Good afternoon.

Welcome to Monday, February 23rd, 2026, meeting of the Measure New Community Advisory Committee.

This meeting is now called to order.

Will the clerk please call role and establish quorum?

Yes, thank you, Chair.

Commissioners, if you can please unmute your microphones.

Vice Chair McGee.

Present.

Commissioner Smith is currently absent.

Commissioner Salah, currently absent.

Commissioner Cook.

Present.

Commissioner Miller?

Present.

Commissioner Johnston.

Present.

Commissioner Novello?

Present.

Commissioner Jarovsky, present.

Commissioner Pashal?

Present.

Commissioner Frank Lucas.

Present.

Commissioner Rosa.

Currently absent.

And Chair George Off here.

Thank you.

We have a form.

I would like to remind members of the public and chambers that if you would like to speak on agenda item, please turn in a speaker slip when the item begins.

You'll have two minutes to speak once you are called on.

After the first speaker, we will no longer accept accept speaker slips.

We'll now proceed with today's agenda.

If let's see who's next.

Would you be willing to lead us in the uh Sacramento Indigenous People tribute and as well as the pledge?

Please rise to develop an acknowledgement in honor of the Sacramento Indigenous People and the Tribal Lions to the regional people of this land to the Nizam people, the Southern Mayo Valley and the PSP Hawks and the Queen Queen people and the people that will join Nigeria, Sacramento only federally recognized stribe.

May we acknowledge and honor the native people who came before us and still walk still walk besides us today and those of these centralists by choosing to gather together today in the active practice of acknowledgement and appreciation of Sacramento Indigenous People's History Contributions and Lives.

Thank you.

I praise the allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic, which is one nation under God in the principle with liberty and justice forum.

Thank you, Member Noveo.

Um our first business item today is approval of the consent calendar.

Um are there any members of the public who wish to speak on this item?

Thank you, Chair.

We have no speakers.

Okay.

Do I have a anyone who wants to speak on this?

Just to note, there is actually a third item on this, which typically isn't there, which is the desolution of the 2025 annual report uh ad hoc.

Uh we talked about it last meeting, but just want to call it out.

Um, yeah.

Uh do I have a first and a second?

I'll be first.

A second.

Great.

Uh and member Pascal.

Okay, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any abstain or any refusal?

Cool.

All right, then we can move on to the discussion calendar.

Um we have some lovely people of the city joining us today.

So uh we'll start with that.

The uh department of information technology, please.

Welcome, welcome.

Good evening, Commissioners.

My name is Gradul Sudan, and then assistant director of the information technology department.

Um I'm here to provide a brief overview on the measure review contributions contributions that support the IT operations.

Um I have a three-slide presentation, and after that, available to answer any questions you have.

IT department serves as an operational backbone for the city, supporting every operation from pro by providing reliable services applications and modernized technology.

Um we manage critical operations like public safety, uh provide the support for the payroll operation, finance, permitting, utility building, customer service, and digital services.

In addition, three cities 311 non-emergency call center is also part of the IT department.

311 serves as a friend, point of contact for the department.

Um by providing residents uh who are seeking information, reporting concerns, or requesting services.

As you can see on the slide, uh there is 202 full-time positions in the IT department, of which 21.5 is dedicated for the 311 operation.

The total operating budget of the department is 37.4 million.

21.6 million is general funded, and 15.9 is from interdepartment transfer and assets.

94% of the department annual budget is allocated for the employee services.

So the measure is support three programs in the IT department.

First one is the 311 operation.

The six positions in the 311 operation is through measury.

This was approved in mid-year or mid-year budget of 2019.

Hiring was completed in April 2nd, 2019 for those six positions.

Prior to approving this sixth position, average wait time was around 8 minutes and 55 seconds for citizens on the line on the 311 line.

And total ticket service request handled was around 400,000 service requests.

Past 12 months following the filling the six positions, the average time reduced to three minutes and 28 seconds, and the total service request handled increased to 465,000 calls.

This position enabled 311 to operate and improve the service level by reducing the call weight time in the peak time.

The annual measure contribution was 377 and 238,000.

The second item is measury funding a 0.25 FTE for supporting the regional support, which serves the primary contact for internal support service side for the staff.

So this includes the service desk, fixing the computers, software support asset management, IT asset management, mobile devices, and things like that.

And the annual annual contribution is 35,000 for that problem.

The third item is almost a 0.25 FT in the IT regional support, the same division, to supporting the police body one camera.

Annual contribution is 38,477.

The total measure contribution annually for the IT department is approximately 450,000 and 685.

311 is the key area where the measure contribution happens.

311 is considered as a front door for the non-emergency call center for city, providing service to the residents, business, and visitors for requesting services, reporting problems, or obtaining information from the city.

311 also supports the dispatching function for almost 10 departments where there is emergency calls and they ready in the request for taking care of the issues.

In the last 12 months, 311 has 575 tickets service requests open with an average wait time of two minutes and six seconds.

This contribute attributes to most of the wait time reduction is mostly because of the hours changes in our operation.

That's end my presentation.

Yeah, commissioners, if you guys have any questions, please feel free to queue up.

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation and your and the brevity.

One question I just I'm trying to get my mind around how the just how the budgeting works and how do you how is it decided like what dollars are reported in the IT department versus like if I call and I say there's a leak in my uh, you know, the water line outside my house, which is something I've called before.

And 311's very responsive, so thank you.

But are all of the costs for the actual um, you know, the dis the dispatch and all that is accounted for in the IT budget, but once you hand it over to say the utility department or whatever, they pick up the cost from there.

Like, how do you how do you where do you draw the line on where it appears in the budget?

It's just kind of a foundational question.

I um 311 operation is a special scenario where what we do is we look at the total number of calls and we DV up the cost and we look at the total cost for operation by for total employees and all that, and we say, okay, a million dollars is the total cost, and we got a million calls, so that's like almost like a dollar, right?

And we take that and look at how many of these calls are enterprise funded, so for like solid waste, parking, those funds.

It'll go to so it based on the percentage, they get assigned that cost.

Okay.

The rest of them goes to the general fund, and this particular position was specifically for general fund, the six positions we talked to.

Understood.

So uh there's been um you've I assume have an increased call volume because the city has been directing.

I know um people who are calling about like um unhoused people, for example, to call 311 for response from department of community response.

So you apportion uh the the percentage of calls related to that to department of community response, for example.

Okay, so the so there's multiple reasons the number of calls increases for the city.

One is the population is increasing.

So if you look at 2019 to now, it's the ongoing increases.

So that is an ongoing thing.

We look at different ways, like what is the right time?

Where is the maximum call coming in?

The last change we did was instead of having staff 24-7 available, we looked at the data and said, like most of the calls are coming from seven to seven.

So why are we having multiple staff at late night?

So let's reduce that and put it in during time so that could drastically reduce our call wait time.

So we look at the data, we also look at uh technology, for example.

We have a virtual agent kind of handles a lot of call deflections.

We receive calls from which are related to county.

So we realize that we are people are standing in the line for no reason to just to transfer the call.

So we take that as an opportunity to put AI in the front of it and said, Oh, answer the question, look at the geographically where they're calling from and what service they're looking for, and deflect them.

They we get called for smart PGE, County of Sacramento, so we deflect a lot of calls related to that.

So it saves a lot of time for city.

Thank you.

Hi, thank you so much.

Um, so I'm really happy that you kind of talked about AI because that was kind of my questioning.

Um I love, you know, everything is moving agentic now, right?

Um, in terms of AI and service calls.

So is there any planned upgrades or structural upgrades to 311 to the IT department that's coming that's gonna possibly either detract from operations or enhance operations, like what could we expect?

And is there a line item in the budget for that continual um AI infrastructure upgrade to kind of in manage the increased volumes and all the different you know um calls that are coming through?

So we are one of the few agencies, we already have a virtual agent where you talk to natural conversation with the system already in place in production for the last three, four years.

We see close to four FT worth of work done by that agent on a regular basis.

So the next step for us is to modernize our basic phone system.

That's in the part of a budget request for Nest cycle.

It's already there.

So our goal is to actually modernize the phone system, which is used at the 311, which will come with a lot of AI features.

So virtual virtual age and like the with the what we call as the new LLM models and the AI agent DKI, those things will be coming in the future here.

We are planning for all that.

And can I ask then a follow-up question?

Like, what is that um, what is that rollout timeline look for you?

Like, you know, obviously it's not gonna be tomorrow, but like what is the the continuous plan to kind of streamline that and have that rollout where it's not impactful to you know the actual services, but continuous upgrading.

The first step is to actually get through the budget process to get the budget approved for it.

We are internally also evaluating various products in the market and to kind of in preparation for it, hoping that we'll have the funding for it to uh to prepare for that um upgrade.

Once we have the funding, we'll go through the exercise of are we just modernizing 311?

Because we have multiple call centers within the city.

Like if you call utilities for bill questions, so it'll go to DOU.

If you have revenue bills, it'll go to revenue.

So our goal is to consolidate all that into one call center.

One number where you doesn't matter what department or if you have a question on permitting, you don't have to figure out what number to call.

So it will be centralized to one 311.

That's our bigger goal to achieve here, also.

Yeah.

So I don't have the timeline at this point, sorry.

Thank you.

Great answer.

Member Cook or Miller?

Okay.

Thanks for the uh breakdown and congrats on cutting the average await time from uh eight minutes to four.

That was a big deal.

So kudos to that.

Um this is more of like a maybe a platform or software question on 311.

I noticed like we're all told to go to 311, submit the ticket, look at the 311 portal for status update, et cetera.

But like that portal lacks the fidelity on actual details of the ticket.

So for example, you go to 311, you submit a ticket, ticket gets closed.

Like there's no there's no like details surrounding the closure of the ticket that are available on the public portal, like it's truly closed.

You know what I mean?

So you end up getting a call 311, get an explanation, it's hit or miss.

I'm just curious: is there like a path for to actually expose the details underlying the ticket to the public portal such that you can get more insight without having to call in?

Yes.

So the quick answer is yes.

Um 311 is only responsible for taking that call from the customers or residents and passing that to the departments, and the department actually processed that whatever business process they have.

So we have a project going on, which is a multi-year project where working with each department and actually look at the business process and kind of update back to the 311.

So that this information can be shared with the citizen.

So we recently completed for the DCR because that was the high volume call where we can provide those information back.

Right now we are working with animal care, is the next one we are working on at this point.

So it is going to take a while for us to work with every department actually to process that how they are processing it, why are they closing without responding to the citizen duplicate calls, those kind of things?

Yeah.

Yeah, DCR was actually the department question.

You know, you know, you submit a ticket for like homeless support, etc.

Get ticket gets closed, but you know, the ticket may or may not be actually resolved, so without that details in the portal, there really is no insight.

So you think that will be ready for prime time in the coming weeks, months, um, coming months, actually.

Okay, cool.

Thanks.

Okay, I just have one uh final question uh very similar to Member E's question, which is around the AI adoption.

You mentioned that you're sort of waiting for budget for these things.

Is it not possible to start quite small and like maybe divert some of the current budget we have towards like uh these robo answering uh channels and have maybe just two or three percent go to like this new system and a very small budget trial and error or A B test type situation?

You know, is that is that a thing that's possible, or do you feel like you have to go and get a large sort of budget approval to like overhaul a whole system?

It is possible, and I think we did a little bit of that already.

Um we launched an internal employee only AI chatbot.

Um, the next phase of that was we we tested that for almost six months to make sure it's not going to give wrong answers, hallucination and all that.

And if you look at our public website now, there is an AI summary comes out of it also, which is kind of a A B testing for us to see how it is responding.

So if you go to 311 mobile app or 311, where you ask for a claim form versus you go to website, it'll get a human almost response now.

So that was our A B testing, trying it out and say how it is.

And we are trying to bring that to our mobile app.

We wouldn't want mobile app also at this point.

So we are working on small enhancements throughout this process while we are waiting for a big funding.

Sorry, so it sounds like you guys have already sort of tested this out and you are feel comfortable moving forward with uh I guess smarter AIs or LLM-based AIs uh to do the answering rather than just the existing tech you guys have now.

Okay, and so would it not be possible then to just slowly diverge the current budget that we again are having towards these older systems to the new one without getting new budget?

You see where my question is going.

No, I don't I because the underlying technology, so there is a phone system and the contact central application that cannot support someone's AI capabilities.

Some of the integrations we really want to build a bit the phone call virtual conversations, like for example, we really want to build where if somebody's talking in Spanish, we can always age and can talk in English.

So and there is a back and forth communication and real time translations happening.

Sure, sure.

So those require real infrastructure changes.

Yep.

Okay.

Sounds good.

Are there any further questions from I think we can move on?

Thank you very much for your presentation and appreciate you coming in.

Are there any members of the public who wish to speak on this item?

We do not have any speakers.

Excellent.

Then we can move on.

I believe next is the fire department presentation.

Specific to the diversity and outreach, not the overtime specific like budget of measureo.

Okay.

Any particular reason why we're doing it that way, or are you guys gonna come back so we can ask questions on the other one?

Or yes, we can come back.

Okay, fair enough later.

Um I just wanted to take a moment to introduce assistant chief Kimmy.

Kim has been the brainchild of the door division, and she has prepared a slideshow for you this evening.

So I'll be with her here, but she's gonna take you through the slides.

Okay, welcome.

All right.

Good evening, everybody.

Uh Measure U Commission.

I really appreciate the opportunity to present some of the um overview of our measure you funded diversity outreach and recruitment division.

My name is Kim Yonucci.

I'm an assistant chief that oversees the division, and um I've been with the department for a pretty long time.

Since 1981, I'll let you do the math.

Um, we'll be presenting outcomes achieved, uh, recent adjustments and forward considerations as a result of the measure you funding.

Um so measure you funding and enabled the Sacramento Fire Department to operationalize the city's commitment to workforce equity.

Uh it was prompted by a 2020 audit uh audit findings and council priorities.

It was designed as a three-year phase in project.

Um we have we were able to receive funding for phases one and two.

Um, the funds provided by the Measure U Advisory Commission helped us create capacity to build long-term workforce pipelines.

Um, I pulled some uh 2025 audit of our diversity, and you could see, and this is for all 600 sworn um firefighters and um uh sworn employees with the department.

Um it's uh the the BIPOC numbers have increased.

Um we're still at four percent women.

Then if you look at the window of 2021 through 2025, the more recent hires, you can see that the diversity is has improved quite a bit more, and we're at five percent more women.

So it takes a while we're doing better hiring, it still takes a while to affect 600 uh people strong.

So again, measure you built operational capacity.

Um, this was our fully staffed model up through fiscal year 25 that enabled the running of comprehensive workforce workforce and use youth pipeline programs.

Um we have adult pipeline programs, um, which we had one captain and two firefighters.

We have youth pipeline programs with one captain and one firefighter, um, and then we have our administration um with myself, uh program supervisor and an admin tech.

We were covering some limited um CTE support for high school.

That was gonna be fully built out in year three in phase three of the program.

Um, and all door staff supported um things like girls camp uh and our SAC fire pathway, as well as uh recruitment efforts overall.

So showing measurable workforce outcomes is important to you know justify why we're here.

And so we we focus on outcomes such as academic improvement for the program participants, certifications and licenses that have been achieved, as well as the internal hiring pipeline impact.

All the programs supporting our expanded EMS delivery models for the Sacramento Fire Department.

Sacramento Fire Department has been doing a lot of innovative community medical services, and we have now moved into a single role hiring model.

I mean, ambulance model for paramedic and EMTs that only work on a medic, as well as our dual role firefighter EMT paramedic or paramedics.

We have a mobile crisis unit in our community medical services.

We have street overdose response team, mobile integrated health, a lot of very community facing in out in the street with the community programs, and our programs help support that, and it's important having a more diverse workforce that's out on the street supporting the community medical services.

So this illustration shows some of our programs and illustrates the diversity and the return on investment through various pipeline programs.

If you look at the column on your left, that would be youth programs.

The column on the right is adult programs.

The top row is measure you funded programs.

The bottom row are grant-funded programs that we've been able to lean into because of the Measure U funding.

So we've got a lot of you know great things.

We've already from Youth Academy, we've had our first hired paramedic who's gone through several of our pipelines and is working as a paramedic on a single role ambulance.

We've hired 44 EMS interns.

That's kind of our capstone program.

That's the one that they roll out of and straight into one of the career positions.

We do a lot of screening with them, so they meet the same standard as a sworn firefighter, career firefighter, or career EMT paramedic.

So they're able, once they complete everything, once they get their paramedic certification to roll right into that career position.

The high school CTE pathway, we were able, we were successful with the children's fund grant, Measure L.

And so we were able this year to implement two positions, one at Valley High and one at Intercom High School.

And so that has really exploded the number of young people that we're able to reach out to.

And that's that was another EDD employee development department grant.

And it's for young people age 18 to 26 who meet what are typically called YOA or Workforce Innovative Opportunity Act guidelines for having higher needs and maybe being impacted in various ways, system impacted, justice involved youth, things like that.

And so we've had we have our second cohort already, and it graduates in the end of March.

So this slide illustrates pipeline in action.

Our firefighter youth academy, the current class that's going right now, Cadet Class 7, demonstrates a measurable conversion from girls' camp to the youth academy pipeline.

50% of the girls we hired were from girls' camp.

So the influencing factors were we realigned, we were doing the camps in fall and we realigned it to spring because that's when recruitment started with our youth academy.

And so those young girls were, you know, still had it fresh in their mind, and we were able to get them to if they were interested to sign up right there at camp on that day.

Unfortunately, girls' camp was discontinued following staffing reductions for this fiscal year.

So what's really important to see here is Measure U has been a multiplier.

We had a 3.9 million operating budget in fiscal year 25.

That's eight staff FTEs as well as 20 halftime EMS trainees.

And then through that, we were able to leverage funding for another 3.6 million in grant funding for the programs that I was talking to you about.

So Measure U funding didn't just support programs, it positioned the department to secure over $3.6 million in competitive external funding, supporting our paramedic pipeline and underserved youth.

Grants are time limited but designed to build long-term workforce capacity.

This shows the staffing changes with the fiscal year 25-26 adjustments.

We lost two two staff positions.

We adjusted, we had to adjust the program to based off of to create alignment with the Sacramento with the pipeline programs and Sacramento Fire Department's emergency response system stability.

So with that, you know, that impacted the programs that are listed up there that we can't fully support, other than the high school pathway because we got the Measure L funding.

So we had the OT budget reduced, our internal OT budget that's part of our our funding.

But OT expenditures have increased because our staff has stretched a lot farther.

The reduction in gains made in the door affects our community.

Here's a budget snapshot of fiscal year 25 versus 26.

It represents overall door funding reductions in areas in impact.

I can get a lot more granular with this, but this is just an overview of the change.

Maintaining the current programs that we're still supporting, the EMS trainee program and the youth academy, as well as the grant programs that we've received funding for.

When we put in for these grants, we leverage the admin staff as with in our minds as eight full-time positions, not six that we're at now.

And so it's it's it's stress, it's caused some strain within our our office.

So when we're looking at the outlooks looking forward, sustainability, we have partnerships.

We have partnerships for the EMS Corps with an organization called Public Works Alliance.

We also partner with Youth Forward, local Sacramento CBO.

They've been really key in helping us get community connected.

We have they help us recruit for the program instead of and so they know all the CBOs.

They the CBOs bring us the kids, we don't go looking for them, and they know the kids that need us most.

And then the children's fund grant has potential to extend beyond three years.

If we can show some true some true return on investment, which I'm pretty certain we'll be able to.

As far as paramedic pipelines, um, we're um we have our you know, our girls' camp, fire youth academy, um, high school CTEs and the EMS Corps.

We see we're starting to see these young people get careers.

We've we've had 11 EMS trainees already have promoted into career positions from our department.

That's like 30 percent of those that that um we were able to retain.

Um so um we are able to overhire with EMS trainees because everybody moves in and out of the program at different times, even though they may have been hired at the same time.

Um, because we meet them where they're at they're at.

If we hire an 18-year-old, they don't have any college units yet, and we have to get them certain certifications.

Um the um and so we're able to overhire to to project like okay, we're gonna lose three or four out to the field, they're gonna get promoted, we need to make sure that we can overhire that, and that's also how we use the myop funds.

Um we have continued diversity gains as I demonstrated on the second slide.

Um, and while we can't support some of our our previous programs, the added grant programs have helped offset some of those to offset some of those losses.

Um also we have a consultant called Behavior Leader, um, that is do has a five-year training program with us.

They did a um they did a uh a staff survey of the department, made recommendations.

We have from the chief all the way down to the recruit academy.

We have layers of training that go on over the next five years, and that was also myop funding that we leveraged.

Um, and then our fire core equity team works closely with the Office of Diversity and Equity.

So our return on investment as far as certification and that advancement with our high school programs, our youth academy.

We've had over 384 CPR certifications with all the youth that we've brought through our programs.

With the high school programs added, that number is going to increase probably by double because we have more students that we're working with.

Um we have a very diverse applicant pool, and we are able to leverage 3.6 million dollars in grant funding.

So we have the wheels of the hiring pipeline machine moving, and we continue to seek creative ways that we can lift our community through job readiness, workforce development, and high quality customer service.

So, you know, measure you, you're not we're not just simply funding programs, it's strengthening Sacramento's long-term public safety workforce by investing directly in the community.

So, as far as sustaining progress, we know the fiscal fiscal environment is strained, and sustainability and stability are critical to DORA initiatives, and the Measure U Community Advisory Commission makes these initiatives possible.

I have a little just a visual here for you to look at that shows the 752 participants we've had since July 21 when the program started.

These are youth or active people that have benefited from the funding that you've provided.

There are programs that are time have a time period.

The youth academy goes for nine months, EMS trainees anywhere from the average is 1.6 one and a half years in the program.

Some take a little longer.

We had one kid just blow through it in one point two, one year, two months, he's in the recruit academy right now.

Um so what I want to show is the diversity that we're starting to see.

50 percent female in our programs.

That that's like huge.

That that gives me chills when I look at that number.

It um it has been hard to achieve, but we are starting to see that that happening, and so it really makes a difference.

Um I'll leave you with this with David Bing.

He's a former basketball player and a former uh Detroit mayor.

He said, diversity is about is about counting people, inclusion is about making people count.

This is why can continued measure you funding is critical in lifting our community.

We make these young people feel like they count.

That's it.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

Members of the committee, if you would like to speak, please cue up.

Member Kokor Miller.

Thank you very much.

I work with youth.

I love to see all the youth programming.

It's fantastic.

And the fact that you've got 50% girls.

I love it.

And kudos as well for leveraging all the additional grant funding.

I'm new to the commission, and I'm gonna keep using that excuse as long as I can get away with it.

But I just want to ask kind of a basic question about how you predict staffing and overtime versus FTEs.

Why is building in overtime a better strategy than just increasing the amount of FTE?

Is it the cost of increased benefits or you know, can maybe you can just explain that to me?

Because there's a lot of um the youth academy runs on the weekend.

Um there's a lot of um times when uh one of the um uh programs uh coordinators has to spend some extra time with a student that might be struggling and needing some help.

Um we bring in staff adjunct instructing um to help support like 35 kids in a youth academy, and one captain and one firefighter aren't enough.

So we bring in um staff that come in and help support that on the weekend, and so that costs overtime as well.

That was built into the the budget for that, so um, and we take them places, we take them on um a three-day camping trip.

Um, you know, a lot of those different things um require um the overtime.

Girls camp was all funded by overtime.

It was Friday, it was a Saturday Sunday, and it's uh supported by uh women within our fire department and men that are supportive of of the program as well as women from other departments that each department gives on their own.

We don't pay the other women, but we do pay our own um personnel when they show up to to support the program.

You said girls camp is the one that has been discontinued?

Yes, girls camp was disconnect.

We had to pick and choose, and it was hard, it was hard choices, heartbreaking choices.

Thank you.

But that was a good question.

On a lot of people don't realize how much time we put in into the programs, and we have breakdowns on hours per program.

Um, I know somebody wanted to know the per participant cost, and that was something we were working on, and I realized that the data was not correct when we had finished the chart, and I'm like, Well, I can't present that it's not it's not accurate, but we will get you the accurate information, and you will be able to see cost per program.

Uh member McGee.

Firstly, I love your um former mayor being um quote, because I'm Detroit.

It's my city, one of my cities at least.

Um I really love the pipeline that you you know and you discussed in terms of reaching out to the you know high schools.

I see you have intercom, which is in D1, so thank you for that.

But have you looked at the collaboratively collaboratively engaging with some of the other high diverse schools such as SAC High, um, Burr Bank, as well as reaching out to some of the community programs that are existing in Sacramento that are servicing diverse populations to kind of increase that number and at least get the word out there that the programming is available.

Um those are the schools that we recruit for the youth academy.

Um the intercom high school and valley high school are fire um career technical education programs.

So Valley has a um uh fire and emergency services pathway.

Intercom has a public safety pathway.

Um we're partnered with SAC PD.

That makes sense.

Thank you.

That's it.

But yeah, we we try to hit those schools that you're um that you're telling us about.

We're we're starting our recruitment season um pretty soon and we'll start hitting all those schools.

And what about other collaborative um entities within the city?

Do you have any existing partnerships?

Are you looking at partnerships?

Yeah, actually.

EMS Corps has really broadened our partnerships.

Um the the wraparound services are provided in EMS Corps and the provider is Greater Sacramento Urban League, and that has really opened the door to um more um community based organizations as well as youth forward.

Um and so as we learn more about those program uh those community-based organizations, we're able to start sending them information when we're getting ready to to um take take young people into our programs and direct them to if they're interested.

You know, you can go to Valley Higher, you can go to Intercom if you have a desire for a public safety pathway.

Thank you for your answer.

And those are great programs as well.

Yeah, so thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um member Frywick.

Um, what?

This one now?

Oh.

Do you do any recruiting in a community colleges?

Well, yes, we um, so that was one of the programs that we had to back off on because the one supervisor left was stretched too thin.

Um we even had to have our um our youth, our youth academy firefighter um do half time helping out with the EMS Corps because I mean with the EMS trainees because we no longer had uh a supervisor.

So we did.

We we went to America River College, um City College, uh Sierra College, Casumness College, Fulson College, you know, we went to them all.

Um and we even went to SAC State for, you know, like as much local recruitment as possible.

That was our goal.

We want to bring those, you know, the dollars that get invested back into the community.

Um if you're not going to community colleges, do you know?

Can you tell me where you're getting your 26-year-olds from?

The 26-year-olds?

They come you know, sometimes I don't know how um they find us, but they find us.

Just like we get random kids from like that apply for youth academy that live in Stockton.

It's like I I don't know how they found us.

We do we don't go down to Stockton to recruit, right?

Yeah.

Um, but as far as 26-year-olds, um, the community-based organizations has helped us in the EMS Corps.

Um a lot of them are foster youth, aging out foster youth.

Um, and they're they've been a big contributor to the student body of the EMS Corps.

That's a program that's a five-month-long program.

So we we do two a year.

Um, and so that's where we're getting those individuals.

EMS trainees can be anywhere from 18 to like we've had a 40-year-old in the program.

And so that's an open um job application, um, for somebody who wants to make $18 an hour and work 20 hours a week and go to school full time and have it paid for.

So we pay for everything, you know, all of their academics.

Um they don't have to pay for, they don't have to buy a backpack, they don't have to buy a water bottle, we pay for everything because we can't pay them a lot and they get paid part-time with no benefits.

Right.

But yeah, we get a wide variety of applicants.

We we use our our um Instagram platform, join Sacfire.org.

Um, and then Wendy, our um PIO, she I mean, our um media specialist, she will link stuff to the SACFIRE um Instagram, and um we get a lot of questions there, plus um interest forms on the um I on the website.

So do you ever ask the uh folks how they found you and kind of keep a tally of that to see what's working and what's not working?

Yeah, we do with our um our our internal programs, yes.

Um we're we we'd love to do that with the um the the career hiring process, but we don't always have full um full control over that in the NeoGov.

Um I would like to see it like once they get hired and they're in the academy.

I'd love to see that, but I would really like to see the entire applicant pool, and that's where we don't necessarily have full um control over that piece of work.

I guess my question is is there a question on the first application to say is how did you find out about us?

Not that I'm aware of.

Okay.

That would be I'm thinking that maybe you might want to consider that.

How did you find us so that you're better able to figure out what's working?

That's just a suggestion.

I think all departments would benefit from that.

Good evening.

Thank you so much for your time.

I really appreciate it.

I have a couple just fundamental questions to make sure that I'm understanding kind of the basics of what you presented.

From what I'm understanding, is it correct to say that you get minus the grants entirely funded through measure you?

So the um I know I know it gets confusing.

So the grants funded three firefighter positions, their program coordinators, and the operational costs for the students to be able to do what we want to do with them within the grants.

So and those three firefighter positions only last as long as the grant lasts, and then they go back to the to the field if we're not able to get continual funding.

Um the reason I said measure you kind we measure you is a big part of that, it's because of our division that there was capacity for me and um some of my staff to sit down and work on writing the grant and having that ability to look for ways to expand the program.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, and that's what my understanding of the grants, and that's why I'm sorry if my question wasn't clear is if we ignore the grants, because I understand the grants exist partially because of the positions that are already there for measure you funding.

But if you were to remove measure you funding, would there be any other revenue source from general fund or any other to okay?

So solely measure you, um, and yeah, that it if if measure you funding went away, it'd be very difficult to um to run the grant programs.

Okay, that and that's what I that's what I thought and assumed, and and that's really helpful to know.

So basically, no measure you, no division.

Yeah, okay.

Our internal staff don't get offset for any of the costs.

We leverage that as um justification for the grant that we had staff that could support um the all the reporting and and um a lot of things that happen within within um grant requirements.

Got it.

And then I also want to ask about five percent women is very low number.

So I'm trying to stand in the pipeline.

The girls' camp, there are there were 25 cadets, female cadets in the youth academy, 12 of those came from girls' camp, girls fire camp.

How many of those became eventual full-time employees?

They're not this is our current academy.

So this was the the um the result of the last two girls' camps.

We we were able to do two in 2025 because we had we had um, you know, we were watching our budget and we saw that we were able to do a second girls' camp and excuse me, and be able to move it to a more um more a time more in alignment with our youth academy hiring.

So um that was just 20 uh fiscal year 25 that we um grabbed these girls for the 2026 youth academy.

Got it.

I I guess my question is, because this is no longer this has been discontinued from staffing reductions, right?

That five percent I would imagine is not gonna increase because of this, right?

Down the line, or is those are those unrelated uncorrelated programs?

Um there is an increase in women in our pipelines, so the wheels have started to turn.

Um, I've provided um one-page data sheets of of two years, fiscal year 25 and fiscal year 26 of the youth academy, girls' camp, um, EMS Core, and uh EMS trainees.

EMS trainees, it's it's more of a snapshot in time because it's very fluid, they're coming in and coming out.

We just started a five-person academy today, so that's how fluid we are with that.

Um, so we are seeing more women in those numbers of um of people that that um are coming through.

The the um 11 that have promoted, half of them have been women, and so that helped affect the numbers of recent hires.

Yeah.

Okay, because this seems at least to me to be exactly what measure you're supposed to be doing.

And so it seems disheartening to see this program then stop.

And I and I know it's kind of hard to restart programs.

You there's time to kind of ramp up.

Is this would this be if you had you know 10, 20% more in your budget?

Would this be one of the first things that you would look to increase and how much would that cost, or are there other priorities that you foresee in your department?

The two FTEs and the programs that we defunded totaled just over $900,000.

So um, you know, the the the FTEs of course includes benefits and and all of that, and it it we're we're expensive, it's expensive to add that, and then the remaining covered the programs.

If if we received, you know, uh even a portion of that, we would be able to look at which programs do we want to start up.

And um, you know, girls' camp is kind of a a one and done, you know, a weekend, um, and it's very enthusiastically supported by a lot of the individuals on the fire department.

Got it.

Thank you so much for time.

Of course.

Uh member Salah.

Yes.

Good evening.

Good evening.

How are you?

I'm good.

Thank you.

Very nice presentation.

I appreciate that.

Simple and clear.

Um I appreciate that very much.

I I have a couple questions because I'm not sure I'm not sure I understand.

So these um the pipeline programs that you have before us, the youth academy, that's intended for to go into become a firefighter.

Is that is that what that's for?

So um the high school programs are viewed as introductory, like, hey, check this out.

Maybe you never thought about doing this.

Is this something you're interested in?

So the high s the youth academy is a high school program, and the students can reapply each year, and we build in leadership within that, so they become, you know, in they move into leadership roles within the the program.

And um those are typically the ones that are a lot more interested in in suddenly becoming a firefighter.

We're seeing more and more of you know, early on, it was just like kids like that sounds fun on a Saturday, let's do that.

Whereas now, because we're able to have our actual, you know, we were out there promoting it at first, and now we have our youth out there recruiting with us, and it makes a big difference.

And so we're we're seeing more and more young people that come through these academies wanting to be a firefighter or a paramedic.

Um, and so you know, I think that answered your question.

So the seven that was hired by the fire department, is that the fire they they were um hired as EMS trainees, so they're getting their they're going through, we're paying for them to go to school to get their um EMT and then their paramedic license, and then they will get as EMS trainees.

If you're successful in all your um getting your paramedic license, you move into one of our career pathway.

You you go straight there, you go to the front of the class basically.

So the seven are gonna go into an EMS their training.

Yeah, they're in the EMS trainee program right now.

Oh, okay.

Well, except for one.

We have one that that graduated out and he's um parenthesis.

So what's the difference between this then?

What's the five in the AMS core?

The EMS core is the the five-month-long program where they get their EMT certification.

I didn't get too granular with that because I wanted to move through everything, but it's really good questions.

It's a four-day a week, full-time, um, eight-hour days.

Um, Monday, Wednesdays they get EMT training, um, and they have um mentors that that work with them and then on on Tuesdays and Thursdays they have wraparound supportive services.

Um, they do things, they work on resumes, they work on practicing interview skills.

They work on they have community circles, they get mental health um aid if they need that.

They some of them need child care.

We have, you know, we we have different things we can find for them to get those services.

Okay, so they come out with an EMT license.

These individuals potentially can end up if they're successful and they do what's needed and there's a position, they can end up being hired.

So as fired.

Yeah, we just hired one EMS core um graduate from the first cohort in this current EMS trainee academy that started today.

And then um so I know that you you um of the 160 cadets, I'm just talking about the youth academy right now.

Um, and you said 82 percent with were um BPOC, yeah.

And and then you and 47 were female.

So I'm I'm I'm I'm figuring out that of the 47, there was a percentage that were P Pac.

Yeah, the email that the But then you don't I don't know like of those that were hired, what were women and what were BOC?

Um of the hiring?

Yes, that got into the right to the programs.

I I would have to I don't think it's on the I gave you some info sheets, but I don't think that particular um data set is on there, but I can give you that.

I can get you that.

And that that would be the the same for the internships and the high school.

And the reason why I want to know because if if there are pipeline programs and you're training them and then you're hiring them, I just want to see what's the outcome of that training resulting in female and BPOC, um being hired.

Yeah, I can absolutely because from what I what you just described, it is a feeder group into becoming a firefighter.

Yes, correct.

Yes, it is okay.

Yeah, yeah.

No, and and I have all that data.

I I just um I didn't segregate it out into the um the right, yeah.

But thank you.

Uh member cook.

Okay.

Thanks for putting this together.

I like that you printed it out.

Um, uh the uh the pipeline metrics are are quite impressive, and what I'm trying to understand is I mean, maybe maybe off the top.

Are these workforce metrics workforce outcomes for this calendar year, or is that the hiring like over the entire funding of the program?

How should we think about that?

So that last page is um that was kind of showing all of the overall diversity of all the um young people that have been part of our programs, that very last that very last page there.

Now, if you look at into any of the individual um infographics for um the students, what you're seeing are fiscal year 25 and then fiscal year 26.

If I had the data for two years.

So the 11 EMS train, 10 EMS trainees paramedic school, etc.

That's just for this calendar year.

Is that the right?

Yeah, that was just some high level um, like here's some that that's not every single metric.

It was just showing some of the um some of the accomplishments within that within our um programs.

Oh, this this presentation had a lot of like nuggets of wisdom.

Kudos to using the measure you funding as leverage to generate additional funding.

What I'm like, trying to reconcile, and I don't know, tell me if I'm wrong, is like your budget snapshot sap shot.

Uh you're you're receiving like materially less this year than the prior year.

It's almost like 30% less from fiscal year 25.

And I don't understand how like the met the revenue collected by the measure you fund goes up every single year.

So more money comes in every single year.

But like for programs which measure you're supposed to support, it goes down every single year.

So what caused why is the budget lower this year than last year?

Was it like mandatory reductions?

Um, the budget office said this is what you're cutting.

Um, and so we had, you know, we had to make hard choices, and um that that was just one area of the overall fire department budget that I can't speak to on the overall budget, but um that was just one kernel of it, you know.

Like in my eyes, I'm like $900,000.

What you know, but you know, little every little every little $100,000 adds up to meet the budget, you know, um level that that you're being asked to meet.

Um, you know, we're at we're being asked for re for reductions again this year, and programs are one of the areas is why I'm talking to you early instead of instead of later.

It you know, it your support is I think important.

Your your um feeling of value or if you feel that around these programs is important, and um, you know, me.

I could say it.

Uh like I hope that you let people know that you think it's important that we stay funded, or get restored.

Yeah, maybe this is an observation, no pressure to respond, but it just seems like we're collecting measure you in isolation is collecting a hundred and sixty million dollars this year, which is more than last year.

The year after that will be even more, but then you see programs like this, which measure you're supposed to fund, are getting cut, like the math does not compute to me.

I don't know if it's a function of head count or labor costs or something else, like any like wisdom you can impart would be quite helpful because if you look at just straight numbers, number goes up, head count should go up too, right?

I I I feel strongly the way you've articulated that that um, and I wish I could tell you why it was decided that a portion of the door budget was reduced.

Um I don't I don't know the answer to that.

I don't I you know I I just don't know.

It it, you know, we we asked, we presented, we said why, and and the impact that it was gonna be, and you know that that we have to choose which programs, you know, we're not gonna we're not gonna stop doing EMS trainees.

That's critical.

Um, and then we're not gonna stop the youth academy because the impact of that is just is incredible.

We have, you know, we have stats on where they're all at right now, too.

We have a lot of them are out there going to college and getting the things they need so they they can apply for us in the future, and they know how to do that because they've been with us, uh member McGee.

Thank you.

Um one more question in the presentation.

I believe it was this one.

It said Mina, M-E-N-A.

What is that?

Oh, that's um uh Middle Eastern and North Africa.

Thank you.

Umber Saul, go ahead.

Yeah.

Um I just want to make a comment, and I'm not sure I understand it correctly, but so measure you, it is intended for specific programs that that people voted for, but it's also general funds.

So the way I I saw it happen, and someone can speak to that is the money we measure you makes our recommendations, but it's general funds, and the city council takes that measure you money and puts it in the big pot, and tells all the departments okay, for us not to lay off this is what happened national for us not to lay off anybody.

You're gonna have to find a way to come up with X amount of reduction in your budget.

Yes, everybody across the board.

It doesn't matter whether it was a measure you program or not, it because they put it all in one big pot, and that's kind of how I understood why it doesn't make sense to you because it goes into one pot.

It's not it's not a separate pot that says this is measure you funds, and it's gonna be used to fund the programs that people voted for.

So I that's how I understand it, unless.

Yeah, okay.

Um okay.

So I have quite a few questions that I'd like to ask you.

Um the first of all, first off, thank you for your time coming in.

Um I know you guys are busy, and I appreciate it, especially just to talk about like money things, but um I'm trying to look at the measure you built operational capacity.

You have like eight FTE fully staffed models, and it kind of lists eight of them, and then I go back to the workforce pipeline and diversity impact, and I see four programs.

Those four programs, I'm I'm just struggling to match.

I see a few of them like EMS internship, um, I see that one.

I see Firefighter Youth Academy, that makes sense.

Um, and then is the limited CT support at high schools, the high school CTE node.

We um so we had a minimal like a uh $20,000 high school CTE budget to support like we would send crews there to you know what to help um with fire palooza day or um you know different things like that.

We also are um we're we actively work with health professions high school when the captain, the remaining captain, has gone there once a week for at least three and a half, four years to help teach CPR and um get um some instruction on IVs and phlebotomy and and things like that.

So health professions is like our you know, like we we've kind of hugged them as close as we can, but um, but um, and so that was the minimal high school CTE, and that's when I saw the children's fund.

I saw an opportunity to get those two firefighter positions that was was part of the um year three um phase in.

Okay.

So the external funding leverage was primarily due to that.

Is that correct?

Okay, so then the 3.6 million went towards like high school oriented activities, is that correct, or was it re-sort of the the 3.6 million youth uh uh measure you funds?

No, the ones that you found.

The leverage funds so um uh three uh a hundred and fifty thousand, right, Ash?

That the measure L, the um the um budget for that is a hundred and fifty thousand, so that's five hundred, I mean one point five million, five hundred thousand a year.

That covers two firefighters plus all the stuff that that we do with the schools, okay.

Um and then the other half or a little bit more was for the EMS core, and that's for the 18 to 26 year old.

Um, that's the EDD funded program.

It's a workforce development program that um that is like a pre-apprentip type program, and we get them the first step that that most young people need if they want to pursue um their paramedic is uh EMT.

And so we make sure that we're hitting these young people and providing supports that would be least likely to get their EMT and um start to move forward into a career in the fire service.

And those are the the young people that that were in their young adults, so that was a separate funding line.

So it's half adults or half of the program goes towards an adult program.

The other half goes to a whole lot of kids in the high school CTE programs.

Gotcha.

So it goes like generally EMT to EMS to paramedic.

Is that the sort of that can be?

Yeah, I mean, literally a kid could go from girls' camp to youth academy.

Some of them could be in a high school, um, a fire CTE program as well.

They could be coming to both.

We've had that.

Intercom kids have joined our program.

Um, and then from there, they could go to EMS Corps, or if the timing was right, they can apply for the EMS internship.

We hire once a year, we do a uh we the um we create a list, it's good for a year, so we can we can pick young people in and bring them in as as um we see people getting ready to move out.

So that that's the two ways they could go.

Um we used to have a fire reserve program, it's mentioned there.

I didn't go into it too deeply, but that was very more like a volunteer fire service and very firefighter-oriented.

Um that was another program that we had to um stop supporting.

Okay, so that one's also not happening.

That's right.

And so that one girls fire camp is also not happening.

Uh recruitment and outreach, I s kind of fits the high school CTE stuff, or is it?

We do we recruit for the programs, but we're not recruiting overall department wide like we did, other than what we do sending notifications out for all the people that have put interest in to our department on our website.

Um we let them know when hiring's beginning and the stuff we do on Instagram.

Okay, got it.

And then the paramedic scholarships, I think you mentioned the like 15,000 per uh to go through the program or something.

Yeah, um SAC State's paramedic program costs 15,000.

Cost 15,000, but you give them 3.6 or what was the number I forgot you?

How much did you give them to go through it?

Oh, for the um, so for our um our our EMTs that are firefighters already or um single role medics we um we support the American River College um tuition which is 3500.

So it doesn't matter where they go get their their paramedic if they are successful and they show us you know their their license then they will get reimbursed 3500 dollars I see okay that makes sense and then I guess going back to the pipeline because I think this is what I'm um is most I'm most interested in I assume that we need to do you actually let me actually back up one more do we feel like the fire department needs to hire more people is there a shortage of either paramedics or firefighters and the answer is yes.

The answer so um paramedics is like we so for every one paramedic there are at least 10 to 12 EMTs.

We hire from what's called the statewide um eligibility list it's where they have to do a written test and they have to do a physical agility test they get on the list we hire from that and that hiring pool is only as good as the um the diversity and the number of women are only as good as that list right so we're growing our own and the the growth is paramedics.

If we are going to make sure and and paramedics are usually less diverse than EMTs because it's a lot more money to get through paramedic school and there's challenges to it.

So um so we're making sure that youth within our community where we've recruited and we've fostered you know through this through these programs are coming out with a paramedic license so that they can now be contributors to the community in a well paid career profession that takes care of them and their family.

Sure and so that answers the paramedic side you're saying yes we need more paramedics right do we need more firefighters as well or do we feel we're okay on that front or we don't have a problem recruiting firefighters okay um but we want the diversity reflect the Sacramento community.

Sure that makes perfect sense you know more more women apply so that's the other piece.

Absolutely so it makes sense then why the pipeline is clearly I in my opinion a focus towards the EMT paramedic route right it looks like almost all these things have to do with let's do training for paramedic schools.

Okay.

And then I my question then following is um next year are we going to be able to get that grant money again that 3.6 million are you do you assume we will be able to so that that 3.6 million is over it it it I didn't know how many graphs to put in there the 1.5 is we just started the um the children's fund program this year in the high schools for this semester or this school year and that allows us three years so that 1.5 million uh million will be dispersed over a three year period the um the remaining funds go through the end of 27 2027 we are one of them yeah 2027 or pretty close but we're working with public works alliance they're the overarching um entity that created EMS core they were able through that ed they were able to get 11 sites throughout the state we being one of them and um we just got more funding for a COIA grant that's California um opportunity youth apprenticeship um and so that will braid in and allow us to inch that along for another cohort so we'll you know we'll we'll be going kind of cohort by cohort and they're looking for um they put in for another a different EDD grant um to try to um to stretch it even further so they're constantly um they're they're very well connected and they're constantly looking for additional funding for us.

That's kind of their commitment to us to try to keep it going.

Okay.

And then uh maybe lastly, we'll see um but what does success look like of this program to you?

It seems like it has two sort of goals.

One is, of course, the diversity aspect, and one is the hiring aspect, right?

And so if you had to rate success, or like what would what sort of numbers would you put towards we have achieved the hiring side of it and we have achieved the uh diversity aspect of it, like in your own opinion.

Oh there's um so success looks like we have we have more women and um young people from the Sacramento community that represents the community being hired through these programs, um, and um what that number is.

I mean, I would love to see the number of women on our department continue to rise.

We've gone from you know 4% to 5% in the young in the young hiring pool.

I would like to see us achieve 10% when I first came on this department, about five to ten years into my time, we had 10% women on the department.

Um we lost those numbers when uh we became an advanced life support um department and we required paramedics, you need a certain um percentage of paramedics to support an ALS program.

And in general, at the time, more of the paramedic uh workforce um did not represent the diversity that we we were looking for within the department.

Um, but that's why we're growing our own paramedics from our own community to make sure that we can affect those changes.

And then, yeah, that sounds right.

So I love that number, 10%.

Um, let's go for it.

And then the other one is paramedic side, you know, how many hires do you feel they need to come through this pipeline in order for it to be successful?

Well, we've got 25 EMS trainees right now.

I want to see all of them hired.

Um, I want to see us to continue have this basically rolling inventory of our um young young people in our community of becoming paramedics and getting hired um into the program.

Um, and so um, you know, if I could start seeing 10 a year get promoted, I would love that.

Like, you know, because that's a kind of we we have 20 halftime positions, and so you know, some like right now we have 11 in paramedic school, so it'd be really cool.

They're in various stages of paramedic school, depending on what school they're going to, because we provide opportunity you know options for different paramedic schools.

Um sometimes we have them apply to all so that they can get in, like which you know, and then you know, if they were lucky, they'd get to choose, but if if they're not, it's like all right, you're going to ARC.

You got into SAC state.

SAC state's a little more rigorous to get into, but we just have them apply to all the ones that we support.

So I would love to see 10 paramedics promoted a year.

And paramedic school, I I don't know the the education process of that how many how many years is that uh well if you came in with nothing, like we have some we hired 18-year-olds, actually 17-year-olds.

We couldn't even they were graduated from high school, but they were 17 and they needed they still needed a uh work permit.

Um we have let's see, some of them are going on two and a half years now, um, and they just started paramedic school.

So, you know, they have to get their EMT, but we don't throw them into EMT class yet because we want to make sure they know how to do college, right?

And so we have them do some English and math and some basic stuff first, and then we put them in medical terminology because EMT and paramedic is like a whole nother language to s to some students, and and that helps them become more successful.

Anatomy and physiology more successful, and those two classes are prerequisites for paramedic school, anyways, so it just it just kind of helps prime them to be successful in their academic journey.

Do you feel like the like what is the biggest burden of getting more EMS to EMT to paramedics?

Like, is it the schooling cost?

Is it the like the duration of schooling that you need to do, or is it like and I guess one question would be like how can we ease that burden, right?

How can we reduce that for well?

Well, fortunately, so when we funded the programs, we funded them appropriately.

We made sure we figured out the education costs, and we were still we were still doing okay with all of the funding that we had in place.

So, as far as additional funding for EMS trainees, that that pipeline funding source, code 12039 is solid, right?

So that one's good unless they start taking more funds away.

So, you know, um, and then we don't try to put a uh like we want people out by you know a year and a half because we meet them where they're at.

Some of them there we've had to have kids repeat EMT class.

We they get one chance, you know.

Like if they if they mess it up once, they get a second chance.

So um, so sometimes you know things happen, it's not like you know, you're it's the end of the world.

It's like, all right, what are we gonna do better this time?

What do you need to support you?

Um, and that type of thing.

So we can't really say, oh, it we wanna we want to get them through this quicker.

If when we hire EMTs when they're already EMTs, which we have some of some of that happening, um, they get through the program a lot quicker.

Um, we've even hired in this current class.

Two of them had by the time after they applied with us, and um by the time they got hired by us, had been accepted into paramedic school.

So um, you know, they have they've leveraged funds and and we'll be able to get them reimbursed and support them while they're in paramedic school.

They'll get through the program a lot quicker.

So um, you know, it's just like I said, meet them where they're at is the biggest um, the most important step.

Okay.

Um, sorry, last question I just wanted to reiterate was how many paramedics were you trying for per year?

You mentioned, like if we could.

If we could in our program, um I would love to see 10 come through our program.

I'd like to see more of our program um kids, so to speak, that maybe didn't become an EMS trainee or um go through EMS Corps, but went to college, and then come back to us and get hired as paramedics.

They all know that paramedic, you're more um you're far more likely to get hired if you have a paramedic license than if you have an EMT certificate.

And we we hire both, but we need a certain number of paramedics to sustain our ALS programs.

Okay, sounds good.

Uh member Salah.

Those are some good questions.

I love.

Yes, this will be really quick.

Uh and it just dawned on me of all of your hires or the ones in your EMS and paramedic, not paramedic, but your those programs and the ones you're hiring, do you know how many are bilingual?

I know from the high school programs how many are bilingual.

Um, well, the question on the spreadsheet on the data that they gave us, and we just got that data, so we don't have it all, um, asks what is the predominant, what is the primary language at home?

So we can assume from that um that they are bilingual.

Okay, because that's important.

Yes, it is, I agree.

All right, thank you.

There are any other questions in the committee?

No.

Okay, uh, thank you very much for your time.

Um, appreciate it.

Oh, go ahead.

If you don't mind, I'll take 30 seconds.

Um I want to highlight some things that Kim highlighted at a great level, but uh when I started with the department in 1995, we had one pipeline program really, and it was actually there was two.

We had the paramedic internship program and we had the fire reserves.

What you heard about today, and we don't have fire reserves right now, it's one of our dormant um pipelines, but what you heard about today is an evolution for this fire department, and it really reaches back into our communities.

Um we're hiring people from our communities, and those are the people that stay here in the city long term.

When I got hired, I took a test at the Memorial Auditorium with 3,000 people.

So I don't want to leave you with the impact that it's easy to hire firefighters.

1995 was what I will say easy.

Um when we get 200 people apply today for a firefighter position, that's not easy when we all whittle that down to about 20 people uh with backgrounds and what it takes to get hired into the fire service.

We've removed a lot of barriers in the Sacramento Fire Department for entry, and it's through these programs that we can remove those barriers.

We can train people that have no job skills because vocational education isn't exciting anymore.

That's not where people are headed, but that's what it takes to become into the fire department.

So every firefighter is an EMT or a paramedic.

And it's because of these programs that they're EMTs and paramedics from our communities.

Money is being spent very well back in our community.

So and I want to thank Chief Pianuchi for the detailed explanation.

Appreciate you guys.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any members of the public who wish to speak on this agenda item?

Yes, we do have one speaker, Lambert.

Where is he?

Oh, there he is.

Measure you, it's uh a topic that I feel like I'm very familiar with.

Uh Mayor Steinberg, I'm a little hoarse because we were on the road.

Shout out to the millennials.

I know they listened.

Um, and they begged me to come here.

Measure you, a lot of people aren't aware of this.

They are, because I told them about it.

I went to a lot of measure you meetings with Mayor Steinberg.

I didn't go with him, I just followed him.

And when he presented it, I don't remember it talking about helping uh the fire department.

We're talking about the fire department.

I don't remember him saying that.

And I definitely do not remember it being presented to the public to combine it with the general fund.

When you combined it, when they combined it with the general fund, uh, you lost me on that because uh they're saying now it's difficult to audit it.

And by the way, I've considered myself an expert on interpreting graphs and surveys, and when I looked at those surveys tonight, I didn't really see a lot of diversity.

You know, if you want to your ears tickled tonight, you got the wrong person.

I didn't really see that.

And the women, the female that they were talking about, uh, I didn't hear much about diversity, and as a matter of fact, I don't really think it's genuine to talk about diversity now.

You have a president that's abolishing that, and it's called Project 25.

And I think people should be genuine when they talk about this type of thing.

You know, it's a lot of money come into the coffers from measure you.

Thank you for your comments, Chair.

We have no more speakers.

Okay, um, are there any final comments from the committee on this?

No, okay, to the next agenda item.

Um, which Pete Welcome in.

All right.

Um, good evening, Chair, Commission members, and members of the public.

I'm Pete Coetto, the city's finance director.

Um, so just like we've done in prior years, we're going to um give the commission uh what we call our mid-year financial update and really set the stage for the budget discussions that are gonna come.

Um so we always live in three years in municipal finance, the prior year, the current year, and the budget year.

Um, so first we'll look at last year's year-end results.

Um, they were positive, uh, very slightly positive on the operational side.

Um, so that's that 2.8 million dollars.

Um, we also had uh just like last year, uh, this we had a gain that has to do with our investment pool.

So uh when interest rates went up uh post-COVID, we had to take a loss on our investment pool when interest rates go up, value of a bond that you own goes down, we invest in bonds.

Uh but if you don't sell those bonds, uh the good thing is you get all your money back, and then you can reinvest it at the market rate.

Um so we had to take some write downs in prior years, but we did a good job managing our cash flow, and so we're able to pay ourselves back, and that's what that uh 12 million is.

Um so we finished the year positive 14.8 million.

Um, however, uh we had a uh labor negotiations with the police officers union.

Um they went to arbitration, uh, there was an arbitrated award, and council as part of accepting that uh authorized moving prior year savings to pay for current year uh costs associated with that increase.

So that was 7.1 million, so we're left with 7.7 million.

Uh council took an action at mid year to uh basically set that aside.

We are in negotiations with uh almost every single labor union.

Those uh negotiations may have a current year impact, and we might need that 7.7 million to balance the current year budget.

If there is any left over, it would go to balance our budget gap for next year.

Uh so just a reminder our you know approved budget is 1.7 billion dollars this year.

Uh 872 and a half is in the general measure you funds.

Uh, we closed a sixty-two million dollar gap this year uh without any layoffs.

Um, and then just a reminder of uh how we close the gap.

It was very balanced, roughly half ongoing strategies, revenue increases, expense reductions, and roughly half one time.

Um the issue with those one time strategies is they begin your budget gap the next year, they're really one time.

Um, so as far as our financial update, I'm not gonna go through all the details.

You're uh obviously much more concerned about uh the measure you fund, but we did see some good um revenues on some of our other major tax, our other major taxes.

Sales tax, as you'll see in a minute, um, really has not been performing very well.

Um, and we'll talk about that.

And unfortunately, our cannabis tax uh revenues have been coming in below budget as that industry really struggles.

Again, I'm not gonna go through all of these, but that just shows you uh how our taxes are looking this year.

Uh property tax continues to grow.

Uh, this is the one that I think you're all most interested in.

Uh, this shows both our one percent Bradley Burns sales tax, which is a point of sale sales tax, and the one percent measure use sales tax.

Uh, and really what you'll see there is we had what I call a sugar high when inflation hit a few years ago.

You know, price levels went up, people were still spending, you saw your receipts go way up, right?

Uh, but then people tightened their belts, their wages didn't rise as fast as inflation.

They slowed down their spending, and you we have experienced what you are seeing right there, which is sales tax flatlining.

Uh, both Bradley Burns and Measure U.

And I will say this is the case up and down the state of California.

So this is not a unique um dynamic to Sacramento.

This is more of kind of what you see in a post uh big burst of inflation type of world.

Um, you know, we did we have seen the last you know month or two of sales tax receipts starting to look a little bit better.

Um so we will have another update of uh our revenues before council approves the budget.

So we're keeping a really close eye on that.

Um, just say I feel a little bit like um, you know, Charlie Brown and the football on sales tax.

So every year we had been uh increasing it in the budget, and then every year at mid-year we've been knocking it right back down.

So you know we'll we'll see, but we're uh very cautiously optimistic.

Emphasis on very and these are some of the other taxes U UT.

Okay, so our five-year forecast.

What are we looking at as we head into the fiscal year 27 budget?

Uh so our like uh we always do, we don't know when a recession might occur.

So we forecast basically the sort of economy that we're seeing right now.

So continued growth.

Uh one thing that we're doing that's a little bit different this year is I mentioned earlier we are in labor negotiations, we have a number of offers that are on the table.

Uh obviously, the unions have not agreed to them because we're still in negotiations, but we've incorporated the costs of the city proposals that are out there right now because you know uh I think it's reasonable to assume that that is kind of the floor of where we'll end up.

We're not going to end up lower than that.

So we wanted to incorporate those costs into the forecast.

Another thing that I think a lot of you have probably heard about is the state's HAP funding.

This is their homelessness funding.

There is a portion that goes to large cities.

So the good news is the state has appropriated a seventh round of HAP.

The bad news is one, it's half the value of the sixth round of HAP.

And two, traditionally, what's happened is we receive the funds a year after the state appropriates them.

And so the state has round seven appropriated in fiscal year 27.

And so we're not sure yet whether we will be able to receive it in fiscal year 27 or if we have to receive wait until fiscal year 28.

And the state has said they are going to put a lot more requirements on the funding, but have not told us what those are.

So we don't know if those could offset some of our existing sheltering programs.

So we've held that aside for right now.

We are in communication with the state, and you know, as we learn more, we're gonna update council and the public, and hopefully we'll have some good news later in the budget process of additional state funding.

And then again, as I mentioned earlier, we're reserving that 7.7 million of prior year savings to potentially cover current year labor negotiation costs.

So, you know, we give a uh forecast with the approved budget back in June.

We wanted to show uh how that forecast has changed and where we are now.

So that the June forecast is at top line.

Uh, we've made some revenue and expense updates based on our forecast, what we're seeing, our projections.

Uh, those are positive, which is a good thing that our revenues are looking better.

Um, we then added the current city labor proposals that are on the table with the unions.

And you can see where we are.

So we're very slightly balanced for this year, and then we're looking at a 66.2 million dollar deficit to close for fiscal year 27.

And, you know, we've talked about the structural budget deficit here where we just have that fundamental imbalance, our expenses rising faster than our revenues.

You still see that dynamic.

Um, but what I always tell people is we're not going to enter fiscal year 30 with a hundred and two million dollar budget gap because between now and then, council is going to take actions which uh and adopt permanent and ongoing strategies, which will help the out years of our forecast.

This just is a graphical visual representation of our forecast and our forecasted budget deficits.

Um, you know, as far I'm not gonna get super in the weeds here, but uh we're taking a really similar approach to the past two years when closing the gap.

We've given instructions to all the departments to give us reduction plans of up to 15% of your net general measure you fund use.

Um, and this is really to give us more options than the size of our problem, and it will allow city leaders and council to choose things versus just giving everyone a 11% across the board cut target.

We want to try to uh use more of a scalpel than a chainsaw.

Um, and at the same time, we're looking at some what I call citywide strategies.

So some of these are one-time things like projects we finished or we haven't started.

Uh, some of them are, you know, uh we've we did a debt refunding to get a better interest rate.

We're looking at things like that as well.

And really what we're looking to do is define our core services.

Council had a strategic visioning uh session uh late last year and identified economic development, homelessness, and public safety as their top three priorities.

So we're looking to advance them and really minimize service impacts on the public and impacts on employees.

We're in the people business.

Most of our budget is staffing, it's our staff who delivers our services.

So the upcoming budget development schedule, and this is what I really want to highlight for the commission.

Uh, we have heard, uh, we heard loud and clear from council that while they love to hear what all the departments are doing, uh they want a much more budget-focused um departmental presentation.

So what we're going to do, and we're going to start on March 3rd, is we're going to start off with some budget context.

And this is really going to lay out our baseline plan on how we're looking to balance the budget with the caveat that there are still a lot of unknowns out there that were kind of putting it out there as a baseline for council to let us know what their thoughts are.

But this is normally the information we would be presenting early May.

So we're moving it way up because we want council and the public and and stakeholders to really have time to evaluate the decisions because they're tougher decisions this year.

They are.

And again, this is to get the information out there as early as possible so that we can have that robust discussion.

We're still going to release the proposed budget in April, like we always do.

And then council's budget hearings in May can be more focused because they'll have already heard and been able to ask questions about a lot of the strategies.

And we're still shooting for a June adoption.

And just I I know as a I'll also just say for the measure you commission, I know one of the great frustrations has been we uh release our budget the end of April, we present in May.

You guys typically have a meeting kind of later in May, and you don't have that much time to react to the staff proposals.

So we did hear you know the commission's uh kind of overall guidance.

I think that you guys talked about back in October.

Um, so you know, we do have that.

We we have heard that, but this is really to help you also look at some of the strategies that we're actually thinking about and uh be able to deliberate and provide the advice to council.

This is just a more detailed schedule.

Uh, so again, we're kicking off those departmental presentations March 3rd.

Uh I'll start that off with that kind of overall context and you know, overall balancing plan.

And then again, our pending factor.

So, you know, we we're really focused right now on balancing the budget year, but we still have these unfunded liabilities that are out there that are longer term, weighing on our finances, unfunded pension, capital deferred maintenance.

Uh we don't know what's gonna happen after round seven of the hat program from the state.

Uh are they going to start giving uh ongoing funding sources to support homeless services?

And then, you know, again, we're always worried about the risk of a recession.

All our problems will just become uh, you know, an order of magnitude worse if the economy has a downturn.

And uh that is all I have, so I'm happy to take any questions.

Uh members, if you guys have questions, I'm gonna get it.

Good to see you again.

Remembering the last time.

So I know when you came in last time, you were really kind of pushing that you were gonna be making those advanced um requests of the different departments.

Um how do you find, and I think you kind of spoke to it, I kind of want to know like what how did that work for you?

Do you feel like did they get ahead of it?

Did you really have that compliance that was needed this time around based on it implementing that to really get kind of ahead of the game per se?

Yeah, I think so.

I think it was helpful to get the kind of overall thoughts from the commission.

And you know, there's some that obviously we uh I always never want to get involved in the as finance.

I don't want to get in the we should do this or we should do that, or we should do this, or we should do that.

Those are kind of those policy decisions.

Um I do definitely agree with the um evaluation uh recommendations that the commission has had, right?

And that's something that we're we continue to work on.

Um I think it's it is helpful to get the general sense, um, and I think it will be helpful when you see what some of the strategies are to get some of the more specific opinions from the commission.

And then as a follow-up, since you said that, what can we anticipate in terms of seeing the strategy and kind of the.

Oh, yeah, you're gonna so you're gonna see everything uh March 3rd.

So you're gonna see all of the strategies that the city chose, and all the strategies the city did not choose.

Uh so you'll see the whole list, it'll be published.

Um, and then you'll start as you go through the um weeks.

So the first uh set of presentations will be uh finance, uh youth parks community enrichment and department of community response.

So you'll um get to hear from the department heads at those meetings.

Here's what those reductions actually mean for the public.

Because I think it's it can get hard when you just see a list of a hundred different strategies, but the oh, this is what it means for pools or community center or homeless services, or you know, police staffing or fire response times.

Um, they're gonna be more focused on if I'm a member of the public, this is what it means for me.

But March 3rd is the the short answer.

You'll see everything.

All right, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Uh member cook.

I feel like this is deja vu, so I'll just say it again.

I appreciate like the budgetary presentation that you've put forth, but it it's this recurring challenge where the general fund is combined with the measure you fund.

So we're not able to ascertain the actual performance or budgetary considerations of the measure you fund.

And I think that is actually doing a disservice to this commission because we're not able to see the flow of funds, what's getting funded, what's not getting funded.

The fire department had $700,000 cut from their budget, didn't know about it.

Maybe it's because the general fund of the measure you funds are like combined and like that level of abstraction is preventing us from seeing how the funds from measure you are actually spent.

Is there like a deck, a table or something that shows just the measure you five-year forecast that you can share?

It does that exist.

So um, yeah, I'll say a couple things.

So um, you know, one is uh I hear you because I present the full budget and the decisions when you know the city manager and council is making a decision on uh, for example, the reductions in the door program that Kim was talking about.

They're they're not sitting there saying, Oh, uh, should I make this because it's the measure you fund and it's that much, or the general fund and it's this much.

They're saying, okay, well, do I want to make this reduction to the door program or this reduct, or do I want to close pools, or do I want to um, you know, stop police services.

That I just want to put that out there because that's the way they look at it.

Um, you know, as far as the measure you funding, I think Ash does report to all of you on um what the allocations are.

If you want to see the actual spending, it is broken out in the ACFR.

Uh, I'll say they're not, they're not combined in that, you know, we have a jet accounting-wise, we have a general fund, uh, and then we have a separate measure you fund.

Uh, the measure you fund, however, is a general purpose fund and can be used for any legitimate governmental purpose.

Um, so and you know, the measure you fund brings in around 135 million dollars a year, and you know, budget wise, it's uh roughly 150 ish.

Don't don't quote me on that because I don't have in front of me, um, expenses per year, right?

But that's not I get I definitely hear your uh your frustration and um, you know, I don't think it's it's wrong necessarily, like we just we're gonna look at it different ways, but what I would say is look at the um, you know, you do have that list from Ash of what you are funding, um, and that could that's kind of the the measure you fund.

That's like the the breakout.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I I understand the point on like it being combined with the general fund.

Just think from the perspective of the public, it makes this commission transparently largely ineffective at like ascertaining the flow of funds given that nothing's being presented in isolation and we have to go through the ashes appendix sheet to get the data, etc.

So I pose I suppose we can do that.

I don't know, maybe a question to this commission don't have to like answer this tonight.

Like, is there any like mechanism that we have, even if it's a recommendation to compel the measure you funds to be decoupled even from a reporting perspective, so we could actually uh have more insight into how it's being spent because the fire department presentation tonight was kind of a shame with the budgetary cuts, shouldn't have happened.

So that's point one, and then point two like looking at the general fund as a whole, it says sixty-six million dollar deficit, one of the charts, but you look at the details of that, like 36 million of that is from homeless homelessness and homeless adjacent spending.

I would say 48 million is so our homelessness, our homelessness services um, you know, it was stood up largely with state funding, yeah, and as that state funding has declined, and in the uh fiscal year 27 uh projection, there's no state funding, yeah, because we didn't include HOP.

So that's 48 million of general fund uh supporting homelessness.

I guess the question is maybe it's provocative.

You can say the answer however you want.

Is that if the majority of the deficit is coming from one program, which is homelessness, but the response to that is a 15% across the board cut across all programs.

To me, it seems that it would make the most sense to look at the program that is uh driving the largest fiscal deficit, perhaps addressing that first.

I'm not sure if that's a popular opinion within city council.

Has that been addressed?

What opinion do you have on that?

If any.

Yeah, so I I would just want to make a small clarification.

So we're not uh cutting everyone 15%, right?

Uh departments are coming forward with uh 15% reduction plan so that we have a menu of options to choose from.

Um I I will say too, you know, we are looking at Department of Community Response is largely running the sheltering program.

Um they are looking at various efficiencies, which we will talk about more on March 3rd, which is um, which is their presentation day.

Uh, you know, again, as a finance guy, I just need the numbers to balance.

Uh so you know the policymakers get to tell me where do I where do they want to spend their money?

Um, you know, our council did identify homelessness as one of their top priorities.

And so, you know, I don't uh again I'm not the one who who makes that call, and I'm very happy to not have to be the one who makes that call.

Um, but I don't see them saying we're gonna um cut close down all our shelters uh, you know, a few months after they say it's our top priority.

Uh member Sulla.

Yeah, so March 3rd, we're gonna see all the strategies for all the departments, and then subsequently each department's gonna present what that means.

Correct.

And then we can um look at that and then make our our priorities or our recommendations based on nasty strategies, and um I think that's that's great because that I think will give us more leverage, and I want to say that last year how I saw Measure U be able to save the day.

I forgot which program they were gonna cut.

Maybe it was it was a couple of programs that were on the chopping block that um one was the prevention crime and prevention under the diversity office.

Or no, they were gonna cut a FTE from the um equity and diversity office, and then there was uh MOSAC, they were gonna cut the hours for that, and then the um free rights, and the community came out and spoke against it, and then I think measure you or the committee, the commission and the council said, and we recommended moving measure you funds to cover that gap, the measure you and that, so that the mud, the death, the shortfall that was resulting in a cut of these programs, measure you was going to be utilized for that.

So I mean it's still shifting things around, but we can still make a recommendation based on if the department is making saying, Well, we're gonna cut um the Mozak program again, we're gonna cut the hours, reduce hours because I think that's what was being recommended.

We can make that recommendation that it not be cut and that measure you funds be utilized to cover that shortfall, correct?

I mean the commission um can advise council, and so um to the extent that there are you know reductions that the commission doesn't like, um, you know the it's well within the commission's rights to advise council and recommend.

We could do with the fire department and state, we want the 900,000 because it's so critical to the pipeline program.

And if we're gonna if we stop now and we don't do it again this year, the um's camp, we're really gonna be behind it.

It'll be hard for us to catch up with the city, has a um to increase the pipeline and the diversity, which we're on a it's slow, but it's moving in the right direction.

We can make that recommendation and say um don't cut the program re-in, you know, use measure you funds this amount of money for the fire department.

We can make that recommendation, and then I think we can advocate for our city council members and say we're making this recommendation because of this, and we would like um your support, and and hopefully we get that support.

I I see that's the way to have the influence and that we feel comfortable that measure you is gonna go in some of the areas that we think it should go in and appropriately utilizing measure you funds for these different programs, so member Johnson.

Yeah, I'm gonna echo uh with Commissioner Cook, and I know you're not the policy or the numbers guy, but I I've been toying after trying to figure out how to do that calculation as well because it is so commingled, it's almost I don't want to say impossible because I'm gonna keep going back the best way that I think of it is the ocean, right?

Like measure use the Indian Ocean, saying that this waters, Indian Ocean water is a little silly because it flows throughout the ocean, right?

And if the Indian Ocean rises, it's gonna probably spread throughout.

And that's what we're kind of trying to figure out is that's what's happening, right?

Is it going, is the measure you fund just helping the general fund, or is it helping measure you programs?

And the only way I can think of doing that is possibly comparing the increases in measure you and then looking at if there's comparable increases in measure you programs throughout.

But the problem is there's probably so many revenue streams coming in a general fund, and those vary widely as well, to segregate one impact into the fund, and then aggregate that out to saying how to I I you're the math members.

Is there any way to I mean what I would say is you're you're what's coming into your fund, right, is the sales tax revenue that's about 135 million dollars, and it's been flatlined over the last four years.

Uh what is going out of the measure you fund is what um council allocates and what you see in the reporting that Ash gives you, and that's oh you know, well over 150 million.

Um, so it's you know that balance is made up with the general fund.

But, but that's I don't want to say the word arbitrary because that has I think a certain connotation to it, but we're decided someone's deciding to draw the line saying that this is within and this is without measure you, but there's no mathematical requirement that that is measure you or measure not, right?

So I think what has happened in the past, and uh, you know, there's history that obviously uh predates me.

I've I have this is my third kind of cycle with budget cycle with the city, and you know, I think that um council and uh prior city managers have said here are the in listening to um you know the advice from and recommendation from the prior measure you commissions have said here are the the programs that we want measure you to fund and then you know we put those programs and those expenses uh associated with those programs in the measure you fund, that those amounts have grown uh more than the measure you tax revenues have grown, and so now you have the general fund covering that difference.

Um but if you're looking for the universe of you know what is measure you funding, it's those programs that you see in in the uh reports that you all get from Ash.

Yeah, my concern is it's like I'm sorry I keep using metaphors, but it's like a it's like a blanket, right?

All right, we wanna our neck could be more covered more, so we pull it up, and now our code our toes are covered instead of the blanket getting bigger, right?

So it's just it's a little bit of a whack-a-mole where you're saying the council can point to this and say we're gonna now increase the quote unquote measure you funds that are going to this, so therefore measure you is now more allocated than what it's bringing in.

But that that's on paper, right?

That's at the end of the day, it's with the city council saying that this is funded by measure you, but at the end of the day, it's the general fund, right?

And they're just saying it's all your uh all your general fund, all your general purpose revenues have to balance with your general or all your general purpose expenses have to be paid with general purpose revenues.

Yes.

Um that's when you're looking at at the high level, which is um what I have to do to balance a budget, that is what you need to do.

Um, but again, it's you know, it's been prior decisions on what programs do we want funded by measure you, and then it's these programs have grown faster than the resources, and what council hasn't wanted to do is just say, oh, okay, well, you know, this was funded by measure the door program was funded by measure you.

Um, well, oh no, now the measure you is in deficit, so we're just gonna completely axe the door program.

Uh what they're they want to do is say, okay, well, I have this big pro I have this overall problem.

What's the least painful way to address it?

And some of it might be, you know, getting rid of vacant positions, some of it might be, you know, my department, I'm not spending out, I don't know, my office supplies.

Let's cut that before I cut something else.

And you know, that's why we're um in a situation where you have these measure you expenses and uh you know not revenues, but we're still balanced overall.

All right, thank you.

I think if I can just chime in on this, like to me, I think it's valuable to look at it as a minimum threshold of purpose uh purposeful spent money.

So yes, we make 135 million for measure you, that is the minimum amount that we should spend on measure you activities that are assigned to what that should be intended for.

Now that means you know, all the things that people agree to when we sign that uh when we basically voted for that um that ballot measure, right?

And so we have this minimum threshold, which almost inadvertently you will spend more than that on those things because if you have a minimum, it's very easy to say, okay.

Well, let's just give them a hundred thousand more, or let's just give them a million more, and so it becomes more.

Um I think it's fine that the general fund can cover more than the measure you uh makes in terms of measure you aligned programs, but uh at least it must be the minimum the it must have a minimum of what the measure you makes, right?

So we can never go below that.

And so if we have programs that are not aligned with measure you and the spending uh in the measure you bucket, and we are now spending a hundred that a hundred million on things that are measure you aligned and 35 million on non-measure you aligned things, that's a very big problem, right?

But if we're spending more, I think that's not so big a deal.

That makes sense.

Or do you agree with that?

Oh, that makes sense.

I just not convinced that that's what's happening yet.

Um, in terms of the one to one dollars, when when we talk about what is within the measure you, the spirit of measure you, which is what all we're doing here, that at the end of the day is a policy decision, and whether measure you funds increase or not, I don't think that is taken into consideration necessarily.

I understand there are things that have been funded with measure you prior, and those get more expensive, and we're saying that they're coming the the the delta is coming from the the other general fund funding, right?

But the end of the day, they look at this as a pie, and then they say afterwards, we're gonna say that this is measure you, this is measure you and some stuff has been historically a measure you so therefore it's attributed to measure you but I'm not confident necessarily that you can it's they're they're com they're commingled it's it's I think impossible to trace a dollar for sales tax to these programs right that's that's well it is I mean it is set up in a separate fund um so you can and it is audited every year.

But again it's a measure you is a general purpose tax and the city council can spend it for any legitimate governmental purpose uh but the expenses and the revenues for measure you are accounted for separately um they're broken out in the AC for uh they're audited we bring a measure you audit every year to council um so it is separate but you know I think you're uh if I'm hearing the frustration from the two commissioners it's well it's arbitrary what's put in there uh or I mean it's a decision of the policymakers uh of which fund to assign it to and they they've made those decisions with these programs yeah and and I don't mean arbitrary and frivolous I mean arbitrary in that there's no legal guidelines of what's going in because it is general fund there cannot be legal guidelines because it's a general purpose tax.

Exactly sorry I don't want to interrupt but we do need to take a vote to extend the meeting.

Sure.

Let's go ahead and do that.

I'll first that we extend the meeting by one hour do we have a second I will second okay second by McGee all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Anyone abstain uh you stain okay uh will we still have quorum yeah yeah okay so that's fine.

Um fair enough okay so we can continue um yes continue I have concluded thank you and sorry I don't mean to come off as like uh snippy or anything about it it's just I get where you guys are all coming I get where you all are coming from and how it can be difficult to tease it out but uh that is how it is separate uh but it is a decision of the policymakers what expenses go in that fund.

Yeah and I and I I don't want to be the dead horse here right I ran a budget software company I know how budgets work and I know when you don't have legal guidelines or requirements you can you know say one thing's being put in there but you might be taking more out of this and it's really hard to trace that so I understand from an accounting standpoint the money's in there we're saying that it's in there and it's a pot that's in there but the decisions are made collectively for general funds so it's very impossible to say with accuracy or confidence that this is 100% going to this or that because we can't pull that dollar out and say oh this fund will this program will now be funded by one less dollar automatically but I don't want to take any more time I thank you for your very thorough responses as always.

Sure I'll just uh also add that like it's on us to advocate right because the law specifically states it is a general fund and by and by that it means that the uh legislators can basically choose what that where it gets spent like we it's on us to advocate for where it gets spent right and that's kind of our role and if that means that we have to look at the general fund as well to make comparisons of like actually we're not spending enough in fire or we're spending too much in fire then we can do that right because we can say based off of our evaluation of the entire fund it seems like measure you dollars shouldn't go towards that.

It's totally fine.

So I think we shouldn't limit ourselves to being like okay uh although we will only discuss measure you dollars because that's our prerogative uh in terms of our recommendations of what to do with it we can use the entire general fund to evaluate what we should do with those general or with what we should do with those measure you dollars so and to me I don't view this as too big of a concern because either way we still have to do the same thing which is advocate for the programs that we care about.

Member Cook I think that type of what that framing is what's caused the city of Sacramento to have a $60 million dollar budget deficit next year and 110 million dollar deficit by 2030 this philosophy that the measure the tax collected by the measure you fund represents the minimum possible spend.

No, it's the totality of funds that have been collected from the taxpayers.

It's the maximum possible amount.

And this idea that we're going to spend more than we collect is the problem.

So I'm not sure we're gonna like agree on disagree or agree with that, but like I think what we can agree on is that the measure you fund today is being used to cover general fund expenses.

Like, I mean, we talked about this ad nauseum last year last year, 2.2 million dollars used to replace roofs within city facilities, $58,000 for software expenditures, $500,000 for physical barriers with federal civil rights laws, all things the city needs to do.

But it's being covered by the measure you fund, and that that is the problem we have when the general fund and the measure you fund coexist together.

So I think this debate about it being about it being the minimum spend is a distraction.

Like we can't actually track the flow of funds when the when the measure you fund the general funds are combined, and it should not be.

I don't know what it's gonna take.

I don't know if we can do this or not do it, but like combining it is objectively a bad idea.

I think in order to change it, you would have to propose a ballot to um get it modified.

Go ahead.

Or I I agree with you.

Or we because this whole exercise I think is just to show that it's okay for this body to look at the general fund, and that I think is the ultimate conclusion because in order to do our job, we have to do that.

So I'm I just wanna say your point is valid.

Um okay, I don't see any of their hands up, so I do want to ask some questions about what you presented as well.

Um in terms of like the metrics and budget focus that you said that the um that city council wanted to hear about.

I'm curious as to obviously we've done a bit of our metrics seeking as well.

Um, you know, how do we collaborate on this better and um what are you guys doing internally?

And yeah, how can we plug in?

Yeah, I don't know if Ash can answer uh you know better than I can.

I'll defer to Ash.

And I'm sorry, I'm this is just a question on the metrics, where we're at.

Uh sort of like as we've seen now that the city council wants more metrics and budget focused presentations.

Like, yes, it's great, we want to hear what you do, but we'd rather I mean that I'm trying to Yeah, so we're gonna have this is gonna be an interesting experiment this year.

This is uh we're calling them early budget work sessions.

Um, you know, this will probably be less metrics focused and more uh fiscally focused and impact focused.

Um, you know, as far as the departments, they're they're only gonna be getting, you know, 10-ish minutes to present some, maybe a little bit longer for some of the bigger departments.

Um, but you know, I know the city manager's office is working on um, you know, incorporating more metrics and dashboards, and uh I will tell you our new city manager is very uh data-driven and data focused, and so um, you know, she has been um promoting that that vision.

So when you say impact focused, that to me is like this that's a synonymous synonymous with metrics, right?

Like I assume it has to be some sort of objective.

You will.

I mean, so you know, for the example, um, I'm gonna keep picking on uh Jackie because her uh parks because that's the easy the easiest for me to conceptualize.

But you know, if you're saying, hey, uh we need to reduce this program.

Well, okay, well, how many people use it, you know, every you know how many kids you what all of those things.

So those are the impacts on the community.

I'll just quickly add, um, so we're really starting with the city council priorities, economic development, public safety, and homelessness.

There's really six core departments that really drive progress towards those priority areas, and so we're really looking at this first fiscal year from July 1st to the following June 30th of 2027 is the opportunity to pilot this new performance management framework that we're still developing.

We're gonna be developing it over the next several months.

Um at the same time, all of the attention is gonna be on the budget, so meaning how how do we get this budget into balance?

I so I don't I, you know, there may be some discussion around metrics, but we're really looking at after budget adoption as to when we really start building out this performance management framework, getting the departments into a habit and a cadence of updating their performance measures, and then in year two, which would be fiscal year 2028, that's when we would try to start to scale this out um citywide to the remaining departments.

So it really is.

I, you know, we've talked about it before.

It's it's like turning an aircraft carrier around.

Um, but like Pete said, you know, this is a high priority for the for the new city manager, and um we are actively developing that that framework and hope to be able to provide as much data as we can.

I will say the direction for departments in terms of their budget performance measures um is to kind of hold the line.

There may be some uh meaning they're likely gonna be the same metrics that you've seen in the past.

We'll try to figure out a way to package those in a way that help you all in terms of your evaluation of city program performance.

Uh, but I wouldn't expect any any major changes until we start to get into the latter half of this year.

Okay.

Um so I guess next steps, um, we obviously are still digging into our metrics, trying to figure out you know what that looks like if there is collaboration opportunities between these.

It sounds like maybe one is a little bit higher, higher tier in terms of like department level, and it's maybe not specific enough, but um it'd be interesting to see what's going on internally and keep that uh partnership going.

Cool.

Um another thought from this is that uh I maybe we'll talk about this in number eight, but given that there's gonna be these March 3rd presentations, and we are presenting our findings on the 24th, and we will not have a meeting.

Oh, we will have one meeting in between.

We will.

Okay, that's good.

Yeah.

Next month, yeah, 16th.

Okay, so we'll still be able to meet at least once more.

But I guess we should plan on everyone then bringing their thoughts and opinions from what they saw on that March 3rd meeting to hear so we can sort of consolidate ideas.

Okay, and then lastly, you know, we've obviously sent you one document so far, but we would like to send another one.

Um it's gonna take maybe a little bit of time, but putting it together and sort of like going deeper into like the ROIs of programs that we've you know been able to analyze so far.

Um like um, yeah, there's various various thoughts that we all have.

Um I think that's it for me.

Does anyone else have any comments?

I see no hands up.

No?

Okay.

Um when will we see you next?

Maybe.

When do you guys want to be back?

I believe that's uh May 18th.

18th.

Okay.

That's what after the budget is proposed, proposed budget is right.

But I mean, let me know if um the commission wants to hear from budget again.

Um, you know, we can we can come back.

Um we can also give, you know, a condensed version of that overall presentation that we're giving to council on March 3rd.

Um, if you wanted to talk more about what you know, excuse me, what staff's uh initial plan is.

Sure.

Uh I did actually think of one more thing I did want to ask.

I saw on like the city survey one of the questions was um, are you in favor or not in favor of hiring more outside uh uh staff?

Like basically not contracting out.

Yeah, contracting out, exactly.

Um because obviously the costs are quite high internally, um, not to mention we see we're seeing sort of like the uh arbitration uh sort of costs that we're you know costing taxpayers, and so instead of it going to parks or pools, it's going to like arbitration agreements and and higher wages and stuff.

So is it possible?

I don't think we can hire out police, but for example, um maybe there are other groups uh that we can be contracting out.

What's the current?

Yeah, so I don't want to get out in front of um publishing strategies for council.

Um, you know, I will say in last year it's some of the unused strategies involved contracting out.

So um, you know, we'll we'll present more on March 3rd, but I just I'm just wary of putting getting out in front of council.

Okay, fair enough.

Um Rasala, did you wanna?

Um I just want to state that since you're gonna start next week, next Tuesday, you're gonna start your presentations to the extent possible we should all be at we should be at city council listening to the presentations because that's gonna inform our recommendations and you're gonna present in April, and we'll have our next meeting will be soon after your presentation.

Um, and we should be able to before that have some recommendations to give to you to come to our April uh commission meeting.

I I would like that to be because if we don't do it in April, we're gonna be back to the whole situation of doing something in May, proposing something.

So that's it.

Um are there any members of the public who wish to speak on this?

Yes, we do.

We have Lambert.

I'm gonna try some things that is coming from a business perspective.

If most of you, and I mean this sincerely, if most of you shout out to this guy right here, Mr.

Cook, because you're gonna need people thinking like that to challenge the system.

A lot of people don't want to hear that, but I have a lot of admiration for him.

He's he he's on his way to integrity.

It's hard to be have integrity when you're surrounded.

Um ideas to get this city, because I'm a native, there's a way to get this city in the black.

First of all, we would we're gonna have an audit done on who's working remotely at City Hall.

If they're working remotely, they shouldn't get a raise, they don't get laid off.

I'll bet you is that part of the negotiation for labor?

I didn't hear that.

That will save a lot of money.

Also, uh, me personally, I don't believe the city manager's office should receive a raise.

I believe that department is leading the way to disaster.

I also personally believe that there are people at this city, and we've documented them that are trying to lead this city into the red intentionally.

We can prove it, because if you graduate from a university in economics and fiscal management, something like a budget deficit makes no sense to me.

That's uh a fancy terminology for mismanagement.

I run a business.

There's no way I would project five years in the red.

My family would run me out of town for that.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Lee.

Good evening.

Um, this is my first time attending your commission meeting, and I just wanted to say that I appreciate what you're doing.

I appreciate the analysis that you're making.

Your frustrations of the measure you funding and how it's being spent, not spent.

Um, I'm really curious myself.

I want to dig up the how it originally appeared in the ballot because my thought was that it was separate, and I'm learning here that it's not exactly separate.

And as a citizen, that concerns me, and I hear that it concerns you.

So I just wanted to give you some input and say thank you for what you're doing.

Thank you for your critical analysis and for um fighting to get what you think is right, and what I think many of the citizens are thinking, because it seems like I was thinking one thing when I voted, and it sounds like it's not exactly the way it's happening.

So that's my only thing here tonight is to thank you for your work.

I appreciate it.

Okay.

There you go.

See if we put that in.

Thank you for your comments, Chair.

We have no more speakers.

Okay, um, then I think we can move on to the next agenda item, um, which is a outreach and engagement communication strategy sort of documents.

Um I guess who wants to take this?

Uh member Noveo or Member Solo or uh for the community outreach and engagement communication strategy.

Yes, okay.

Okay.

We're just talking about the budget, uh so what you have in front of you.

We'll pull it up.

So last time we had I presented a very general presentation on what we had discussed as a committee and along with community engagement.

And we can't and it was um not strategic enough, what I heard, and that we wanted something more of a plan that includes different components to it.

So uh Juan graciously agreed to help put that together and he incorporated in what you have in front of you is um he incorporated what we had originally brought last month to the commission.

He incorporated in it, but it's more um of overview, it's high level, it doesn't get into the specific specificity of how some of these things will be accomplished, but it gives us a roadmap of where we want to go and how we want to approach um outreach, and a good point to make is just what we just experienced that people don't really understand what our what measure you is and then how the commission works.

So I was trying to get our group together before this so we can look at what was presented.

I sent it out ahead of time.

We just weren't able to, it's everyone's so busy.

Um so it's before you and it's for us to discuss to either go through it and see if you agree, and even our members that were didn't get to weigh in on it.

Can this is the time to give your thoughts and recommendations?

Or we um if you don't have any, it's pretty comprehensive.

I I have not shared this with um community engagement, but I don't I don't expect that there will be any uh concerns over it because it did incorporate our earlier discussions that we had with them into the strategic plan.

So any questions.

I did get a chance to review a little bit late today, but I got I got in under the wire.

Um so Commissioner Vella, like fantastic.

Like I thought, um, and I'm looking at my comments, just really well structured and thoughtful, and I think it brings the reader that is not informed along the journey, so that they're building on their knowledge base.

So, like, well, well done.

So, in the interest of time, I did share one or two comments, but I I didn't have any issues, like it could be a standalone document as is.

I had no issues with it, I just had little minor things like um as an example.

There's a budget table, and it appears to be mis missing like a line item, some content there.

Um, so little things like that.

But um, well done.

So, in the interest of time, I'll just say read my email and thank you so much.

Thank you.

Uh, Member Novid, would you be interested in like going over some of the like the larger points of the document or would you like to say anything that to introduce it or no?

Uh I won't.

Um I would totally um appreciate any input because it's practically our guiding, you know, document to what we do and a strategically set for that three year um and keeping both the in the ground and strategy policy worked out, um, I believe needs to be uh done or at least consider when it comes to timelines and budgets.

I mentioned on my email to the chair.

Um we just put it for context, uh, understanding that probably some of them will be up to work by some of the current efforts done by the different departments, um, and understanding that some of the timelines will probably move due to you know the things or how things will change.

Again, I will appreciate the opportunity to meet with the rest of the art heart committee to really digest, especially the last set of questions that I had, um, because it's really specific, um, and that would really dictate um our specific effort moving forward.

Meaning that doesn't mean that the strategy cannot be approved, but when it comes to the specifics that's the things that we then get to um you know dedicate a little bit more time to develop.

And again I I appreciate that what that has been done because it gives a lot of context and a lot of content to and strategy on on the direction of where we're getting um but and again I'm I'm here to support thank you for I pointing me Mr.

Chair to the ATR committee and I look forward to getting to uh what with the rest of the committee too.

Thank you for for doing that and I agree that it is it is comprehensive.

So if we can get it approved then we can go back because that was my only thing and I think I mentioned it to you that we need to have if it's approved because it is a roadmap but we need to get the specifics of what how are we going to accomplish it and we can do that with the the ad hoc that would be great.

And then at that point we want to bring in community engagement as well.

And and this is one of the points that I had on those questions the last question this is probably an Ash um uh clarification that I would need is whether or not this is this needs to go out for approval to um to the actual city council um if it does then it then gets a whole different array of um of things and impacts and how then it would then be implemented by the different departments uh for instance I'll give you an example one of the things that I heard constantly and I'm understanding that there's even a logo that was developed uh and in years past one of the policy recommendations again instead of going and tabling a different community events is can we have a citywide strategy on a policy recommendation that anything that is funded by this particular um bucket uh will need to have that in their websites any flyers or anything in that regard which that would require city uh in my like this is the point where I don't need your support Ash is whether it will need uh council approval to accomplish that.

Yeah so I one I just want to clarify the assumption we were kind of assuming looking at this strategy that this was a strategy for the commission to implement itself.

I do see that obviously particularly as it relates to citywide communications um around raising awareness of which programs are funded by Measure U, um use of the statement use of the logo um we would prefer that those not be like an official policy I will say it you know it's sort of a let me back up and say we're happy to kind of direct departments to move in that direction and to give them a toolkit and guidance in terms of how they use that language and the logo and things like that.

I'll just be super honest with you that is it's super hard to enforce.

So I saw like there's um a compliance review that would come after in like year two like that that's would consume quite a bit of resources to actually perform.

I think honestly the the best way to implement that is when the departments are up here presenting to you for them to just hear from you directly because oftentimes they're just flooded with directives that are coming from the city manager's office or their department heads and uh I'll just give you an example I really probably shouldn't I was in a room last week in a meeting of folks we were asked to raise our hands of how many of us had read a new policy and so when we get a new policy um oftentimes we're required to log in to a system and acknowledged that we read the policy.

So everybody is basically required to read these new policies when they're released.

And like I was the only one raising my hand, but I actually read the policy and like understood what was in it.

And so I'm not asking for like your sympathy or anything.

I just want to help provide a little bit of context that sort of folks are just flooded with requests and directives um at the department level.

And so um these things can be hard to enforce and and I think just hearing from you all directly about the importance of raising awareness to residents and community members about which programs are funded by Measure U.

I think that can go a long way in terms of kind of being a carrot as opposed to a stick.

But yeah, I I would definitely back away from I prefer not for it to be a policy.

I will just say is kind of a kind of neutral perspective.

You could ask the city council to provide that direction to the city manager and departments.

I think we the staff prefer it didn't get to that level, and so um basically would ask for kind of your collaboration in terms of helping us to just voluntarily implement that without a policy.

Um so that's on the logo and and the statement.

Um there are a few things I kind of am seeing around budget.

Um hopefully some of those things can fall into discretionary budgets that offices have.

Um, but I wouldn't know like we'd have to get into like specific items on budget and potentially some of those would require council approval if the funding um wasn't available within a department.

I don't know if there's any other questions from the staff.

Yeah, um, I was gonna say what you said hash, and that is I think the first time that logo was developed and we we rolled it out and we told everyone, um, some departments adopted it and use it, and for the most part, most departments do not, but his point is well taken like today if we could have asked the fire department if we're gonna give you funds for your ENT and your um girls um camp program, we want to see you use the measure you logo.

Were you willing to do that?

Oh, yes, okay.

So um, and then and then we just monitor it, and if next year they don't do it, then they get penalized for that.

That's how that's the control we have over getting them to use the logo, but um, so uh that that's important.

So here going forward, we should ask that question.

Do you use the logo to the departments that are they're gonna come and present to us still, right?

We have a few.

Yes, there are many other departments queued up.

Okay, so we can ask them that.

Are you using the measure you logo to identify the programs that you that measure you as funding?

They say no, we'll well, we would like you to because the people don't understand how measure you blah blah blah.

Um, and the other thing is going to city council.

We would go to city council if we needed the fun if we're asking for money.

But there's a way we can go around that.

If this gets approved and we really want to push for monies, we can um present that portion of it, not the whole strategic plan, but just that portion saying we need some money, we can go to city council, talk to our city council person, and and put it on the agenda and have them support um giving us whatever we're asking for and the rationale for it.

So, and I don't and if we're gonna do that, we have to do it before the um it would be under discretionary, and they they would have money there to approve it.

Um, but that's how it would be.

I think that's the easiest way to do it versus presenting the whole proposal, and then it'll get into the weed, and then they'll be and we'll lose what we really want is to get some funds that we've never had before that except for when we did the outreach, the community focus groups.

They've um measure you has never had any kind of funds to do what is expected of us in the community.

So that's it.

Yeah, I would just say that um just because you're you do it softly, I don't doesn't mean it won't happen.

Like, like for example, all the metrics stuff that's happening is is not something that was, you know, determined uh by city council to be like you will departments do like so they're pretty open to working in that soft way.

Um so I think we can make it happen.

Uh the other thing would be in terms of the budgets, I would just go maybe a little bit more um like line item-y.

So it's like you have like three thousand to six thousand estimated annual cost for exam printed materials and like identification items.

If you can give maybe a little bit more examples of like what that might actually be and like you know, where you getting this estimate from, um, you're probably likely to get maybe a little bit more okay.

Yeah, that seems fine from discretionary funds.

Um they'll just like to see that more, so it doesn't feel like it's so um arbitrary.

Uh that's my only feedback.

Uh when I went over it, I think it's I think this is great.

This is a perfect move.

I think writing it down is even like step one, um, just so we can have something to deliberate on and like think about.

Um there were some like uh commitments that like we as a group have to make as well, right?

Like I saw in here the attendance commitment, for example, and um get some maybe some jackets, which would be cool, get some measure you jackets, some swag for this committee, that'd be sick.

Um that would be fun.

Um so if we show up and in like uh, you know, whatever hat or whatever.

Um that would be great.

Uh I think it would inspire people to go as well.

So I I love this.

I think it's a great plan.

Good job.

Uh I don't see any other hands up.

Does anyone else have some final comments on this?

Uh I I don't know if we do have do we actually have to vote for this?

I mean.

If the commission wants to formally adopt this strategy, it it should do so.

I would take a vote on it.

Okay.

Recommendable things.

What?

You did submit a speaker slip, but there's still.

Yeah, we haven't decided on anything yet.

Don't worry.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, I was just curious if we we've if we had to.

Um okay.

So other yeah.

Member Cook.

Uh, actually.

I I just wanted to it doesn't seem like we're ready to vote yet.

There's too much in here that I think needs to be um changed.

Yeah, so the other thought could be um giving feedback to the ad hoc committee who could then come back at a future meeting with an updated version that the committee could then vote on.

Yeah, another option would be if you have that feedback now ready, um, to say it, and then we can agree that the next version would incorporate that, but it would be adopted.

Um I don't know if there's really a rush to it.

I don't know.

Maybe like the ad hoc should speak to that, but um, I I think.

If we can get the feedback now.

Um, can we so if we get the feedback now and we make the changes, we have to present it at the next meeting to adopt it.

Is that what is that correct?

Well, I mean, this can also be a living document, right?

Like just because we vote on it now doesn't mean we can't make changes to it later or even I would say uh unformally modify it, right?

Um just based off of how we um how we act as a committee and how what that ad hoc does.

So I don't I I'm not too opposed to just voting this, being like yes, this looks good unless people have opinions or um want to state them, but like to give those opinions and then we modify it, basically you guys can modify it as an ad hoc and then we can maybe bring it back next next meeting if that's what people are more comfortable with.

Um but it actually be my opinion that we just uh unless there are strong objections to just move forward.

But uh Miller uh member Miller, if you have uh thoughts around this, then I'd love to hear him.

Well, yeah, it just seems like you know, making the the language in here is we're going to make a recommendation to council to fund something and we're going to make requirements of various departments.

Um I just like if we've if we're voting on that, we're saying we approve of that, and I don't know, you know, given what Ash is telling us, I don't know that it's a good idea that to um it sounds like you feel like it's the vote isn't really binding.

I mean I I guess I I'm not really sure what we're talking about here.

Yeah, okay.

So I'll I'll say real quickly, I think what I'm trying to say is that um there is feedback that we can give right now.

I think I've already given some I think Ash has given some as well such as and I think it was heard by the author um to basically modify it to be the to the so language is not like checking it and like having those I mean unless you the ad hoc disagrees but I don't I don't think there was a disagreement here where we should make that more of a soft recommendation not so much going to council and being like can you mandate that anything funded so that would be something that would be changed.

I think I saw um it be written down that like maybe the line items for the budget could be more speci specified but this is just like I think it's open time to skip feedback if you if you have it um in terms of what we vote for yeah it would be it would be uh I don't know what would you say like it would it would be like part of the commission's plan but that doesn't mean that it can't be updated is what I was trying to say um yeah or modified later if we feel that something's not working.

But I guess I'm not sure why why we would vote on it knowing that it's gonna be changed like I see.

Uh so in the past we have frequently done something where um we would give notes to an author of a document and say if we we trust you to make the changes that we have conveyed on like live through discussion such that we don't have to like have another agenda item next month to like review the document again.

This has become useful just to speed things along a little bit um that does that answer your question?

Yeah.

But if the committee feels that they want to see the next route then you know speak up and say so because that's fine too.

Yeah and I I just want to state that what what is people are recommending their their minor the minor things that we're not really talking about going to city council.

We're saying the budget eventually if we're asking for money we will have to go to city council and ask for that but that doesn't preclude us from approving the overall plan and then the issue with the departments and the logo um we can modify that and not make it a policy those are little um cosmetic changes to the overall plan I I personally would like to see it approved tonight because we've been we've been twiddling around with this plan for some for several months now and we're getting so March will be our next um meeting and that's where you know we can spend another month two months uh dealing with this this how how we're gonna get out and interact with the community just delaying it so the the recommendations are small enough that it's not changing the overall scope of what's being recommended they're just minor modifications that I feel confident we'll incorporate and it'll it'll embody what people are saying and we can go forward with this being adopted so that's my preference but whatever the commission decides it's fine we can always tweak it and reintroduce it in in March.

Can I move to approve the uh plan subject to the uh modifications that were subject to uh suggested is there a second I will second so we have uh first and a second uh before we take a vote is there any other feedback on the document that people would want to incorporate not I just wanted to make sure um is staff I would just be curious to know like what would you expect to see on your March agenda related to this item if anything at all so for example the strategy is finalized like do you want to an ongoing uh status update um like an update from the ad hoc yeah, okay uh the one issue there is it at some point that ad hoc will need to sunset.

And so um you're not there yet, but um just something to consider so um do we know the date of when like it would be a year uh for that ad hoc specifically?

I believe it's closer to the summer.

I can pull that up right now.

So we have time and we can say it's like okay, a new year, figure out the news.

Yeah, I don't know.

Okay, um, all right.

Then I think we're we're good to take a vote.

Uh let's do a call on this.

That was a motion by Commissioner Pashal.

We have to hear from the public comment.

Oh, yes.

Yes, we can hear.

But who was the second?

I wasn't clear.

Member Drovsky, I think.

I heard two over here.

Member Jurofski was second.

It's the second.

Okay, thank you.

Uh but yeah, let's hear from the public.

Uh we'll go ahead and take public speakers.

Lambert.

And while Mr.

Davis is coming up, I'll just say, sorry.

Um, the community engagement and outreach ad hoc committee will need to sunset by June 15th.

So we will probably have that on your May 18th meeting because I'm not sure.

I think your June meeting will come after June 15th, and we don't want it to so when you say sunset, we're we're done, but what if the work isn't done?

Exactly.

So that was kind of what I was trying to go ahead.

Okay, and we can we just hear for our public and then we can continue since we called him up already, Lambert?

I work with the millennials, so I'm very patient.

Um couple of things I heard.

First of all, I heard Ash Rugani say that the staff was supposed to read a policy, and when they asked them to raise their hand, he was the only one.

Shout out to you for that.

However, it shows that the staff did not read the policy, they to me they should not be paid for that.

If you're supposed to read a policy, read it.

The other thing is this is 2026.

You had the fire department here, and that was a great suggestion by Commissioner Salah.

They should still be emailed that they should use the measure you funding.

Why do they get a pass because they left?

And by the way, I did tell my family that I probably would be the last one in this audience, and that doesn't make sense to me.

There's a community engagement director.

Where is she at?

Whereas the Department of Finance.

Where are they?

Do you need me to come down here and you can pay me to tell you how to how to do it?

It's not difficult.

People have lost their way, they think this money is their personal money.

If you ran your household, like you run this city, you would be homeless out there.

We would see you out there.

You have to be more fiscal responsible.

Just because they left with all this modern technology, you can take measure you and email it to them.

The millennials have already texted me.

Hey, we're waiting for you.

And that's just a basic, hey, we're waiting for you.

But I said no, I'm gonna hang in there because I have something major to announce tonight that will inspire you from a fiscal responsibility.

Thank you for your comments, Chair.

We have no more speakers.

Okay, um, then the only thing I wanted to add before we take the vote is that uh Ash kind of just whispered to me that it may be a good idea to put if we're gonna ask for money in our March 24th presentation to budget and audit.

Um so we should just.

Sorry, your March 24th presentation is to the PNP personnel and public employees committee.

That's on your annual report.

Um I was referring to budget recommendations that you yeah, like would probably be in May, I believe.

Okay, so not that presentation then.

Okay, so we have time.

But anyway, uh let's do the call.

All right.

So we've got a motion by member Paschal, and then the second by Jurofsky.

Commissioners, if you can please unmute Vice Chair McGee.

Yes.

Commissioner Smith is absent.

Commissioner Salah?

Yes.

Commissioner Cook?

Yes.

Commissioner Miller.

Yes.

Commissioner Johnston?

Yes.

Commissioner Goris is absent.

Commissioner Novello?

Yes.

Commissioner Drowski?

Yes.

Commissioner Pachal?

Yes.

Commissioner Fry Lucas is absent.

Commissioner Rosa is absent.

And Chair Georgeov.

Yes.

Thank you.

The motion passes.

We can move on to the last item.

Try to make it quick.

The measure you budget recommendations.

Ash, if you want to enter this one.

I actually don't have much to um discuss.

You heard the update from Pete earlier.

This is a standing item that just allows you to continue discussing how you want to approach your budget recommendations this year.

And so if there's no, well, I'll kind of let you all kind of discuss that.

But you know, if there's no updates to discuss, then we can move on.

Uh does anyone on the committee have any thoughts on this?

Or okay.

If not, we can probably just hunt it.

Um I think we've heard that there are gonna be more updates on the third.

Pay attention.

Um, and let's try to get uh your notes down for the meeting that we have next month, and that way we can discuss them there.

Okay, great.

Exactly.

So we'll have this exact same item next month, and you can discuss whatever um is released on the third during that item.

Fantastic.

Um we can move on.

This is to off or let's see, we kind of already did ad hoc.

So let's go ahead and skip those.

Um actually, well, the metrics ad hoc still probably needs to create a better recommendation for like going through all the metrics that exist in the dashboard and coming up with better ROIs.

Like, for example, we heard today.

Um I didn't know the full picture, so I didn't want to grill them and um but like three million plus dollars plus if we add the so there was also the grant money split over three years.

So actually there's like four million dollars for ten hired um paramedics, seems like it should be easy peasy, like four million to ten people.

I don't know all the details, but like that seems quite high.

Um and one could be a woman, and that would make it 10% female.

Um, so to me that seems like a very high amount of money for the return we are getting.

I didn't want to say that because I wasn't sure again, all the details, and maybe I would need to more need more details on that, but and it feels a little costal.

Um but like that sort of stuff.

I think the metrics department or the metrics ad hoc needs to sort of like sit down and think about.

And I would love love love if people can also spend some time with the metrics dashboard and come to conclusions.

Um I know Member Fry Lucas, who's not here currently, has like uh a bunch of them written down.

Um I think we should all have stuff written down for this.

Um cool.

Okay, and then I think public comments for matters on the agenda would be next.

I have uh community engagement outreach committee.

Does that oh we kind of already discussed that?

Yeah, so we'll just get that.

Okay, then um we could do member comments next, or unless you want to take public first, it's up to you.

Uh I are there any member comments on.

Oh, actually, yeah, member cook.

I think we can like I'll close with this.

I think when we can collectively agree that most of our budgetary recommendations are getting ignored by city council.

You can like speculate why it's hard to track, co-mingle with general fund, blah blah blah.

But like TLDR, it's mostly getting ignored.

So a citizen initiated ballot measure takes 10% of the registered voters in the city of Sacramento.

That's 30,000 people in Sacramento.

30 that if we do 30 volunteers at eight hours a week with 10 signatures per hour, we can get 30,000 signatures in about three months.

I'm putting that out there to this group.

If that resonates with anyone, let's talk.

Thank you.

Don't you have a baby?

I do have a baby, but just won't say it out there.

About the city so much.

You know, I think that's a good thought, but I mean, it's projected, right?

So it's like you gotta be boots on the ground to see that, but I think that any effort is better than like no effort.

So I I love the map.

Sleep on it.

Get back to me.

Thanks.

Okay.

Um, yeah, let's move to public comments matters on the agenda.

Yes, we have one.

That includes this, if by the way, if anyone wants to discuss further.

We have one speaker, Lambert.

Uh, what'd you want to say then?

February eighth.

February seventh, the millennials came to me and said, we got a way to make this thing go global.

And they know I'm listening.

The recommendation.

It took them a while to get me with social media, but they got me.

They said it costs a million dollars to get an ad.

They know I didn't have that.

I said, Well, what's the plan?

They said we got a group, an international group, and they love your website to the bandback cheesecake.com.

And I said, Well, what's the what's the gimmick?

The gimmick is the name to the Bay and Back in the Super Bowl was in the Bay Area.

This is outside the thinking.

And I said, What's my role?

My role is in my brother is to get the cheesecakes to the event.

That's easy.

You know what happened?

And we got it in writing.

There were people through social media and emails contacting us from all over the world.

Shout out to the millennials.

Then they went a step further.

Somebody was at that event that was from another country.

And they approached me and said, Hey, we would like to invite you to the global summit of business.

I was stunned.

And the young people pulled it off.

We never left the room.

So now our business, our mother's cheesecakes have gone viral globally.

We can prove it.

It's gonna create jobs for years to come, long after I'm gone.

Because a computer cannot make a cheesecake.

And I have let you hear our granddaughter song, and that's gone global too.

So there's a way to get out of debt.

You just have to treat it like it's your money.

Thank you for your comments, Chair.

We have no more speakers.