracking barriers that affect clients after stabilization.

So these charts compare the relationship between the length of stay and the number of services received for participants with both positive outcomes, those on the left, and those with negative outcomes, those on the right.

Participants who stay longer generally receive more services.

However, the overall distribution of data points appears broadly similar between the two groups.

And participants with positive outcomes and participants with negative outcomes can both be found across a wide range of length of stay and service levels.

So as a result, the available data do not show a clear relationship between the volume of services received and whether a participant ultimately experienced a positive or negative outcome.

I want to state that this doesn't mean that servicers are ineffective.

Rather, the data do not demonstrate a clear or consistent association between service volume and outcomes across the shelters.

So this chart measures participant readiness rather than the exit outcomes.

So several shelters reported that a substantial share of participants were both document ready and housing ready.

These results suggest that many participants have completed key preparatory steps needed to obtain housing.

However, readiness does not necessarily translate into immediate housing placement.

So the findings raise the possibility that factors outside of the shelter system may be limiting the participants' ability to exit to permanent housing, such as housing availability and affordability.

In other words, for some participants, the primary challenge may no longer be becoming housing ready, but finding housing to move into.

We did a similar analysis of those that are ready to be referred to treatment centers and found similar results.

The shelter had individuals ready to be referred but had not received the treatment, suggesting that limited treatment beds may also explain the lack of positive exits out of the sheltering system.

Our research found that this is also an issue that has been identified by local area hospitals in their 2025 community health needs assessments.

Finding five focuses on how the city measures shelter system performance and progress.

So we found that existing shelter metrics might not be directly indicative of progress towards broader shelter system goals or measures or measure client progress towards stabilization and wellness, and that the city has not established consistent performance targets or expected ranges for evaluating outcomes across programs.

As a result, the recommendations focus on developing a more comprehensive performance framework and improving how client progress is tracked over time.

So our analysis found that the city can strengthen accountability by more fully defining and using performance targets or expected ranges, that existing metrics can and that existing metrics can be improved to measure the extent of client progress towards stabilization and wellness.

We found that we typically focus on the client's outcomes, but that although client stabilization is a key component of service delivery, it's not reflected in tracked measures.

So established approaches and human resources and health care present options for tracking individual progress over time, such as goal attainment scaling gas and the clinical global impression CGI scales.

Both apply standardized rating skills to assess changes in individual condition, with gas measuring progress relative to predefined goals and CGI assessing improvements or decline relative to a prior baseline.

This figure demonstrates how these two methods compare to each other.

And we believe that case managers can utilize assessments like these during their regular meetings with clients to track client progress.

And finally, finding six is our review of the good neighbor policies and is focused on our larger shelters.

Overall, we found that many issues are influenced by broader neighborhood conditions, and that responsibility for responding is shared across multiple entities.

As a result, the recommendations focus on clarifying policy expectation, such as the radius of influence for providers and improving communication and response processes with the surrounding communities.

We reviewed 311 and police call data data, did a survey of neighbors for a sample of shelters and reviewed the policies themselves.

So this figure identifies the various responsible entities for responding to neighborhood concerns and the limits each face in responding to those neighborhood-related concerns around city shelters.

So in summary, service providers lack a defined radius of responsibility.

The city's homeless outreach team can prioritize calls around shelters but is limited to clearing a mere 25 feet buffer around the shelter, which is designated as critical infrastructure, and the police calls are prioritized based on standard police dispatch procedures.

This slide shows how other jurisdictions define areas of responsibility around shelters and other facilities.

Current city good neighbor policies reference the area around the shelters, but they don't really define a specific boundary.

Other examples that we looked at range from 100 feet to 2,640 feet with Stockton Boulevard safe stay using a 1,000 foot radius.

Defined boundary helps translate neighbor expectations into clear operational responsibilities, and the radius should be large enough to capture likely shelter related impacts, but small enough for providers to reasonably monitor and respond.

And we believe that establishing a defined radius and corresponding response expectations could improve consistency, accountability, and community understanding.

So as I mentioned, there is an accompanying fact book that supplements the audit report and provides additional information about the city sheltering programs.

The fact book includes shelter profiles for each of the shelters in our scope period and additional analysis beyond what was identified in the audit report.

So this concludes my presentation.

I'd like to thank the Department of Community Response and the various shelter providers for their collaboration and assistance.

DCR's response to the findings and recommendations are provided in the back of the audit report.

And staff from both my office and DCR are available for any questions you might have.

First, thank you very much.

I'm sure no one has any comments or questions on this item.

So we just go on to the next one.

Oh no, not so much.

Do we have some public comment on this?

Yes, Chair.

I have one speaker, Lambert.

Okay.

Available for questions.

Now, first of all, I want to give a shout out to the auditor and also Pete Coleto.

He hasn't even had to speak.

I have that much respect for his numbers.

He's a numbers guy.

It's good to have a numbers person because then with somebody like me comes up, I can interpret graphs and surveys.

Now, in the Sacramento B, and I can't show it here, although I did see it work one time.

This is an article that my family showed me, and it's Friday, last Friday in the Sacramento B.

Shout out to the B, they're getting on the ball with this one.

It shows the title says audit of Sacramento's homeless shelter costs show no strong link to good outcomes.

It even talks about there's a disparity on how much is spent at different shelters.

You know what caused that?

What I've been talking about for a while.

When you suspend competitive bidding, you get disparities like this.

I will bet that if a major audit comes in here and says, Well, why is there such a discrepancy?

And it doesn't give the outcomes that you're seeking, that's suspended competitive bidding.

When you suspend competitive bidding, then you have major disparities.

That's why a lot of people are going to prison these days.

There was discrepancy at the state buildings, discrepancy at CAP Radio, discrepancy in Oakland.

When you suspend competitive bidding, people tend to give the contracts to their friends and family.

And that's illegal.

That's actually worse than bid rigging because you're doing it right in front of people's faces.

I have no more speakers.

Okay, thank you for that.

Councilmember Maple.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, and thank you, Madam City Auditor and our whole entire DCR team and everyone who does this work every day.

I have a few um specific questions on some of the items.

Um, but just want to say overall that uh thank you for for doing this report and for all the the ones that have come before, and perhaps the ones that will come after.

I'm sure there will be more, uh, knowing the interest of this council on this issue.

Um, but you know, I just want the public to know that this is a reflection of the questions that we've all asked because we we have the same questions often that the community does around what's effective, what's working, what's not working, what's the cost?

How can we make sure that we design an approach that makes sense both fiscally and from a humanitarian perspective?

And so this helps us be able to do that work.

So I just appreciate that.

Um, one of the recommendations or one of the recommendations that I was interested in was number four.

Um around service tracking, and one of the things that was brought up was around the lack of consistent data reporting.

So, one question I have is do we require all of our service providers that currently have contracts with the city to do you know homeless services shelter operations to track data?

So, my understanding is yes, it our contracts do say they should be using HMIS.

Um we found that it was inconsistent in what was input into HMIS specialty service information.

I think 98% of the data was in, like service data was input just by four service providers, or four shelters.

So we did most of our service analysis on those just because that's where most of the data was, but it was uh widely inconsistent what types of services they put in and um how detailed it was.

Okay, and then maybe this is a question for um Brian to whoever feels most comfortable, but that leads to my next question, which is um, you know, we require it in our contracts, but do we have specificity about what we require in terms of the data?

So it sounds like some are inputting it in a more detailed fashion, others are not.

So do we specify exactly what kind of data collection they must do?

Um, okay.

Uh let me answer the the first part of that.

So um, yes, they're all required to put information in HMIS.

There is some stuff that's not put in HMIS because it is caseworker notes that is um specific to treatment, and so that is not captured in the HMIS data.

Um, we do have in our contracts that uh all providers will uh put their information in HMIS.

We don't have specifically which data will go in HMIS and which specific data points that we want you to collect.

Um there is a baseline, but it is not inclusive of everything.

Uh then thank you.

And so my next question would be is that something that we perhaps should do uh if we want to have a consistent data set that allows us to be able to track outcomes and understand what's working and not working.

Do we think that we should be a little bit more specific?

And I'm not sure what all those data points would be, but but you probably do.

Um I there is a challenge in we do collect a lot of data.

Um where does that end and how much information is the data giving us that is going to then translate into providing better service?

Um I would say in general, we have uh significant data that shows us what the needs are and what services need to be provided.

Um so sure, if we want to collect more data, we can always collect more data.

We do know what we need.

The the real question on all of this is that we know the information that of what services need to provide it.

We have the services that are being provided based on that information.

The the real point on this is all of this is client participation, and so if the client is in our shelter and does not want to participate, then we could have every service under the sun.

It's it's not gonna be utilized.

Um, so that is in my opinion.

Our biggest challenge is participation of the clients to provide the service, which leads back to our cost question of do we pay for 100% of services if only half the people in our shelter are using the service, um, so it this all ties together.

Uh long answer to your short question.

No, that that's actually really helpful.

Um, so then just to just so I narrow down, I I understand and agree with your point, right?

You know, I I don't think we should collect data for data's sake, and I think in a lot of cases sometimes you can get drowned in it and not actually really using it for anything.

But um reading through the auditors' report and some of the recommendations, um, it seemed to me that one of the challenges that they identified is that we don't have whatever those data points that are important that we do need is not consistently tracked among service providers.

Is that correct?

Uh yeah, and so again, some of that, so we have some programs like um let's look at um our TAES, um, uh St.

John's uh Weave, where those contracts are us providing them funding to, and then they're getting funding from various sources to then run their programs, and so we don't have direct um contract specific language with them that uh like the we have our language that says you will track this data for us, but then they have funding from some other source, and they have their contract with their language, and so that's one component of the direct contracts that we don't have with our providers, and then the other challenge on this is the variety of programs that we have.

Um St.

John's is uh is a high barrier program that you're fully in involved in, and when you check into that program, you agree that you are going to uh enter that program.

Um, and then we have on the other end of the spectrum or OEC that's a 23-hour stay respite program, and so we're looking at data sets from two completely different programs.

We have a domestic violence program, we have families, so consistency on what you're going to collect from each of those programs is going to be different.

I mean, you can collect all the same data points, but obviously they're going to be different from each program.

Okay.

Um I know that Vice Mayor might have a question too on this, but one my last um question is for those, you know, we have all of the the requirements in these various contracts, and I hear you.

I understand that every program's different, like we're gonna see different outcomes based on what we're actually wanting to see out of the program itself.

It's very different to have a transitional aged youth program versus just a you're gonna shelter for one night.

We're gonna those are gonna see different outcomes.

But do we have any enforcement on if they're not tracking what we have asked them to?

Um, which it sounds like maybe the case for at least some.

Do we have any kind of enforcement mechanism with that?

We go to them and say, hey, you haven't tracked this data.

You know, there's some outcome that that is a result, or do we just continue to fund these programs despite that?

Yep.

So that's what I've been putting into our contracts as we've renegotiated the contracts.

Besides negotiating the cost of the program itself, we have been we have in our contracts now that a monthly uh data report is sent to us so that we can track your what your services being provided, and is it tracking with what our contract has told you you should be providing, and so uh over the last couple of contracts we keep tightening that and tightening that to get to a point where we can say you are not meeting the requirement.

Okay, that's helpful, um, because I I think you know, when I think about HMIS and the coordinated access system, you know, we're we're a participant in that, but so is the county, and so is the other service providers and the other cities, and I think it's um you know, to the extent that we can try to have consistency and data where it makes sense.

Um, that's helpful for everybody.

Did you have something you want to add on?

Yeah, just real quick.

It was my understanding that the vendors are providing or updating their HMIS daily now.

I remember like a few years ago we saw that people were not logging in information, and we did like a whole training for them to get up to date on like what we expect, and I thought people were updating it daily so that our police and fire fires and UDCR have like an active count of how many beds we have available.

Uh yes, for bed count for sure.

Um, for bed, but not for the services of HMIS, that's like updated monthly.

Well, no, every provider is inputting into HMIS now.

There is just some information that's outside of HMIS.

Got it.

Okay, should be the treatment case worker information, which makes sense because there might be sensitive information, okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, that's helpful.

Um, okay, and so moving on to uh recommendation number three.

Um so you had uh Madam City Auditor, you had some questions about maybe it's not three, two, about the um capacity of certain uh shelters, including I think maybe Xtreet was one of them, where it didn't seem like the the capacity that had been listed, which I think is a hundred would actually match the capacity of the structure itself.

Is that right?

Um, okay.

Um I have some personal thoughts on this.

Uh one because Xtreets in my district, and so I do uh talk with them regularly, those who operate the shelter and also the community members who live around the shelter, and also people who are participants in the shelter.

Um and my thought is well, you know, yes, perhaps we could cram more people into a space.

Maybe that's not the best for the people themselves, um, especially when you have maybe women and men in one space, and some who may have you know have had histories with sexual violence and those who may have criminal records and all kinds of other things.

Um I think for the purposes of the shelter operations themselves and the safety of the human beings inside, I think it makes sense to have some capacity limits of our own, even if maybe you could put more people inside.

But I understand your point of if we're investing in expansion in other places, this could be one space where we could more affordably fit more people.

Just want to say that you know, my personal opinion is that you know, I I personally I said this many times.

I think we should move away from congregate shelter period as a city.

Um I think it does not have some of the best outcomes, and it's it's one of the worst things for individuals who who are experiencing it.

When I go talk to people who are still on the streets or sleeping in their cars and ask them why they're not standing in line to be at the X-reat shelter or one of the other congregate shelters, it's because they were like, I would rather be on the streets or in my car than be in there.

And it's not because the shelter itself is run horribly or there's anything wrong with it, it's just people experience a lot of trauma when they go when they experience homelessness and being uh inside a enclosed space with a lot of strangers that you do not know can be horrifying to someone.

Um, and so that I can understand why someone might choose that instead of you know um going into the shelter, and so I also think they're really expensive.

And then, of course, with X-Tree, as I've mentioned in my budget um memo, I I think that there's also uncertainty about whether or not we can even continue there with the Caltrans lease.

So I I think that you know, I would love to see us, and this is more for applying as a council, to think more about how we can use our resources on service on service provision.

Some of the programs that we see here that we know are seeing really good outcomes and are connecting people to services and ultimately housing, and less in the warehousing people from night to night.

That's just a personal opinion I wanted to share, though I understand your point.

Um I also want to talk about the good neighbor policy.

Thank you for putting this.

I feel like I've been um screaming from the rooftops for four years now.

Um I think it's really there have been updates and there has been more enforcement done from when I first came into office to now, but I would say that it still in many cases doesn't meet the expectations of the surrounding community, and certainly not mine at times.

And so I think it's really incumbent on us.

I know Mr.

PJ, you've been working on an update to the good neighbor policy.

I'm really looking forward to seeing that because uh I do think that we have a lot some a lot of work to do.

We've lost trust in some some communities because we've said we're gonna do all these things and then we haven't.

We haven't enforced the way that we should.

And I know that it's a resource issue, it's a lot of it's a lot of things, but you know, if we're gonna say, hey, we're gonna put a shelter here in your neighborhood, we also need to be able to say that we're gonna enforce the rules, um, otherwise it's really hard to make an argument to another community that we want to do it.

Um, and so I I do I want to acknowledge that there has been progress, but I really look forward to seeing an updated policy that that is actually enforceable that we can actually say we're gonna come in and every day if we see something that is outside of our good neighbor policy, we're gonna make sure that it's taken care of, and that's top priority for us over other things.

Um so I appreciate that and really look forward to it.

What I want to spend most of my time on is recommendation one and five, and I think they're directly connected.

Um, so yes, I we absolutely need to be taking a look at our designs, our costs, and our outcomes, and I think that should be driven by us creating our system-wide goals and metrics.

We need to be clear as a council to DCR and to their staff about what it is that we want to see, what success looks like to us.

I do think that that actually means something different to all of us, as I've heard it sitting on this dais.

I'll hear uh, you know, Chair Dickinson talk about prevention, prevention, prevention.

You'll hear me talk about how let's get rid of congregate shelters, you'll hear others talk about other things, and so what success means to all of us is a little bit different, and I think that we, as the city council need to do work to make sure that we're we can arrive on a consensus so that we can tell our staff exactly what we want to see.

Um, so there's no confusion on their end or our end about what it is that we want this program to do.

What outcomes do we want to see?

What programs do we want to focus on?

What are things that we don't do and that shouldn't weigh into and should we asked for help?

Um, and so I think that should be one of our top priorities coming out of this audit is convening ourselves together and figuring out what that looks like, whether it be through a working group or something else.

I'll defer to the mayor, but um, I think that those will inform each other on, you know, what what how much we want to put into this?

What should the design look like?

What outcomes do we want to see?

And that's based upon this overarching plan.

So I thought that was a really good recommendation to come out of that.

And so just more broadly, I think, yes, any program like this, or you know, whether with a various different um shelters, different programs, different outcomes, is gonna it's gonna be challenged.

I don't think there's a single community in the United States of America that can say we solved homelessness.

It just doesn't exist.

It is a challenge, it changes people are human beings, they exist in different places and they have different problems.

I I always say that I hate that there's just one word, homelessness, because it's it's such it's such an overarching word over a million people with a million different problems and therefore different solutions.

So what we're really doing every day is problem solving for individuals, and those those are gonna be completely different things for a family living in their car who's working versus someone who's experiencing a severe mental health issue versus everything in between.

And so I think that with our recent pit count numbers and report, we are making progress.

It is without a doubt that the city of Sacramento is making progress in getting people off the streets and into programs that are working for them, no doubt in my mind.

Um so then the next question is how do we iterate on that?

Make it even better, tweak it, and make sure that we're focusing on the ones that are doing the best.

Um, and then the last thing I want to do is tie this into what's happening countywide.

So we've got uh a bigger, a broader conversation that's happening with the county, the city, the other cities in our jurisdiction, the continuum of care, our service providers about what is better coordination look like on the ground through a task force and with the continuum care in us and the county, and I think that that's really really important because we're not we can't do this alone.

We're one city, um, we've done a lot of really great work, but we're not we're we're not on an island.

We must coordinate as we already do, but do it better.

Um, and I think about this back to my first point is on data.

You know, we know that we track data countywide because that's how the point-in-time count is done, and that's how the core the continuum care works and um a lot of the resources, and so you know, I'm really looking forward to as we develop this goal metric, you know, framework as a city, aligning that, making sure that we align that with what we want to see countywide so that we're all helping one another.

So, again, thank you so much for your report.

Um, very informative and looking forward to the full discussion at the council.

Thank you.

Thank you, uh Mayor Pro Tem.

Great, thank you very much, uh Chair.

Uh first I'll go ahead and move the uh auditors report and uh to the full city council and first to take a step back and and look at um you know what the the auditors put before us, which is an is an attempt to analyze all of the different systems and um and all the different ways that we've attempted to address this issue.

If you even even five years ago, I think this wouldn't be as uh as robust as it was, let alone when we first started uh looking at how do we make an aggressive attempt at what we saw on the street, and while we we still have major issues that we see out on the street, but let's not forget we also had at a time across the city, encampments of over a hundred people, like all over the city, and uh and we have moved many folks.

In fact, that was I think finding 3.1 that the city's um uh outcomes for were higher for permanent housing than the statewide average, and that that is an important factor.

Now, there are two things here I think that that when we look at outcomes, now the public clearly uh wants an outcome based on what they see on the street, and that is an important factor, you know.

Uh, if you go to So uh Chavez Park or the Plaza Park or whatever we're gonna name that uh again, that is a problem when you go to any part of the city, the river or whatnot, that's going to you still see that challenge.

So that's still an issue.

But we also still have an ethical obligation about client progress as well.

Okay, so even in and figuring out how we respond to that, not individually, but with all of our partners is our task at hand.

So I think the the auditors's report provides, I think, an important set of analysis, and the bigger takeaway is that um is that the information that you had didn't give you the ability to understand which one was most effective.

And that's clear, because how are you going to compare a client of transitional age youth with a program like St.

John's or another shelter that is primarily older, you know, uh seniors that are that have many physical and mental health issues.

Those are three completely different populations, and for an analysis to say which one was you know doing better or another, it's apples and oranges because they're they're not the same.

They're addressing a different client population.

I appreciate the comment by my colleague, Councilmember Maple, and that the term homelessness tries to wrap so much into something that it is that uh is much more complex than that.

But we do have an obligation that the public wants a change on the street.

And the the biggest issue uh as was mentioned, is that um our largest challenge is still the frequent utilizers we see out in the community.

We've moved a lot of folks, families, kids who are out there, but our biggest challenge is still with the frequent utilizers.

And our uh as I as I pulled together our fire department, our uh city attorney's office, our county council, department of public health, our public guardian.

The challenge we also have is in that cross section of data.

There's one thing collecting the data and and being able to analyze and compare the services, but then it's where that data goes to the next person that has that responsibility when it goes to the county, when it goes to the public guardian.

And there is the challenge that we have where we may have a person who our city will respond to, goes into a shelter and then is one of those negative exits, and is back out on the street.

Yet that person might have been in the ER five or six times, or in the county jail five or six times, and still is out on the street.

When that person may need something like guardianship or receivership or involuntary conservatorship, they need help.

And so that ability for us, I think finding number five and four are all can are all part of a bigger problem that we have is in how we address that transition of data and information.

You know, I I want to thank our fire department because Captain Morse actually tried to figure out you know organically how we get that information across to our other county partners, and I think that is something that needs to move forward uh as part of this recommendation is improving that data system so that we're not churning people and just collecting data, because if not, that that will be the end result if we continue on the path that we are.

Those negative exits will continue to be the ones that that we can consistently see.

So, biggest I think the biggest takeaway is uh we didn't even have HMIS when we started all of this.

So now uh we or as was mentioned by the vice mayor, we're updating it frequently daily.

Now we need to make sure that we didn't make that next step and coordinate with not only the county, the DA's office, and our hospital providers, so that we're all getting that right information for those frequent utilizers because those are the folks that people see every day.

People probably know that same individual in their neighborhood that they see in the same location over and over again, and those are the folks that have been service resistant who we uh need to continue to focus on.

The last piece on the good neighbor policy, it goes twofold.

One, I I want to thank all of those that in my council district who participated in a few years back during the pandemic to build the framework of a good neighbor policy, and that that I think was a good start.

But I do think that the enforcement of that good neighbor policy, not only for providers for the city needs to be enforced.

You know, the safe stay on Stockton Boulevard matched the county's 1,000 foot barrier.

And I think that was important because before it was only it was a different standard based on the city and the county and where that location is at.

So I do think that we need to have either an ordinance or a stronger, you know, uh commitment to ensuring that those areas uh whether they're for clients from that area or not, because many of the times they are not clients of those providers, that that area uh be maintained for the success of those clients in those uh in those stays as well.

So that's a responsibility on the city to make sure that we focus on that piece um I'll say that one uh I want to thank the auditor because it does highlight a lot of the the successes that we've had but the improvements with that must continue forward the biggest ones is making sure that we're collecting the right data to be much more effective and efficient with our dollars moving forward I do also think the the congregate shelters they've they've shown that they have their own challenges and it goes back to outcomes.

We might be able to just jam them up with people but does that create client progress no they'll probably end up back in the emergency room in the county jail and uh and cycling through the system even if we're filling the power so I think that there's more to be uh investigated on the effectiveness of those programs in that sense thank you Chair.

Thank you and to the vice mayor.

Thank you Chair number two.

Alright so will you remind me we didn't include our permanent supportive housing as part of the audit is that part was that part of our direction to you yeah the um the request was to look at the current sheltering programs not transitional housing or I guess in my head I'm like well Vista Nueva which is our permanent supportive housing in district three I mean we're putting people that are unhoused there and so they're also part of the story and a lot of those people do have stronger success rates because they have permanent supportive housing they have services and so just um something for people to think about um that we're talking about like rapid response housing for homelessness in in this picture of the audit of homelessness we're not talking about the permanent supportive shelters that also house unhoused people.

Yeah I think those those individuals like probably went through the homeless uh shelter system and got exited permanently in a positive exit to those um the permanent supportive housing that's that's why I think they're not yeah um and then I do uh appreciate the facts that 27% general fund dollars are allocated towards this and 73% come from the state I think that definitely paints a true picture of our budget uh 42% of participants were assessed as both document ready and housing ready can you just expand on that I mean is are these people that are like ready to go into like an affordable housing development project like are these people that are have a job are stable and could go into housing yeah so that information is not currently really tracked in HMIS so we actually requested the service providers to track their um participants and their their shelters for one month from January mid-January to mid-February 2026 to identify the individuals that are housing ready or referral ready which like I said housing ready means that they've been stabilized we've provided services to them they are ready to move on to some some sort of permanent housing with whether that's um permanent supportive housing or affordable housing they're typically not able to go into just market rate housing but they're they're still in our shelters because they haven't found something that they can move into that's what that means.

Yeah and I would be curious with like working with the service providers like what that looks like right I mean obviously we have a housing crisis here in California and Sacramento we're we're working hard with streamlined you know Sacramento to build more units but at the end of the day we still have such a large gap for affordable housing and that's not lost on me on this report that people are ready to leave our shelters but they can't leave our shelters because there's nowhere for them to go.

Because they have a you know a job making a minimum minimum wage, maybe working 40 hours, and the current cost of living in Sacramento is just so expensive, you can't even afford the rent with one job.

You need to have two jobs.

Um, and so that's something that's just not lost on me on this report, and something that I think needs to continue to be highlighted is that if people are ready, we need to give them a place to go, and that takes all of us in this region from you know our other cities, building affordable housing um ourselves and really moving the needle on that.

Um, I'm actually surprised that you didn't include this uh performance and operational metrics for the city's homeless sheltering.

I think this is page 24 of your staff report, the dollars, the slides on the in my slide presentation, yeah.

It's really hard to read.

So I didn't include it in the slides, but it is in the audit report.

Yeah.

Um when you come to council, um by the way, I'm set happy to second this and move it to council, but when you come to council, can you even though it's small, uh, can you please include it in your slides?

Yeah.

Uh just because like council member maple was saying, like we all have different visions of what success means.

Uh, we all support different forms of housing for homelessness.

Um, and we have such such a limited dollar amount of dollars that we have to work with, and then we're you know, constantly asking the state to be able to support us, and the one thing that we've all been asking for is to make data informed decisions on how we spend our dollars.

How do we spend our dollars and go further, right?

And this slide right here, um, people are watching, 24.

I think it's 24, correct me if I'm wrong, maybe 34.

Um, I think it's 24, it's not labeled here.

Um, it it's just it's amazing.

It's honestly out of, I mean, I'm happy with the audit recommendations, but at the end of the day, this is what we've all been asking for is like show me the dollars.

How are they spent?

Um, are they being used effectively?

And how do we go the furthest with our dollars?

Um, and so if you can include this, that would be great.

And I do want to highlight here um county provided services.

We have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven of our shelters that have no county provided services, which the county is a health and human services provider.

Uh, required parts required service participation participation.

I can't even talk right now, participation.

Um, we have only have one, and that's St.

John's.

Nope.

And outreach and engagement center.

That's two.

So out of all of our shelters, only two of them require services for them to enroll in services.

And that's like a policy decision that I think that we need to make uh when we come together as a full mayor and council is like if we're gonna have these projects, should we require people to take services or should it be optional?

Um, my opinion, it should be required.

Um, and so this is like the slide that I think um presenting at council would go a long way.

Okay, can I just make a note on uh on that service requirement?

Um, a lot of it has to do with the funding, how the the service the shelter is funded.

So if we're using state HAP funds, we are not we're not allowed to require services because the state has the housing first approach where we can't kick somebody out if they're not accepting services that we're offering, which got it.

Yeah, so it's it's hard to explain all that context in that table, but somewhere in the report we we go into that.

Yeah, no, and I and I think that when you come to the full council explaining that I think is gonna be incredibly helpful because I mean I just asked this question on the dais, and if any stranger is reading this and just sees the chart, they're also gonna assume the same thing that I just assumed right now.

So that one.

And then uh slide 58, it shows a comparison of sheltering programs contracted capacity and maximum occupancy.

Um EC, for example, we pay for only 75, but 199 people can fit there with the difference of 124.

Um, for your recommendations, why didn't we recommend to like utilize what we have now instead of opening up new ones and using what we have now because this will go a longer way and at the end of the day it'll be more cheaper?

Yeah, I think one of our recommendations is to consider expanding capacity at our existing um shelters.

I don't remember which recommendation number it was, but it's related to finding two.

Okay.

Um, and with the OEC, it's um it there is a big difference because currently the it's a two-story building, and only the first story is being used as um area for the shelter.

So there's um potentially a lot of capacity there.

It would require additional costs than just adding a couple of beds because you would have to get that whole second floor ready for um expansion of the program.

But that's why there's a big gap between that one.

Okay, thank you.

Um, thank you so much.

And by the way, just great job to you and your team on putting this together.

Uh the report is lengthy, but it's amazing.

And like I said, we are so limited in our dollars on homelessness, and the demand is high.

And so, yeah, so if you can go through um at council and go through these numbers, that'd be great.

Thank you.

Um we do uh just want to know we do have a motion by uh the mayor pro tem in a second.

I think I heard from the vice mayor, so uh we have that nicety addressed so far.

Uh I would say first thank you.

Uh this is really quite remarkable.

I I think in its depth and its scope.

Uh and uh that there is uh an enormous amount of material here to to dig into uh we have scratched, I would say, the surface really this morning, and now moving into the after afternoon, there's so much more that that we could talk about.

Um thirdly, I I would say uh that the takeaway for me here is that uh what's confirmed is there is no magic approach.

There's there's no uh approach that's a guaranteed successful uh outcome for all those who come off the off the street.

There's there's nothing that is uh a certainty about what we do.

We we try to do uh the best we can with the resources we have uh to be successful in helping people transition from from homelessness into uh into uh a more permanent and stable uh environment uh on a long-term basis.

Um I do have um I do have uh a few questions and and comments, and I would say at the outset I largely agree with with the comments uh of my of my colleagues this morning as well.

Um firstly I was uh curious um whether the county has actually done anything similar to this kind of kind of review or audit um study, whatever one wants to call it.

They don't always call it an audit at the county, but but it it doesn't matter what you call it.

Um or beside or and I should say, in addition to the county, whether there are other jurisdictions you found perhaps that have done something similar to this to this type of audit.

Um so there are other jurisdictions that have done homeless audits.

So typically when we start an audit, we try to find some similar audits to see what they've found.

Um I don't think we've found anything this what we did here of the analysis of all of our shelters and comparing the costs and the outcomes and whatnot, but let me just quickly confirm with my staff.

That's true.

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh and has the county done anything uh in this vein at all?

Not that we're aware of.

Okay.

I think it would be uh it would it would it would be great to be able to have something to compare ourselves to uh as opposed to to being the uh the uh only uh uh apparently only jurisdiction that's done something like this.

I think it would be helpful to see what it would look like in other jurisdictions too uh as well.

Um I I wanted to make uh also a comment about the the congregate shelters and there is this tension, I think that exists.

Uh I agree with with council member maple that uh the congregate settings do not do not seem to uh uh but by design um create circumstances that that are reassuring necessarily to to people who take shelter in it in them.

Uh on the other hand, uh we need to have spaces to get people off the street where where we can do so uh under the same circumstances and conditions that we we accommodate other people with.

So if there's ability to do that in the you know, certainly in the short run short run and in congregate shelters, I think that's something we can't we can't simply dismiss.

We've got to explore that.

But but I don't think it's a long term or should even be an intermediate term solution as far as I'm concerned.

I do think that we've had a lot of discussion about data and tracking as clearly foundational to uh making wise policy and fiscal decisions with the resources that we have what I would be further interested in is more characterization and data on those who have negative exits.

Because that's where we really need to figure out what if anything we can do to turn those negative exits and into positive exits and that in some cases is going to be a greater availability of affordable housing.

In other cases it it may be the the methodological or epistemological approach to a person.

It's going to be very different I think in very different cases but it I I do believe it would help us if we understood that that better one of the things that struck me in particular and maybe this is something for Brian to comment on is that we had such apparent um high negative outcomes at Roseville Road.

And I'm curious about whether that's because we we stable may stabilize people there but not have a place for them to go to the next step toward uh a better permanent outcome or it's because of other factors um uh the nature of the folks who are getting sheltered there other uh circumstances or conditions I don't know Brian do you have a comment on that by chance uh yeah council member I think you're um you bring up a really good point um and we have been working on trying to uh get a consistent what what creates a um a negative exit why are you getting exited um I think that there was uh in the past there was some discretion um to maybe too much discretion with the operator um of why somebody gets exited um so we have been again one of those areas that we're uh nobody gets exited without contacting us to find out what the exit is because uh there has been trivial exits um in some cases um so that the challenge is you know where where is the bar where where does a service provider and staff um how much how much can they take on before they have to exit a client um that's that balance we're trying to determine um it it again goes along with this whole complexity of um where is that bar to exit somebody because it does put them back out on the street and then cycle back through or we get somebody in that's willing to participate because of our limited space um so it's a it's a balance of if you don't want to participate and you do want to break the the rules of uh of staying at this location um then there has to be some accountability on that side and um how much accountability do we want to call for because again then it puts more people back out on our streets but it does also open a spot up for someone else to give it a try.

Yeah um I mean, one would think it you could eliminate the operator as the as a variable because the same operator uh is running the grove and having among the best outcomes, a different population, but same same operator.

So that struck me as okay, maybe that's not an explanation.

Um I wondered, I started to wonder whether it's because it's an I a fairly isolated location.

Uh and so people go to an isolated location, they feel isolated.

Notwithstanding their surrounding people in that in that in that location, and so they decide I don't want to stay here.

I've got a 50 mile an hour uh road on one side of me, I've got a big parking lot on the other side of me.

I mean I mean there's nothing there that uh outside of outside of the shelter to keep to keep you there.

Uh and I wonder if that is if if that's a variable that matters.

Um, but I also worry that those those who are exiting may well be exiting right back into the immediate uh community that's closest by.

And that's that's the kind of uh impact on community that's that's definitely of concern.

So I don't I I think maybe this bears some further consideration.

I think the highest correlation that we can see is it's a population of the population you're serving in each area.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, thank you, Brian.

Uh I do I do uh agree with the comments of the others uh that we need to we need to define our performance objectives.

We need to be clear about uh what what it is that we're trying to get to uh including outcomes and then uh have um our staff work at and in concert with our partners to accomplish those objectives, but those need to be well defined and clear uh and um I do think the the key on the good neighbor policy.

I certainly found this was true when I was on the board of supervisors and working with a lot of a lot of um social service entities uh and locations is uh implementation and enforcement.

Um it just uh is the underpinning of having good community relations and uh and I think good performance.

So uh in the in uh in finality for the for the moment uh I would say because I I don't want to miss a chance to pound my drum that actually what I what I derive from this is prevention is the best strategy.

Don't don't have people needing to go into shelter in the first place, uh and then you uh get past a lot of these issues that we're struggling with, both but both from a programmatic as well as a fiscal point of view.

So to me, this just reinforces uh the need to put more resources, effort, and attention to to prevention.

Uh and and that's not with the scope of this uh audit, but I think that's that's one of the key things that we have to uh we have to conclude is necessary in order to to ultimately get to where we want to go, which is to to reduce homelessness uh as much as we possibly can, both in the interest of those who are uh in that condition and for the community at large.

So uh if there aren't further comments or questions, we have a motion uh on the floor, and um all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye, opposed, say no, any abstentions?

Hearing none, motion carries.

We'll send this on to the council.

Thanks very much, Barista.

And we have one more item on our agenda, which is a proposed update to the city auditors fiscal year 2627 work plan.

Uh and we'll give it back to you.

Yes, thank you.

Hopefully, this won't be a lot shorter than the last item.

Um, but good afternoon now.

Um, Chair Dickinson and members of the budget and audit committee.

I'm first there are your city auditor.

I'm here today to request an amendment to our upcoming fiscal year 2627 work plan.

Um, as reported out from closed session last week, the city council directed me to conduct an audit of the police department's traffic stops.

Based on our initial discussions, this audit will focus on four main objectives.

Um, and I'd like your feedback on these to ensure that they align with your expectations before we take the revised work plan to the full city council for final approval.

So, first objective would be looking at an assessing the traffic stop practices to determine whether they're conducted in accordance with applicable laws, departmental policies, and the intent of California Assembly Bill 2773, including whether available evidence identifies indicators of potentially pretextual traffic stops.

Two would be reviewing AB 2773 implementation and internal controls to determine whether the police department adequately updated policies, procedures, training, supervision, data collection processes, and accountability mechanisms to comply with AB 2773 and support lawful and equitable traffic enforcement practices.

Our third objective would be to assess the department's complaint management and risk identification to determine whether the police department appropriately received, investigated, tracked, and analyzed traffic stop-related complaints and whether complaint trends identify areas warranting corrective action or additional review.

And then our lastly would be assessing supervisory monitoring to determine whether supervisors and command staff effectively monitor traffic enforcement activity, identify indicators of potentially pretextual or disparate enforcement, and take appropriate corrective action where concerns are identified.

I want to note that there have been some preliminary discussions regarding my current authority to review certain department documents specifically related to traffic stop complaints and investigations.

I'm actively working with the city attorney's office to resolve this, and depending on the legal advice that we receive, these objectives may need to be adjusted down the road to ensure compliance with applicable laws.

Because this audit is not currently on our approved fiscal year 26-27 work plan.

I need your deliberation and approval to formally amend and add it.

And as you know, we already have a full work plan for the upcoming fiscal year.

So therefore, I I would like some direction from this committee on how you'd like to adjust our current commitments to accommodate this new project.

We are getting ready to initiate a number of scheduled audits audits in the coming weeks, specifically three large-scale audits that we're planning on initiating soon, were the audit of pedestrian safety, the audit of the police department's overtime practices, and the review of the financial management and budgeting practices, which we anticipate would be starting a little bit later in a few months.

This would mean that we'd be conducting two major audits of the police department simultaneously.

So I do want to highlight that for your consideration, and I'm looking forward to your direction on how to balance these priorities.

So thank you, and I'm ready to and happy to take any questions you might have.

Thank you, Parisha.

And we'll we'll act with the recognition that there may be some adjustment as you mentioned, required, depending on the uh opinion of the city attorney in that respect.

So I think, did you want to say something, Vice Mayor?

Okay.

Oh, I'm sorry, but before we do that, let's yeah, yes, let's take our let's take our public Lambert, would you like to speak on this item?

Mr.

Davis, would you like to speak on this item?

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

All right, we'll go to the vice mayor.

Alright, so uh, what are the four that you currently have in the pipeline that I think you just said it?

It was pedestrian safety.

Police over time and the financial management and budget practices review.

The forensic audit from the city manager's office, and then this one.

Yes.

Okay, and then um obviously they're all equally important.

Um they're gonna be continued.

Like, would it be like two, three months from now, like six months from now?

What does the timeline look like?

I can't say for sure, but probably more looking towards the end of the year or early next calendar year.

Okay.

My I'm open um to what my colleagues think that from the four, my top two and in advancing is is this audit along with the forensic audit, and because I've I'm really looking forward to that.

Obviously, we have a budget deficit and going line item by line item on what how we spend our dollars is gonna be so important for next year's budget cycle, and supporting our city manager and her efforts for that.

Um so I'll let my colleagues also deliberate.

What other two um off the top of my head?

Um the pedestrian audit, we know that we have dangerous roads.

We know that there's a lot of work that we need to be doing at the same time.

We don't have any money to be able to do the fixtures that are required to make it um well to make it safer at this time.

I mean, we do.

I mean, we have the quick build program, we're trying to get creative with vision zero.

Um, but I'm concerned that there's just not a lot of money, and then doing this audit, and then along with the overtime audit for the police department, that does present a lot of work.

At the same time, this audit is long overdue.

Um, and the public has been demanding answers and feedback, and like Councilmember Maple said, the ACLU recently did a report on this.

So uh looking forward to seeing from my colleagues what they think on the order of the audits.

Um, but I do have some additions to your audit scope.

So maybe let's deliberate first and then we can go back to the audit scope.

Okay, okay, so so you uh let me make sure if I heard you correctly that um out of that police overtime is the one that you would hold.

Um I my top two would be the well the forensic audit is my number one, right?

Um and then um my number two is this audit.

Okay, okay.

I'm open to the other two being, yeah, they'll agree.

Alright, Mayor Pro Tem.

Uh thank you.

Just I mean I think logistically it's difficult for a department to have two audits simultaneously.

It takes a lot of energy out of it, so out of uh out of everyone doing their normal work on top of that.

So I I do think that uh one the council prioritize moving forward with the um this uh this this audit.

Um so if and it doesn't mean that we won't conclude the or won't produce the other audits, but um I I would just say that I think uh having two audits within a department and moving personnel to do all that work would be would be difficult.

So we will get to the I think overtime audit, but um uh that would be one that I would say let's hold back on until we get this this audit concluded.

So, thank you, and council member maple.

All right, thank you, Chair.

Um, and thank you for stepping in and uh being willing to help with this with your expertise.

We know this is really important, so I obviously we prioritize this.

I agree with that.

Um I want to align myself with the Mayor Pro Tem that even though I'm very, very, very interested in the police overtime audit.

Um, said it many times from this diet, I'm I'm glad that we're doing it.

I also think it's very challenging for one department to have to do two major audits at the same time, just logistically.

So I recognize that and definitely want to prioritize this one first, knowing that that one will happen.

Um so that would be my preference, and I just want to say, you know, I'm pedestrian safety.

Um, you know, I just I I think it's so important that we also move that one forward.

Obviously, it's uh you know a big deal for us.

I just um we just had a nine-year-old girl lose her life in my district um this week.

Uh, and you know, there's the details of that are still coming out, but I think there might be some likely factors related to um road design or other issues, and so I think it's really important that we have that information.

So I just want to put that up there as a key priority for me.

But yeah, I'm I'm good with PD over time being the one to wait.

Thank you.

Okay, um, and and and I I concur.

I mean, I think this one uh the traffic stops takes priority.

The forensic audit is something that I think will be beneficial.

Organization-wide, um, and is uh and the pedestrian safety is one that that uh speaks to something that is clearly a community priority, uh, widespread across, I think across all our districts.

So as much as we would I think all like to have that over time uh police department overtime study done, I think that's the one that that doesn't quite rise to the same level under it under um the circumstances, and so I think we have consensus on on that priority order.

That's right.

And you wanted to add something about scope, yeah, of the of this traffic stop study.

Okay, yes, please.

Uh so we have gone back and forth, and there's been a lot of ambiguity on what this report will consist of.

So wanted to make sure I provided uh clear direction to you and to our city manager's office, city attorney's office, uh, to work together on this.

Um I would like for the communication to be directly between our charter officers that directly report to mayor and council on this project.

Uh with that being said, um, I would like the final report to include the following assessment of AB 2773 implementation, assessment of traffic stop practices, analysis of potential indicators of pretextual stops, assessment of supervisory oversight and accountability, assessment of complaint management processes, and recommendations for improving compliance, transparency, accountability, and public trust.

And if you run into any hurdles with accessing the information that you need that you come directly into closed session to report back to mayor and council because what I don't want to see is for it to take a year and then find out that we don't have the information to be able to complete the project, so uh just uh as you if if you got that list in your in your mind, was there anything uh on that list that wouldn't be within the scope of what you were planning to do?

Um I think it includes most uh pretty much what uh what I had identified.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm gonna rewatch this um later.

Yeah, and I can uh repeat it if you like.

You want me to make the want me to second the motion?

Um I'll give you I'll give you my list.

Okay, okay, and then um I would like that to be part of the motion if that's okay with the motion maker.

So you want to add that list?

I want to add that list to okay.

Oh no, I can make a motion, but I'll I'll move the oh you didn't make a motion.

Then can I do it that way as direct okay?

Um, okay, so for your work plan, we would like for you to prioritize pedestrian safety, uh the forensic audit and work with our city manager on that, and this these pretext the pretext stop audit.

And with that being said, um the audit scope to include the final report to include all the auditing reporting that I just read off, and I will give you the piece of paper afterwards with my notes on it.

Um and if you run into any hurdles to come to mayor and council in close session to discuss this, if possible, if city attorneys plus that.

So I don't know that we get that part.

Okay.

Okay.

We have a second from council member maple.

So the the the motion is to update the city auditors' fiscal year 2627 work plan to uh include the traffic stop uh audit uh and the scope of which will include the elements listed by uh the vice mayor, and so madam clerk, can we incorporate those in the in the motion uh and um and to set send this on to the the city council okay?

That's the motion.

All right, and we have a second from council member maple.

Do we have we don't have any public comment?

Any other comments or questions from committee members?

If if not, all in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye opposed, say no.

Any abstentions hearing none, the motion carries.

And now you just have more work to do.

I gotta go get started down there.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you for it.

Do we have anyone who wants to speak off agenda?

Yes, Lambert would like to speak on matters not on the agenda.

Okay, and if we can have another council member join us in chambers, we will then adjourn to close session.

All of us, I'm sure that's true.

Yeah, right.

Okay, uh about two weeks ago, I've been to about four straight budget added meetings, and uh uh had one, it became very contentious because I'm uh the millennials in me, especially me, is interested in this no written agreement given to a group.

And last time I was here, somebody yelled from the roster, no, they're not on the payroll, and then I went to the millennials in my family and said we gotta find out who wrote those seven checks.

There were seven checks written.

You should be alarmed as a city council about this.

Now, they have found out who two of the checks came from.

Shout out to the millennials boy, they don't give up.

And it was sponsorship.

I've been trying to get sponsorship from this city for years, and here they are now.

They give it out.

It's the North Sacra, it's called the North Sacramento Economic Development Investment Initiative.

And we know what department that is, and I've been targeting that department for years.

Thank you, millennials.

Because that confirms it.

It also says in the report, uh, you're not supposed to approve anything after five over five hundred dollars without uh a written agreement.

That's gonna come back to haunt you, and I'm gonna make sure I'm part of that group.

You also gave away two fifty thousand dollar checks, and it and it covers expenses.

I want you to hear this, Mr.

Dickerson.

Expenses related to advertising and public relations.

You don't think we could have used that kind of money in the cheesecake business to advertise?

Why can't we get a no written agreement?

Or is it just for who you know I talked about?

This will be a stickler.

And may I ask the city attorney to ask another council member to come into the chambers so that we may adjourn to closed session?

Thank you.

All right, that completes uh our committee agenda.

So we will be adjourning into closed session momentarily when we have one more council member here in the chambers to constitute a quorum of the full council.

Thank you all for being here.

This is where we need a sergeant to go grab a yeah, but I thought I said the Mindy earlier when you guys were in front, but I if I were over there, I'd call the sergeant.

Start calling the offices, get them there.

That's right.

Put it in the council rules and procedures.

Thank you.

So we are going to adjourn to a special meeting for the purpose of a closed session.

We do have a quorum of council members in chambers.

There are four are four items on the closed session agenda.

The first is conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation, government code section five four nine five six point nine D4.

Initiation of litigation one potential case.

Item two is conference with labor negotiators, government code section five four nine five seven point six.

Designated representatives are Marquisha Smith, Aaron Donato and Tim Davis, employee organizations or Sacramento Police Officers Association and Sacramento Area Firefighters Local 522.

Item three is public employee discipline dismissal release government code section 54957B1.

Item four is public employee performance evaluation, government code section five four nine five seven B1.

Title of City Attorney.

We are adjourned.

We are adjourned at 1241.