Thank you.

We're starting with John.

We're a little out of sequence tonight.

John Gutman's going to start.

Christina.

If you're there.

Christina, can you?

Hi, Christina.

This is John.

Hi.

Hi.

First up would be the PowerPoint for New Covenant Center.

Okay.

As part of the presentation will be for the senior nutrition program.

Okay.

Tight on time tonight.

So please keep your presentation down to 10 minutes.

Sorry, this is uh, I think you can do this.

New covenant will be a little longer than senior nutrition, so if I go over five, I will make it up on the back end.

Uh Christina, is there a presentation?

Yep, I am sharing it right now.

There you go.

So uh Mr.

Chairman, do you know which page we are books one or we know 349, 484 521?

Uh I'm not sure where this one where the new Covenant Center is.

Uh I don't see it.

Um, we're ready.

Okay.

Uh can we go on 485 in covenants?

Uh count 58194 zero.

There should be a slide ahead of this that says opening doors.

There we go.

Thank you.

That's the intro.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is John Gutman.

I am the uh director of Stanford Area Programs for Catholic Charities of Fairfield County.

Some of you may know me as the just recently passed executive director of New Covenant Center for the last 11 years and also for the last three and a half years.

I've had the additional duty of being the director of our Stanford area programs, which includes New Covenant Center and Senior Nutrition Program, which I'll talk about shortly.

If you could switch the slide, please.

Next slide, please.

Thank you.

Um, although we operate under the umbrella of Catholic Charities of Fairfield County, we offer 30 different uh programs, uh of which I'm going to talk about two tonight uh to help the most vulnerable and needy in airfield county.

Um Covenant Center oversees and delivers its programs independently and is responsible for raising revenue to support our work and carry out our mission.

At the same time, those we serve benefit from the other programs offered by Catholic charities of Fairfield County, expanding access to many of our resources.

Next slide, please.

Thank you.

Next slide, thank you.

Uh we operate two core programs to reduce food insecurity among the needy in our community.

We operate the largest soup kitchen, which we call the soup kitchen cafe in Stanford, which is open 365 days a year, and we serve mostly three meals per day.

It's the only soup kitchen within an eight to ten mile radius of Stanford.

And since the pandemic, uh demand in our soup kitchen cafe is more than doubled.

And in 2022, we provided an average of 300 to 350 daily meals versus 175 before the pandemic.

And in addition to about the 300 meals we serve in-house, we do about 100 partner meals that include Inspira House, Lunches and Dinners, and Pacific House, uh, our landlord, current landlord ARI always reaching for independence.

We also operate the largest uh brick and mortar food pantry uh in Stanford.

Uh and it's open uh every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, plus two Saturdays per month, providing sufficient nutritious food uh to prepare three meals a day for 10 days for each of our 1600 individuals that currently uh are registered to get food.

Uh demand in the food pantry has grown significantly, driven by high inflation for basic needs and goods and the end of the emergency SNAP funding in early 2023, which was made available during the COVID pandemic.

Since 2022, the number of receiving monthly assistance uh has really grown significantly.

We're now at 650 families at a little bit more than 1500 individuals receiving those 10 days and three meals a day for each of those 10 days of groceries.

Next slide, please.

Actually, there's one before that, I think.

Uh how we help in Stanford.

Okay.

Let me tell you anyway, how we help you stand beside the two food and security programs.

We have family and community resources, job training, and housing resources.

And I'll talk a little bit about that in a moment.

For those who can't read it, the vision for the new Stanford Family Center, which I'll talk about briefly, is to bring the most essential services, and we're not calling it the Stanford Family Center.

We're gonna be calling it uh, I think it's going to be still in the branding stage, but it'll be uh Catholic Charities Stanford, home of New Covenant Center.

So the vision is to provide the most essential services under one roof, ensuring that when someone walks through our door, they can access multiple services they need to thrive.

And again, Mike Dantew, the executive director of Catholic Charities.

Uh thank you.

Um we do much more than just feed people.

We want people to get out of the soup line, so to speak.

Uh, we have many wraparound services that you can see here that uh we either have on site or through our other Catholic charities programs.

Next slide, please.

So our ask for your consideration tonight is a total of 125,000.

Gave us nine, the gave us, and you all gave us 95,000 last year, of which part was for our case management program.

We're hiring as we speak now, a second full-time case manager.

The need is huge, and again, this is about helping people get a hand up, not just a handout.

And I put quotes around the handout, obviously.

This is a basic utility.

Um, but our case managers are hugely important to our 5,000 guests that walk through our doors every year.

They come, they uh navigate complex systems and provide that personal um support, and they advocate in the health care, housing, employment, and social services categories.

Um tonight goes toward uh case management.

Next slide, please.

So there's a little bit more narrative here.

Um more specifically, there really I look at it as two areas that we help in the case management, the one-on-one personal attention that we get.

Um down to the third bullet point, touch points, quick fix, problem solving.

We do about 40 of those per day.

We're adaptat test in the moment, people have issues.

It means simple.

You know, I lost my bicycle, whatever it is.

I need to see a dentist.

I lost my glasses, those kinds of things.

Those are what I call quick fix uh problem solving moments, and they're about 40 per day of those.

And then you have the more targeted support that changes outcomes and what we are targeting with the second case manager.

And Betsy Lopez, who's the new director who was my long-time operations director, uh, really started out in case management.

Um, so we really have three people plus all of us to some extent, are always helping our guests, we like to call them.

Um, and in the key areas, uh housing referrals for emergency and permanent housing placements.

We work very closely with Pacific House, some with the Spirica House, uh, medical and mental health referrals are huge for us.

We do have a lot of partners, but we don't pretend to want to get into every piece of business of all of you at this table.

So we like to use our relationships as you do with us, uh, especially on the food support side to further our people's lives.

And finally, uh, the last thing we've gotten into is job skills assistance and placement.

In fact, there was a previous picture of uh Chef Renee, our daytime chef, weekday chef, and a guy named Nick, who we helped just get a job at Goodwill Industries.

And uh he started out in the food line with us, and then um, and we just placed a couple of people at the new weddings, and they still have their jobs, so we're really happy about that.

Next slide, please.

So most of you have heard we are in the middle now of a remodeling campaign for our new facility.

We're closing down our west side operation where we've been on the west side now for 48 years.

This will be our fourth location to the east side.

We're going into the current with will be the tenant to the landlord and Knights of Columbus, and we're doubling our space.

The need is huge.

We're getting into case management.

But probably the most important thing is we have many dedicated partner rooms, and we're talking to a few of you around this table about coming to our place where we have all these vulnerable people and touching with that.

It'd be easier for all of us if you can access that at our place.

We have job skills, dedicated job skills room, in addition to a lot of private consultation rooms.

So strong partnerships are uh are the key and increased uh accessibility.

Volunteers and all of you who have tried to make it come to our place where we only have six current spaces, we're now going up to 140.

Next slide.

And the last slide.

So this is a gentleman who said to us being new to Stanford, I didn't know anybody, but I have like a family at this point.

And I think family is the key word.

I know a lot of you refer to some of your people and clients and guests as family, and um Spencer has meant a lot here to us.

So that's New Covenant Sun.

Thank you.

Any questions, or we're just gonna go right through the rest of it.

We don't have a lot of time, so let's do them together.

Of course.

Yes.

Sorry about that.

No, it's okay.

Um, if you could put up the deck for senior nutrition program.

I could start, uh it's a senior nutrition program, program of Catholic Charities of Fairfield County.

So Maureen Newberger, who some of you may know, was born and raised here in long time, lifetime uh resident of Stanford, has been our director of the senior nutrition program uh for the same 11 years that I was at uh New Covenant Center.

She's still the director, and she also is the uh assistant director to me now of the bigger operation.

Um slide two, when you get to slide one, introduction, senior nutrition program, Catholic charities of Fairfield County has sponsored the senior nutrition program.

Thank you.

Uh, next slide, please.

Um for more than 37 years.

And we serve over 400 elderly individuals, 16 and over on a daily basis, providing nutritious meals through our meals on wheels and at congregate community site uh sites as well.

Uh the meals on wheels, you may have seen our eight or nine uh Catholic charities, little vehicles that look like mini ice cream trucks.

Uh, they go around uh in Stanford primarily and other communities delivering all these meals.

And this is to the homebound.

This is to people who not just during COVID, where our drivers were the only person that they saw every day at all these community, all these uh sites and housing areas.

Um but even now there many of them are by themselves.

So the connection, the social connection, the meaningful connection of our drivers to them is hugely important.

And none of these guys are trained in any way, other than they're very likable and very passionate about what they do.

And it's really difficult to convey that to you without a video that I can't do here, but um it means a lot.

So Meals on Wheels is helping a lot of people, but then we have the people who are a little bit more mobile, the seniors.

16 over.

Uh we have eight meal sites, three of which are located in Stanford, one right here at the government center, uh Monday to Friday.

And the seniors not only benefit from a wonderfully catered nutritious meal, but also um they have options to participate in social engagement activities that we sponsor as well.

It can be music, it could be uh discussion of current events, um, computer classes, tai chi, those kind of things.

Next slide, please.

So we like to say we change lives, one delivery at a time.

We have six paid part-time and full-time drivers that provide a meal delivery, safety check and maintain a relationship with the clients, and a nationally nutritionally balanced meal uh social connectedness and a sense of hope.

Next slide, please.

So the impact of our donations and contributions with food costs on the rise, contributions increase the ability to provide additional meat meals on an as needed basis.

And we have a waiting list at times for those who need it the most.

Also, contributions partially subsidize the cost of gas for our refrigerated trucks in the midst of rising prices, and it helps to maintain a fleet of eight refrigerated trucks.

It also allows those contributions due to provide emergency frozen meals in the event that drivers are unable to deliver.

And that certainly was very opportune in two storms ready and five weeks apart this winter.

So Marine Newberger couldn't be here tonight.

That is her number if anybody wants to contact her.

And I really appreciate the time.

Thank you very much.

I don't know why I'm getting transcription.

Can you turn that off, Sammy?

It's transcribing wounds.

Anyway, uh are there any questions?

I don't see any hands.

All right, thank you very much.

Yeah, I appreciate our ability to go first.

Thank you, everybody.

Um next will be inspired.

Thank you.

Yes, if we if we can, no worries.

If we can pull up the aspiraca slides, that would be awesome.

Thank you.

And uh and I'll get started.

Um hello everyone.

Um and thank you again for the opportunity to reacquaint everyone with Aspiraca.

So Inspiraca has been around, believe it or not, for almost 150 years.

And our mission today is the same as it was back then, although obviously we've grown a bit.

Um, and so we are uh provider of emergency housing and permanent supportive housing uh in Stanford, and we do this across 12 facilities for women and families.

Every single night we house over 500 individuals, including children across those 12 facilities.

Um next slide, please.

Thank you.

So we serve approximately just under 4200 uh community members.

Uh that was as of last year.

This year it's grown a bit.

We don't have those final numbers in.

Um, and that's across all of our programs, and you can see the breakdown there underneath that uh that large number.

Next slide, please.

I'm going to try to really go through these fast.

Um, so I mentioned that we have 12 facilities, two of our facilities house our emergency and triage housing, and that's about 127 beds.

And then we have permanent housing, and we have about 223 units across 10 facilities in Stanford.

The triage housing, you might recall from last year was new.

It was a pilot program for four months.

It was so successful in keeping children off the streets that now it is a permanent uh full year program.

Next slide, please.

I think one of the things that really sets us apart from other uh homeless service organizations is we provide a whole host of support services.

That includes case management, and it also includes an empowerment center with a whole host of programs, and many of those programs are focused on financial literacy, career services, adult education.

We have a youth program, we have an early childhood parenting program because we really want to get at the root of homelessness rather than just provide a home or a permanent uh supportive housing for individuals, right?

That's the first step.

But then what do we do to help individuals and families get uh their independence to be able to be on their own?

And so all of these programs that we provide really help do that.

We have a number of success stories that obviously I can't share all of them with you, but we provide a lot of certificate programs, and so we've had stories where uh folks uh some of our residents have gone through a uh certified nursing uh program, and now they are employed at Glenn's hospital, for example.

Next slide, please.

Uh, some of the significant changes in the year.

Uh we we've done some staffing changes, so we've consolidated at least one or two roles.

Um, that's been very helpful in in our bottom line.

And we also had an have an outsourced um fiscal partner right now, and we're bringing that uh financial services in-house.

And so we did hire a BPF finance.

Uh they were hired in January, and so we're expanding on that to replace the outsourced finance uh uh partner.

So that's a great thing.

The capital expense requests, we do have a few.

We have had a few through the city, and you'll see those listed there as well.

Next slide, please.

Uh we are I already talked about the expansion of our empowerment center uh and our life project, uh, which is focused on life skills and employment readiness.

You can read more about that.

And I already talked about our Trio Center that opened last year.

So I'm going through these very quickly.

Uh next slide, please.

We don't foresee any uh curtailing of programs or services.

However, we are fully aware of some of the uh threats that we have heard and seen from the federal government.

Um we have yet to see if any of that gets cut, uh, but we are prepared to pivot if we need to.

Uh, but right now, as of right now, we don't anticipate any uh abandoned or curtailed progress.

Next slide, please.

Some challenges.

Well, we you heard some uh from John.

We we had a lot of food insecurity uh concerns, uh, mostly because of the um the uh reduction uh the the closure of the government and it affected SNAP program, and so we had a lot of increased cost in that area.

Uh the changes to the HUD funding could potentially impact two of our programs, and we're prepared to pivot if we have to on that.

Lack of affordable housing is always an issue, and one of the things I can share with you about that, it's a little secret.

Um, but we are looking to potentially build uh on an existing footprint of some of our property.

Um, and so that is very early in the discussions uh with our board, but that is something that we're looking to do to uh create some more affordable housing units, and we're constantly struggling with uh competitive salaries for our frontline staff.

Next slide, please.

Some of the efficiencies and service improvements you'll see listed there.

Um we uh had a horrific winter, as I'm sure all of you did if you live in this area, and uh, but no one had a worse time than our homeless population.

And even though we had 25 days of state declared cold weather emergencies, we were able to provide housing to anyone who requested it.

We didn't turn anybody away.

Um, and that uh was a huge accomplishment.

Uh we nearly doubled the individuals that we served in our family shelter.

Um, and we had 47 housing, household secure um housing versus 41 last year, and we had about 111 job placements secured since June of 2025.

Um, those are all success stories uh that didn't come easy, but uh we were very proud of that.

Next slide, please.

So I just want to end by saying that uh I think we can all um uh admit that you know homelessness is uh is a in say uh a public health issue, and I one of the things that the city of Stanford helps us do is prevent that from getting worse.

And so we I think have been very successful in keeping families off the streets.

Um we want to continue to do that.

We can't do that without your support, and so we appreciate um all the support you've given us over the years, and thank you for this consideration.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Are there any questions from anybody?

Um question.

Yes, go ahead.

Thank you for the presentation.

Uh do you guys have a defined gap between uh the need that you serve today and what the cities need is that you can't meet either by funding or available rooms.

When you when you say need, do you mean beds?

Do you mean eliminate and I think that's a tricky word?

But do you have a do you have a uh zero target that you that you you know what the gap is?

Um I don't know that number up the top of my head.

All I know is that the requests are increasing every single year.

Um I understand that over the last four years the uh the uh increase in homelessness just in Fairfoot County has increased by more than 10 percent.

Um just in just one year over the other, right?

So um, and I think it I think at Fairfield County alone, we had 770 people that were homeless.

So the the requests keep coming.

Um we didn't have to turn anybody away over this horrific uh winter, but that is because we try to do whatever we can to make funds.

There were people that were in chairs overnight because we didn't have enough vets.

Um so I don't know the total number, but we can certainly try to get that for you.

That would be great.

I would want to know what that is.

So they build away.

I do have a question.

I'm sorry, go for it.

You were saying you had an Apple request, and I didn't see that all BC calls.

Well, let's see.

But I I believe that it is through the city.

Here it is.

Specifically appropriations are in a different part of the budget.

Oh, okay.

I I can follow up on that.

I'll see if I can find it.

Yeah, it was it was to replace our ADA's uh accessible ramp.

Okay, I'll see what I can find.

Yeah, and and I'll I'll see if I can find the original request so that'd be great.

Oh, thank you.

Great.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

All right.

Uh as I think we're a little bit behind Domas.

Who is here?

We'll go quick.

Uh no, Christina, right?

She wrote the greatness.

She was the guy might take it out of the executive director.

Great.

Thank you.

Yes, here we go.

Perfect.

Okay, great.

We will be quick.

First of all, thanks uh for your time.

And I want to start off by saying that all the uh non-for-profits that are there are represented here today are uh partners that we work with quite a bit.

As much as I want as much money as I want, you certainly will have a hard uh hard time hurrying that up because everyone on this table deserves whatever whatever they've asked for.

So you should know that.

Um so just real real quick is uh Jomas worked with young people and their families aged 12 to 26 who are gonna send it what's called disconnected or disengaged, either from the school system or the um or or employment.

The line that we use is that they're not ready, willing, and able to go to school, and they're not ready, willing enabled to be to be at work.

We have two outcome producing programs.

One is school engagement, which I'll talk about in a minute, and the other one is our workforce development.

Tom Lang oversees workforce development, so please go that.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Tom Lang, and I am the chief justice officer for Domes Kids.

Uh the program I'm going to talk about is Domus Works, our workforce development program, and is also known as the Stanford Youth Service Corps.

So uh Domus Works is uh a workforce development program for young men and women 17 to 26 years old.

Um we work with youth who are disconnected, disengaged, and what that means in the employment world is they're either unemployed or underemployed.

Um we uh we operate out of uh a social enterprise model.

What we believe is the best way to learn how to work is actually by working.

Um so our young people um are out there uh working on crew, working in the community and doing all that stuff.

But but really how it works is um we recruit young people from the Stanford community um to come to our workforce development program once we get them on site, they do a two-week uh two-week orientation where we can we do our workforce development curriculum, we get them on payroll, we do all that stuff, but really what that's about is um we're building a team, right?

We we want the young people to begin to rely on each other to begin to figure out what it really means to uh to work.

So we're really the that uh the two weeks is we're doing a lot of team builders.

We're doing a lot of uh activities with them right because they want to eat, you know, a lot of these things you guys talked about today are our barriers that are our young people based on the most food insecurity, especially if everything's happening right now.

Um so that's really that main focus of of the first two weeks.

It also allows us to get them on payroll because they are actually hired as a domus employee.

Um going out there and working, what we believe we all get paid for what we do, we want to pay the young people.

They have real life responsibilities.

They have young families, they pay rent, they put food on the table.

So to um to start a workforce development program, we recognize that that's a big need, right?

We have to be able to pay these young people for uh further time.

We noticed a lot during COVID, there's a whole bunch of money that like flowed into to this uh this sector around that, but there wasn't a lot of money that came around how you support that young person, right?

And you need the support and proof financially, but you also need to uh support them with like helping them remove barriers and helping them do all that stuff.

So um each young person gets uh what are called uh many different things, family advocates, transitional coaches, but really it's a mentor, it's a support system, and they work with them uh weekly.

We uh we have a minimum of uh 60 minutes a week.

We work with uh with that young person.

Um it's about building relationships and how you build relationships is free time.

So I gotta put the time in, I gotta meet our that young person to do all that stuff.

Um so in those meetings, you know, we're working on the goals, but really we're there kind of working on working on them and then being that support system to them and being the that sounding board.

So after the two week orientation and they get on their payroll, they start on a work through immediately.

Um our ratio is one staff member to five youth.

Um, we are very basic.

We are uh every day we go over, you got to show up, you got to show up on time, you got to get along with your coworkers and you gotta get along with your supervisors.

And we call the daily outcome ladder, we give them that direct feedback every single day.

Um we work with them around all of that stuff for probably about stats are getting old now, but about 15 or 20 years ago, they they surveyed all the businesses in in Stanford around what do they need for uh for uh for the new workforce, and they said, I just need people who are going to be ready to work, right?

And they're gonna be able to do it, and then we can train them up around that.

We took that to heart when we built this program out and we do all that stuff.

Um, so when they get on that work through and they start on on that Monday, we uh we're out there four days a week.

So they get 25 hours a week in the field.

Um, our biggest partner is the city of Stanford, it is the youth service core.

Um, we help maintain 26 parks with the Stanford Park and Rec, and that number goes up and down all the time.

Um doing side jobs, we'll be doing all those things.

Um, so we we work the park and rec around landscaping and maintenance of those properties.

Um, we also um support the street to street.

So if there is illegal dumping or trash that's out there, our crews go out and pick that up.

So uh so in the winter, every Monday and Tuesday, we have our two work crews going out there and uh and working with uh working with the city and doing all that stuff to get them there.

Um so they're doing that four days a week on Wednesdays.

We call it the the the U Day.

So that's when they work on ourselves.

We'll do the workforce development curriculum, but we'll also have people come in and talk about careers and talk about what's out there and what they can do because um all of our young people are on a different journey.

You know, it's not that you come through our program at the end, you're a certified um electrician.

No, they all go on different uh different career paths and different things.

So we get it, we get a lot of people in front of them to talk about that stuff on on those days.

Um it's a year-long program.

It usually takes the young people about three to six months to get through that social enterprise piece.

Once they're deemed work ready, then we'll start looking for jobs.

I get a lot of guys come in the door, they tend to tell me, I'm ready to get a job right now.

That may or may not be true.

What we say is like prove it to us.

And we the how they prove it is showing up and doing that work every single day.

Um, so once they're deemed work ready, we're looking for three key indicators.

We're looking for full-time employment with benefits and a path to self-sufficiency, right?

So we're not talking about just getting a part-time job.

It's a pretty intensive program.

What we're really looking for is we're really looking for the young people to get um to get full-time work and get into the careers.

As we've like scaled up this program, we've also built out these partnerships.

Uh, we work with New Vance Health at Norwalk Hospital is our newest uh project.

Looking at what are those new emerging fields in the healthcare industry.

We had a first cohort of 10 young people start two months ago when they're working through that program and they have been hired um already.

They just need to make it through the trainings at this point.

Once they're through that training, they're gonna be full-time uh employees.

Um, we really helped them build that program out.

They've a little in the same philosophy, they pay them for their time and they pay them for their work.

And and um, and that's one partnership.

We also work with the Connecticut Carpenters Union.

So if someone's interested in the trades, we can send them into the trades.

We also work with a local um day is uh a program here in Stanford that does IT um and internet support.

So if they're interested in that, we'll send our young people in in that direction.

So those are the things that we're doing.

Um, a couple of our numbers is and I feel like I'm going long now.

I'll come to our numbers that we look at last year.

We served 86 young people.

This year we're on target to serve about 106.

So that's a 23% increase that we're having on that.

Um, so we're really happy with with the numbers as this program grows out.

Um, but also um our outcomes, our targets are staying the same, right?

So uh so our two key ones is our retention.

So 86% retention rates of people are coming to the program, they're staying at the program.

And one year out, 100% of our young people are still employed in a full-time job.

Now it may not be the same full-time job, they might have moved on to a different one, which is normal, right?

As a young worker, but they're still there, they're still working with the with those uh with those three key indicators.

And and just one last thing, you know, Mike mentioned that uh, you know, we we use that disconnected, disengaged, and and really we want to connect the young people to the community.

I think the great partnership that we have with the city of Stanford is doing that.

Like the kids get all excited when they wear their their city of Stanford um swag when they're going out and they're taking care of those parks.

They love it when they're driving, you know.

I hear from my guys all the time.

They love it when they're driving down the street and the parks and rec crews are like deep and waving to the dome's trucks as they're going by.

So they're they're feeling connected as the community, they're part of the community.

Where you know, if you look back a few years ago, these may be the young people who've been pushed out of it.

We're developing that new workforce that's gonna hopefully stay here in Stanford and work there in Stanford with those with those for theirs.

Yeah, just take a little chance to one minute.

Yeah, so um, so part of that, uh, we we operate in Victus, which is a re-entry program.

We work with department of corrections.

We go into the facility six months or a year working with them pre-release to build up relationships.

So when they get out, they have a friendly face, they have a place where they can go and work with us.

A lot of those young people go into the Dome's works program.

Some of them do not, some of them are work ready and they're good to go.

Some of them have other needs they need to take care of, but the majority go into the um the workforce development program.

And uh the the great thing about new vans is when we entered into that partnership.

What we had said is we need you to hire returning citizens, right?

Because so many returning citizens are told we're gonna hire you, we can do it.

You know, you can Google 50 places that are you know, 50 organizations that are gonna hire returning citizens.

That may or may not be true, right?

Though a lot of our experiences, people will find reasons.

Well, we got connected with move.

We said you have to hire them.

That first cohort, I had five young people who are record, all five of them were hired to go in there.

So, you know, I think that is really like pushing the needle with something that I've still continue to talk about.

We have a very specific population, right?

But I think like as that grows, we're talking about like, yeah, so now we also need to expand that to everybody over the age of 26, right?

Because I think that's a huge growth area for us to move in and to and all re-time.

I'm gonna have to slow you down or speed drop.

One or the other s we we're running out of time.

I really do have a 6:30.

We've got to switch over.

So can we we can end if you want?

So I was wrapping my piece up.

Sorry, can I get you to wrap up?

Yeah.

Should I still go a minute to another minute?

I can do it quick.

Sorry.

School engagement is is a um we work in the schools, many of our young people come to us disconnected and disengaged, which means they only attend school 50 to 80 percent of the time.

They've been expelled, suspended, and probably failed one or two more classes.

We go to the eighth grade principals and social workers and say who is either gonna fail ninth grade or drop out.

So that's where we get them.

We don't pick them and choose them.

They get what's called a family advocate who stays with them to get them to on time grade promotion that leads to on time high school graduation, which is great.

And then we stay another year after them.

So once you come to us in the summer of eighth grade, we stay with you for five years.

Currently, right now, we have 88 seniors, 86.

Um, who again were supposed to be dropping out in ninth grade or going are going to graduate.

We're on track to 86 out of the 88 to graduate to four-year universities, uh, community college, the military, and right and right to um workforce.

Another thing, again, young people vote with their fee, especially struggling young people.

I think we have a 95% retention rate.

The only reason they leave is because their families cannot afford to live in the city of Stanford.

It's a great partnership with the school system.

Same thing with workforce.

We have a great relationship with the uh work crews and uh and the directors of operation.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, any questions from any of the board members out of the thing?

Thank you very much.

That's it, some of the value.

All right, thank you.

Good luck, everybody.

Thanks, you guys.

Okay, uh liberation programs, or is that part of that?

Hello.

Hi, Richard.

Hi, good evening.

Um, in the interest of time, I can keep this down to about five minutes if that's fine, or I'll get through this as quick as I can.

All right.

So uh thank you for having me here tonight.

My name is Richard Liberano.

I'm the director of institutional giving for liberation programs.

We've been in Stanford since 1971.

It's our original city.

We are a substance use treatment prevention and community outreach organization, again, founded in Stanford, now serving all of Lower Fairfield County.

We primarily work with folks who have some sort of mental health or substance use disorder, primarily opioid use disorder, which we all know is a new and not a new issue, a very lasting issue.

And we're on the forefront of keeping people safe and alive.

Um, next slide, please.

The challenges we face every day vary from person to person, but these nine here are very much what we see constantly.

And I want to highlight a few.

Sigma and shame often keep people from seeking care to begin with.

If they can't believe that they're worthy of care, they're not going to receive it.

Costed insurance barriers, the average cost of a psychotherapy session, one hour is 174 dollars without insurance.

And most of our folks are either underinsured or uninsured.

Lack of access to comprehensive care.

A lot of places they go for one thing.

They're sectioned off to another place.

There is go here for this service, go there for that service.

And that also speaks to the system fragmentation we see in the bottom, right?

There's doesn't seem like there's ever a centralized area where you can either get everything you need, the connections to everywhere you need.

So next slide, please.

As I mentioned before, substance use disorder, especially opioid use disorder is a nationwide issue.

Over 80,000 fatal overdoses in 2024.

2025 numbers are still being finalized.

Fentanyl is involved in over 60% of all nationwide overdoses.

It's cost the country $4 trillion, and nearly half of everyone in the country has known someone who's died from an overdose.

Next slide, please.

Treatment for what it's worth is rare, especially considering how frequently people have behavioral health disorders.

20% of people with a mental illness.

Fewer than one in 10 get care.

And as you can see, 44% report a cost as a barrier to accessing mental health care, as I mentioned earlier.

Mental health care, 175 an hour for those without insurance.

And in Connecticut, next slide, that continues with alcohol rates tripling.

836 overdose deaths in 2025.

That number has gone down, which is great, but we still have a lot of work to do.

In Stanford specifically, over 179 lives lost since 2015, the second highest in Fairfield County.

Next slide.

You can see that the folks who we help need the service, almost 95% of them under significant financial strain, almost one in five with housing and security, not receiving proper education, Medicaid, Medicare, uninsured, 85 out of 100 people.

It's it's it's a lot, and their numbers are growing.

Um with their growth comes the need for us to grow in turn.

And Stanford OPM has been a giant help in that.

Next slide, please.

As you can see since year 2020 to 2021.

In fiscal year 2021, 955 served.

Look at the jump from fiscal 23 to fiscal 24, 1,291 to 2,097, almost 100% increase in Stanford clients served in three years.

And next slide.

2,169 people in total in Stanford.

That's a lot.

Again, nearly double where we were three years ago.

It forced us to move into a new building.

And that incredible rate of growth is why our request is for our Stanford services at 150,000.

We've seen faster growth in Stanford than we have in Bridgeport.

Stanford has historically been a smaller service area than Bridgeport.

It's nearly equal right now.

And I want to tell you about our two main treatment programs in Stanford.

Next slide, please.

We'll start with Liberation House, our men's residential treatment program.

That's our original program.

Since 1971, started out as co-ed.

It is now for men only.

326 men served in fiscal year 2025.

96% of whom under significant financial strain.

Almost one in three homeless.

But we do great work with them.

Next slide, please.

87% of those 326 men completed their plans for treatment, 12% above the Connecticut goal, which is our that's our North Star.

As long as we can help more men every year and do it well, that is always what we're aiming to do.

That's with personalized goals, individual and group counseling, medication assisted treatment for the men who need it, and making sure that when they're done at Liberation House, they get to where they need to go.

And we will help them every step of the way.

Next slide, please.

For those who don't require residential treatment, we have our outpatient services.

And as you can see, a 92% increase in those serves since fiscal year 2023.

It's a massive lift that we're undertaking in Stanford.

Next slide, please.

But as you can see, we're ready to do it.

62% of clients on medication assisted treatment.

That's methadone, that's buprenorphine, eliminated their substance use.

That's 24% above the Connecticut goal of 50%.

Reducing substance use is a hard thing to do and do consistently.

And we're doing it.

Next slide, please.

We also offer other services in Stanford are integrated mental health program, provides mental health services in partnership with Stanford Health.

We have our outreach program that goes directly into the communities, accessing people who are homeless, hard to reach at a high risk of overdose.

We need 22 referrals to other services embedded in the community in Stanford in fiscal year 2025.

Our prevention programs cover the whole city.

We have two entire Stanford-based community initiatives to deal with mental health and alcohol use, and over 96% of the students who we survey are going to utilize the lessons we teach.

And there's more to come.

We're making major renovations to Liberation House.

It needs it.

And it's a continued investment in the men we serve there.

We're also going to be putting residential beds for women on the first floor of Liberation House.

Remember, I mentioned that our clinic moved.

Liberation House is four floors.

The men are on floors two, three, and four.

Our clinic was on the first floor.

We outgrew it.

There's now a first floor that we are not using.

We're going to put women's residential beds in there because there are no residential women's beds for women who don't have children in Stanford.

And we'll be introducing what's called the Managed Alcohol Program in partnership with the Department of Transportation.

Um, and to speak to a few things in the agenda.

We have neither abandoned nor curtailed services, even in the face of potential federal cuts.

We get no direct federal funding, and we do not have any capital requests through the city of Stanford.

And I didn't stay under five minutes, but I stayed under eight.

So I hope that's okay.

Thank you, Richard.

Thank you.

Good work.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Uh, any questions from any of the map board?

Wow, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

The Pacific House.

Great.

Thank you.

Hi, good evening.

Um, we're just waiting for the slideshow, and tonight I'm gonna be talking about outreach programs.

Can you introduce yourself?

I see comments as listening.

Exactly.

So um good evening, everyone.

Thank you very much for having me tonight.

My name is Sylvia Narvaez, and I serve as the chief program officer for Pacific House.

I have been serving at the agency for a little less than two years, uh, but recently serving as the coordinated uh as the housing exits director for the coordinated access network in Fairfield County.

So next slide.

For over 40 years, Pacific House has partnered with the city of Stanford to serve individuals and families in need and to prevent and end homelessness, uh serving uh connecting them with shelter, with services, and with housing.

Next slide.

We're currently experiencing a significant increase in unshelter homelessness.

This is reflected in growing encampments, increased feasibility in public spaces, a rising demand on city systems.

While current efforts exist, demand of outpatient capacity, leaving some individuals unattended and um not connected to services.

Next slide.

Next slide.

So what will we do on Pacific House?

Street outreach is the front entry for the homeless system.

So our teams are actively engaging clients and families on the streets on the parts, uh going out of the income, going to the Metro North train station, and meeting with them.

They are providing, we are providing direct engagement and relationship buildings.

We have uh we do compressive uh assessments, we do referrals, we do uh provide them with referrals to health care, with housing, with shelter, we do ongoing case management services with them.

We also collaborate with key partners in the Stanford community, including Metro North, the Stanford Downtown Special District, Stanford Police, and the local emergency room and the coordinated access response.

Our capacity right now is two staff members who do outreach services for the city of Stanford, and one supervisor, those outreach workers, even though they provide some extended hours on some of the days, uh, is just not enough.

So we are asking to expand those services to non-traditional hours, weekends, and evening hours.

Next slide.

So we are engaging the most difficult uh population with really high needs.

Most of the population that we provide comes with mental health needs, substance abuse with medical needs as well.

But in spite of that, our staff is out there and they are consistently engaging with the unsheltered individuals.

They are connecting them with the shelter, they are connecting them with housing.

So as you could probably see on this slide.

So these are our numbers.

And I'm sorry, I have to look at my slide here for the numbers.

In fiscal year 2025, we serve 126 clients that were unsheltered and out-housed.

That includes all population, families and individuals.

Out of those, we house 32 clients, and we shelter 22 individuals and families.

Just in 2026, we serve that is for our fiscal year, July 1st to March last month.

We serve 157 unsheltered clients, uh clients, which includes individuals and families as well.

Out of those, we house 55 right out of the street.

And one or two individuals and families with the partnership with other agencies as well, we're able to shelter clients.

So as you could see, the demand continues to grow, but it's increased the increase in engagement and housing placements, demonstrate that outreach actually works and is effective if we if we could expand that.

So next slide.

So to increase this capacity, we're asking you to invest on our outreach workers and our outreach capacity.

So we are asking for 100,000 dollars to increase that capacity.

So we asking that that will help us to create additional staffing that will help us to expand the geographical area and provide a more consistent and timely engagement for the ones that we have not been able to reach.

Next slide.

So as you could see, uh outreach is the first step, but housing is the solution, and that's what we are created at Pacific House working from the first step to the end.

So that picture down there is just the ribbon um cutting ribbon for our 36th Anthree that was here in Stanford in 2025, where we opened 11 units for unshelter and homeless population, and because we believe in housing and because we believe in the homeless population, we also continue to develop and grow.

So the next slide is just showing the two buildings that are on the pipeline that we're expecting to have available in 2027 that will be providing services for families and for homeless seniors.

So thank you very much for your time and for your considerations.

So if you have any questions.

Oh actually, any questions for anyone?

Uh, this is Carmen.

I just have one statement.

I know that numbers were asked earlier in regards to uh how many people we do have in the city of Stanford that we know are homeless as Sylvia stated through our outreach workers and our hub program.

We know that currently there are 53 homeless people in Stanford.

Those are eight families.

No, eight females, three families, and 42 males.

Those are your numbers of the unsheltered people in the city of Stanford.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, just appreciate that.

And I appreciate you explaining what you were asking for the money for.

So thank you for that.

Those two buildings you showed at the end, are they funded at this point?

One is funded to Rotary Commons.

We are still we're also working with the Department of Housing, who is funding that and helping us to get vouchers for those.

Okay.

Of course, we will continue to build up funding.

So we could continue to miss on that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So I did have a question.

Who's looking for your 990?

And I know that there's there was a you've been running a surplus for a few years.

Can you explain what you're using the surplus for?

Carmen might be.

So actually, we did have a surplus, and that's surplus has been used for housing development.

One of the projects there, the Rotary Commons, thus, our syndicator thus asked for a million dollars actually to be put aside, set aside and asked duration of 15 years through the compliance period.

All right, thank you.

That explains great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Thank you for the presentation.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Any other questions?

Thank you all.

All right.

Thank you.

And future five.

Yes.

All right.

So I do believe we had a little snap food with sending our deck.

So lucky for you all, I like to talk and can hopefully do so succinctly and try to keep it within the five minutes.

Yeah, that's that's just our ask, but this is perfect.

So a little bit about future five.

We are uh requesting $50,000 in general operating support to help expand our programming uh for the increase in under-resourced high school students and college students that we serve.

Uh Future Five Connects motivated under-resourced students in Stanford to the people and resources they need to thrive.

Does that mean they're all motivated to do amazing things and go off to college and be successful?

No.

These are the at-risk students that are motivated to not be where they're at, which they might not know where that is yet, um, but our goal is to get them from here where they're at to there.

Um, we try to connect them with at least five people or resources that will help them get where they need to be, hence the future five, who are the five people that you're gonna meet that can help you get to be successful in your future.

Um, and so we are working with them to create a transition, graduate high school, land with a plan.

We follow them all the way through, whether it's college, trade school, military boot camp, and then once they graduate from that, we continue to follow them into early career.

And once they've landed, which not all of us do right out of college, so we support them through that, and then we ask that they pay it forward to the next generation of high school students to support them as kind of their way to give it back to future five.

Um, we often ask the question of, you know, someone says, how many Mozarts are there in the world that never had a piano or never played a piano?

Um, because they didn't have access to one.

That's kind of the motto that we thrive on at Future Five is how many students are out there that just don't have the opportunity to be where they want to be.

Um, and so we try to create those opportunities.

We have five major pillars at Future Five that we do so um or do so through, one of which is our high school programming that includes academic support, health and wellness, community service and enrichment programs.

Then we get them into college, and if they decide they want to go to college their junior year, they get a college coach, and that's our college prep program.

If they say, hey, college isn't for me, then we look at them and say, well, what is the next track on your album?

And they get an extra coach, and that could be trade military certificate programs, you name it.

Um, and then our so that's our second pillar is the college prep and next track.

Our third pillar is that college of six college success program, following them all the way through their college and career pathways.

Um, and then the fifth part is the alum five when the alumni pay it forward to the next generation.

And they do a lot of programs with our members paying it forward.

We work with all of these students throughout the process in getting them scholarships, helping them to make the best decisions that they can for their future, incurring as little debt as possible.

So as a matter of fact, 68% of our entering college freshmen in the fall did so with zero dollars debt planned, which was pretty phenomenal.

Yeah, it was crazy.

And hopefully we can get that same number with the current state of financial aid, but we're gonna we're gonna try for it nonetheless.

And then the fifth pillar is our workforce development, which runs throughout high school, college, and careers, early career and along five.

We support students with the basic job skills and the soft skills for high school, connecting college students to internships and work positions, and then finally working with our early in career to connect them to positions as well.

One of our newest programs this year is the intro to AI Tech 360.

We were given a grant so that we could actually be trained and teach our members how to utilize HIAI.

So right now we have 28 students who are taking the intro to AI, and we just held a huge luncheon last week with Nicholas Thompson from The Atlantic, who's the CEO of The Atlantic magazine, who interacted with all of our students, but then also provided a keynote at our luncheon, and we had a panel, and all of those students got to be part of that experience, which was pretty amazing.

So those are pretty much our wraparound services.

The biggest thing that we do is individualized support.

That's our secret sauce.

We know every student, we know their families, we know what's going on in their situation, and that allows us to tailor our programming to where they need to be.

In terms of operational challenges and accomplishments, we had been at capacity of 200 high school students for quite some time because we could not go over that based on the resources that we had.

Our strategic plan came to fruition about two almost two years ago now, and we agreed that we were going to incrementally increase as long as the staff felt they could do it by 25 students a year.

So we have now grown by 25% in the past two years.

And when we were here last year, we had just gotten into our new home.

We've been there for a year, it's thriving.

The members are there constantly.

Um, our biggest challenge is making sure that we have enough staffing capacity to support those members because if you start to do too much, you're not getting that individualized attention.

And that's where the students will really feel it.

Um what else?

Can I say that's it?

Uh we do have a wait list still of over 100 members.

There's about 34, I believe, 100 students that need access to resources in Stanford.

And we serve 250 high school, 130 college students who are active.

Um, most of them opt in after their senior year.

And then the others who don't, there's about 15% who don't, and they usually come back halfway through and say, I think I could use those services now.

Um, so we have a great retention rate for our college success program as well.

Um we have our expanded job prep workshop, which grew from like 15 students to about 30 each session, which has been great.

And right now we're in the process of reimagining our workforce development program to really tailor it to the needs of today, which hasn't been done in a long time.

We do not expect to abandon or curtail any services.

Um I would say some of our highlights and in terms of efficiencies for our program is that we finally completed a processes and procedures manual.

We liken it, or I like to liken it to Domino's Pizza, that if you go into a Domino's pizza, whether or not you like dominoes, you know what you're getting.

And you know it's the same recipe every time.

And a lot of things over the years, future five's been around for 17 years, and a lot of things are still in people's heads.

And if you have transition, like you often do in nonprofit, those were leaving in people's heads.

Uh, so we've been able to pull and extract from former staff and current staff how we do what we do so that there is a guidebook of future five, so that if two or three years down the line we do decide to do a market study of where we could go next and open the next future five, we would already have the playbook to do so.

Right now we're committed to staying in Stanford and serving the Stanford community because there's still a need.

Um, some of the other highlights that I can say is that 100% of our high school students graduated and expect to graduate this year as well.

Um, and over the past 17 years, the average of amount of high school students is 99% of high school students.

That's almost a thousand high school students that have graduated in the 17 years of future five that we've served.

97% landed with a plan for college or trade school or military.

That other 3% we still follow and we still work with to get them to land.

Like I said, 68% with zero dollars debt.

This year we have already for the fall, over 380 college acceptances to for 70 students.

So we're getting some really great results there.

And 97, 100% of our students matriculated in the fall who said they were going.

And that summer melt is usually very big.

And then 97% of our college students persisted from year one to year two, which is the largest time that students fall off in college.

It's called the sophomore slump, and they don't end up enrolling in their sophomore year.

We had two national Questbridge scholars that only they only gave 250 across the nation.

Last year we had two, one at Columbia, one at uh Tufts.

And this year we've had two more accepted for Barnard, um, not Barnard, sorry, uh, for Duke and for Boston College.

So we're we're going and they're starting with a full ride.

And the Horatio Alger, we have another student going to Denison on Horatio Alger, which is another full ride.

So we keep trying to make these things happen.

Um sources are tight, especially with increasing students and increasing the budget to be able to support them.

So we appreciate the opportunity to be able to come in front of you today.

Thank you, Amanda.

Thank you.

No, any questions?

Any questions from anyone else?

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh, next is the Roma Center, Cody.

That's I mean, I'm gonna pause you for one second, and just so people know that uh everybody else who was scheduled for 6 30, we're learning what will be minded of us.

Started meeting earlier at 5 30.

Um, we'll probably be about hopefully any more than 20 minutes late with Locke.

We'll talk fast.

Big talkers.

We are.

Um, Sharon Walker Absolum, the CEO of the Roman Center.

I talk really fast.

We don't have any slides, so you're just gonna have to look at us.

We'll split this presentation, but I promise we'll be really quick.

So um the Rowan Center really start by saying that we do something that nobody else does.

Um we are a sexual assault resource agency that also works in trauma and prevention education.

So um, I I also want to say very seriously that we are so busy this year.

Everything is up.

Counseling is up, 24-7 hotline is up, everything is up tremendously right at a time where the federal government is cutting us again.

LOCA is being cut by 21% next year, and they tell us that the year after that we're getting zero dollars.

Now we'll see.

Hopefully, somebody will step in and save us.

But right now we are, you know, we are drowning in work at a time when everybody's, you know, the federal government's cutting us.

So I just want to set the stage there.

We've been around for almost 50 years, started in trailer planning Stanford Hospital, solely going to the hospital to do rape camps with victims.

So that's where we started.

We've obviously progressed a tremendous amount since then.

We have three pillars of service.

The first is we are a crisis response agency.

We go um to the hospital, we go to the courthouse, and we go to the police station.

We have a 24-7 hotline that operates every minute of every day.

We have volunteers on that hotline and it is staffed by our team.

It is um an exhausting part of what we do because it is, like I said, every minute of every day on the phone rings all the time.

Our staff is paid to work on that, um, especially overnight.

Most calls come in at night, as you can imagine when it's really old.

Um, and so uh it is a very important part of what we do.

The um hotline is used for the hospitals to call us in order to go to the hospital to be with the victims, pull their hand through their emotional support system while they're getting a permanent kit done.

Our um hospital accompaniments are up 80% this year.

So we've had over 70 events so far in this fiscal year.

Um, and the majority of those are going to be in Stanford, right?

So Stanford is our busiest hospital, through our business ER.

Um, our second pillar of service is um our um counseling services.

So healing, we heal.

Crisis counseling is meant to get people out of a short-term crisis.

I say that, but I mean that it could be something that happened yesterday too, but it also could be something that happened 50 years ago.

We get a lot of people in there who are not 20 years old, they were 50 years old, they're six years old.

We know the average aid of disclosure for someone who could use as a child is 52 years old.

We're seeing a lot of people like that every single day.

Um, price of counseling, the demand has gone up 30% over the past year.

We see that just continuing to increase as well.

Um, the other thing we do in terms of healing, we opened two almost summers ago is our trauma recovery practice.

The trauma recovery practice was designed to be a long-term therapy clinic originally only for people at Husky, 18 and older, and it was meant for all trauma, not just sexual violence, but also domestic violence, any type of violence.

We've got people in there whose kids have been murdered, we've got people in there who um are combat veterans, people suffering from any kind of trauma you can imagine.

That clinic has doubled in size over the past year.

Demand is up about 150%.

We're continuing to expand.

And because we're concerned about what's happening with Medicaid, specifically that there are going to be a lot of people that might lose their Medicaid over the next um year.

We have just applied and been approved by the state of Connecticut to take other insurances.

Um we're in the process of getting credentialed there.

We have a lot of clients, you know, they come and see us, they get a little bit better and they lose their husky.

Um, and so that's never good.

And so we want a continuity of care.

And the other thing that we see is people who just don't quite qualify for husky, but they also can't afford to spend, I think somebody said it here, 175 for a private therapy um session.

So we are very focused on making that accessible and continuing to expand.

And then the third thing we do is prevention education.

We educate over 22,000 students in our catchment area.

Our catchment area is from Greenwich up to the three W's, West and Will, Wilton and Westport, but Stanford is where we are and where the majority of our work is right now.

Um prevention education is actually Cody's.

Well, Cody, talk about that.

Um, she said 22,000 over 22,000 K through 12, um, as well as UConn uh college students.

About that is Stanford.

Um we are in almost all of the schools in Stanford, uh, and it's K through 12, it's age and developmentally appropriate.

It's really just about safety.

It's boundaries when they get older, it's consent, it's touch, it's trusted adults.

And now with what's happening with online risks, we've had to are being asked to go into younger and younger grades.

Um, which is how we ended up designing Kit Safe HQ, which is our newest uh platform that launched uh at the end of February that's really directed at parents and caregivers to get them the information they need because what we found is that there's a huge gap in uh knowledge of what children are actually being exposed to, whether they're looking for it or not.

So, how do we get bring parents into the conversation that that works with what we're doing in the schools every day?

Um important to say all of our sources except for the trauma recovery practice are totally free.

Prices counseling is free, it's confidential, it can be anonymous.

We obviously have a lot of undocumented folks that use our services.

So yeah, and you'll see I mean on page two of our uh application.

We I mean, we do a lot more for the sake of time.

Let's just focus on our main pillars.

But you know, we just founded an anti-trafficking coalition um in Stanford with PET partnership to an human trafficking.

We're big on collaboration.

Um, and so you know, people can read about it, but for the time for the sake of time, let's just keep going.

Um, obviously potential challenges, you know, for us, I'm telling you, is keeping pace with the increasing demand.

It is just, I don't know if there was more essential bias happening.

Certainly that is part of it because we're seeing things more online with kids, you know, sex torture and sexual exploitation, things like this that didn't exist before.

So certainly have increased our workload.

It may also be awareness, more people go into the hospital, more people reaching out, so hard to say.

Um, but keeping pace with rising demand is is tough for us.

Sustaining fundable and unpredictable landscape.

I think I, you know, we've mentioned that staff burnout, vicarious trauma is pretty real.

I think our staff, I consider it would be first responders or going to the hospital.

We're seeing kids that have suffered sexual abuse and all kinds of terrible things.

So certainly consider us to be um, you know, uh a lot of vicarious trauma.

So we're doing a lot to take care of our staff.

Um, expanding prevention education to meet community needs.

Like we said, people want to see us younger, they want to see us more.

Um, it we're at capacity in terms of you know how much we can offer people.

We just we have small staff, we're 14 people with four part-time.

And so, you know, we're just really working hard.

We we never say no.

We always find a way to say yes.

We're really creative with our time.

Cody and I work all the time.

The management works all the time.

It's ridiculous, but um, it is uh really important to us that we never have a wait list.

We're always available, always find a way to say yes.

And increasing region or marginalized communities is always a priority for us.

Um, and it's something that we continue to do.

I don't know, is that enough?

I just I want to I know you've got some got an amazing organization that you self-talk to know, you had a question.

I did if we have time.

Uh the other towns that you serve give you money from their cities and how do you some do.

Um, and how do you protect the money that we give you to make sure it's directed to our community?

It's a good question.

I mean, it will say again, the majority of what we do is in Stanford.

Um, Stanford public schools get definitely an inordinate amount of our attention because there are so many of them and because they are they have uh such diverse needs.

Um, you know, Stanford Hospital is our busiest hospital by definition.

We're gonna be spending most of our time in Stanford Hospital, it's just the way it is.

Greenwich, they just don't have that much.

Norwalk has some, but not the way Stanford has.

Um price of scancate, we're located so we're here.

I would just ask you to just think about the force on it.

And not that those other things aren't important, but if we're talking about allocating dollars of our tax period budget for our children here, I think the more you can help us to understand that the better.

But it allows us to, like, for example, boys and girls code Stanford, who says 600 kids a day.

They've asked us to create a program for them of an education counseling case.

So this allows us to do things like that, or with Pacific House, where we're in their economists for an entire day, like you know, teaching them because one thing you see, like all these organizations are all dealing with kids.

I'm telling you, there's trauma behind almost every single one of these stories.

And unless you pre fix the trauma, it's really hard to do any other stuff.

We have a partnership with pretty much everybody that you'll talk to today because and they're all super-based.

Yeah.

So I did have a question about your fundraising.

I heard you say it's clear the federal government is gonna either stop funding you this year or next.

Uh, do you have plans to what are your plans to regrow your contribution base?

So our state and federal funds are largely FOCA, but it also comes from the Department of Um Public Health.

And um, it's about 34% of our budget.

Uh this year we started an endowment, um, which we haven't even started to fundraise around.

But what I can say is our budget has gone from 1.5 last year to over 2 million this year.

We're as creative as possible at funding both from local organizations and nationally.

If there's a grant to be written, I will figure out a way to write it.

Um this is also going to be a point of access for us, I think, because of the technology and AI piece of it.

Um, so we're constantly opening doors to digital funding.

And the trauma recovery um practice is expanding.

That's actually a revenue base for us, right?

Because we get husband other insurance.

So that's continuing to grow, will help us.

Um, I just it used to be 50-50.

We used to get 50% federal state, 50% private.

We now get only 35% federal state.

We've already started reversibly.

And I'll tell you what, when we get in front of the funders in our communities, people will give us money, but we have to get out and talk to people.

And I would say our budget from when I started at the organization, 680,000 to over 2 million dollars, being able to ask people for the money, I I'm confident we'll be able to make up for it.

Great.

Thank you.

But you're welcome.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Are there any other questions for anybody?

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Uh St.

Joseph's parenting center.

Not me.

I'm personally present.

So St.

Joseph's supposed to be online.

Uh yes, there they are.

Dead last.

Oh, sorry.

That's right.

Everybody.

Um thank you, everyone.

Um, my name is Ryan Drenzik.

Um, I'm the executive director of State Joseph's Parenting Center.

Um, Choice Parenting Center um is asking support specifically for our Stanford Center um to help uh bridge the gap for families in our community.

Um our mission is to strengthen families at risk of child abuse and neglect through parenting education and support.

Each year we serve about 400 parents across Fairfield County, which equals about a thousand children served in our uh in our community, um, specifically in Stanford.

We served 250 families last year, which is about 625 children um in Stanford alone.

Um our families oftentimes are facing poverty, trauma, isolation, and high stress.

Um, and through a two-generation approach, uh, parents build resilience and the strength and parenting skills that they need to create more stable nurturing home environments for their children.

Uh the need for our services.

Um, when we look at the resources our community puts um in our children, um, largely in um preschool, early head starts, our Stanford public schools, after school programs, all of these services are vital uh for children.

Um, but children are actually most vulnerable when they are home.

76% of child abuse cases are perpetuated by their parents.

So daily caregiving in the home, it makes a huge difference in the lives of children.

Parenting education strengthens the home environment and reinforces gains made in other school-based settings.

And the need for parent for prevention focused parenting education is significant.

And nearly 14,000, so 20% originated in Fairfield County.

Most common substantiations was physical neglect, physical abuse, emotional neglect.

And all these are closely linked to parental stress, economic instability, and lack of support.

Looking statewide, there was a survey done just last November where 75 or 74% of parents reported the need for additional tools for parenting success and resources.

48% overwhelmed, felt overwhelmed, and 25% struggled to manage the parenting demands that they currently had.

Language access is also a barrier when it comes to parenting education, with 80% of non-English speaking households struggling to identify or struggle to identify resources in a language that was accessible to them.

Our response at St.

Joseph's Parenting Center is we provide free, which is really critical.

All of our resources in education classes are free, come at no cost to families.

When you consider that 95% of our families are low income, they don't have to make the choice between getting the help that they need to stabilize their home or paying rent or increasing their food insecurity.

We have research and evidence-based parenting education that help each that are individualized support for both in English and Spanish using a trauma-informed culturally responsive approach.

Our core services are our general parenting program, which is a 23 session comprehensive and holistic skill building to promote healthy healthy family dynamics.

We also have our Dads are the difference program, which is a 12-session fatherhood program focused on strengthening relationships, increasing engagement and empowering fathers in their role.

Our women's circle is a 12-session support group for moms that fosters connection and emotional wellness and personal growth and safe, the safe trauma-informed environment.

All three of our core parenting programs are anchored in case management, which is essential because that provides one-on-one support to resource navigation, to connect families with essential services, and that address barriers to stability.

If our parents are learning, taking in the tools, but you know, they are facing housing insecurity.

If they're not uh if they're looking for a job or employment, um, all of their gains that they're making with us will not uh they'll continue to struggle to be able to make that home more stable.

So our individual case managers uh really make sure that they're doing a needs assessment, connecting them to just beyond parenting so they can have that stability in their homes for their families.

Um thing that is significant as we um are looking at this year, um, St.

Joseph's Parenting Center unfortunately lost about 600 over 600,000 in federal funding in October quite suddenly.

So we have been having to rescale and look at our services, our structure, our delivery model, um, and making sure that our model is now sustainable going forward.

Um, you know, unfortunately, we did have to scale down staff in Stanford.

Um, and we have had to change our case management model to a little bit more of a lighter touch, um, really prioritizing our parenting program, making sure our parents are engaged, um, that they have the access to those supports and resources that they need, and um that they are able to uh still be connected to us.

You know, why we are so unique is that we are center-based.

Our classes are in person.

Um, we are located, we relocated last year from the Yearwood Center to the POW building, which was uh formerly the Chester Addison Community Center.

We are a physical place for families to come to be together before each class, we offer a meal, which again, with most of our families uh overwhelmingly being low income, that food security is huge.

We offer a meal, which again, with most of our families overwhelmingly being low income, that food security is huge.

We take up, we pack up all of the leftovers and send about 30 more meals home in our Stanford community.

So families have a greater access to food and the resources that they need to really stabilize their family.

We're slowly finding different ways to restore services in our Stanford location.

Our Danbury location was hit the hardest by the loss of federal funding.

So we continue to look for ways, and I've slowly begun to restore some services in the Danbury area.

And then most recently, we had opened up with a different funding source in 2025, A Center and Bridgeport, really letting us have the capacity to serve all of Fairfield County with these services that we continue to see a rise in demand for.

Oh, thank you.

Oh, I did have one.

Any questions for anyone else?

Which is you lost roughly a third of your operating income.

Is that yes?

We did have advanced notice of that.

Um it was a possibility.

Um, but we did not actually get the definite answer until about seven days after it happened.

So it was something that we were trying to proactively plan for, but you know, unfortunately, that much of a loss of funding is hard to find so quickly.

So luckily, we've had a wonderful response of the community.

Um, and the community is really stepped up.

So our Stanford uh center could continue to um it never turned away any of our families and continues not to turn away any families that come to us.

Um so that's been really important.

Great.

Oh, thank you very much for that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Do we have B1C?

Oh yes, I'm on the line.

Oh, yeah, sorry, sorry.

I was uh I missed that.

Sorry.

No worries, thank you.

Um, I have a deck I shared with Chris, I just shared it with Christine, but I'm happy to share it um now.

So here we go.

Can everyone see my screen?

Yes.

All right, great.

Give me one second.

Let me move this over.

Um right, thanks so much.

Hi everyone, my name is Marisa Munoz, and I'm the new executive director at Building One Community.

So happy to be here today with you all to share a little bit more about the work that we've been doing at Stanford over the last 15 years.

Um any of you know our organization to serve the immigrant community.

Um since we've started, we've served over 22,000 immigrants last year alone.

We served over 5,500.

Um, as you know, the political climate is not the friendliest to this community at this time.

And we are working and doing our best to meet the growing needs of that community.

Um before we dive in, I just sort of wanted to give you an overview of all that we do.

Um, our approach, and we have a center here, is to be um a haven uh for the community.

And over the 15 years, we've built trust.

And given the climate, folks are still coming in and taking our classes and seeking our services and receiving the resources that we provide.

One of the main programs and right now, a growing need is in our empower uh area.

And so, as you know, we have um immigration legal services now.

So we provide legal assistance through um direct, we have lawyers for representation, but we also provide QAs as well as other informational sessions throughout the city uh to help ensure that um the community is aware of all of the fast changes that are happening and what avenues they may have to a pathway to citizenship.

And those are done in multiple languages, English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole.

In addition to that, we have our family services division.

Again, this is our intake and case management system.

This is usually the first point of contact that new uh immigrants have to us.

Um we assess their needs, get them access to food with many of our partners, including I see Nancy here, I think from person to person, uh Connecticut Food Share and New Covenant as well, helping ensure that they have they and their families have access to food, um, also getting uh referring them out for additional uh housing and shelter needs in addition to access to health care.

In addition to all of that, we do have an afterschool enrichment program for children from first to fifth grades, helping ensure that they are excelling in school.

And part of that is parent workshops to help them advocate for their children as well.

In addition to that, moving on to our employee program, we support immigrants in having their own business and gaining the skills needed to acquire employment.

Certainly, it's a little more challenging at this time, but we have increased interest.

Right now, we just launched our entrepreneurship program.

We're halfway through that five-week 10-session program with a full uh 30 students in that in that class.

At the end of that, they can get reimbursed for $500 for business expenses and they'll leave with a business plan.

We have culinary classes, we also have new information technology classes for three different levels, allowing people to actually take home a computer for the duration of the program and learn basic skills to more advanced Microsoft Word Suite skills.

In addition to that, we also have a culinary training program, OSHA training, and CPR training that we offer, all in Spanish.

In addition to that, we do work in our across education, not only through academic enrichment, but through English language learning.

Again, we try to meet the community where they are.

So we provide classes in the evenings as well as a weekday mornings at all different levels, and many of the classes are drop-in and themes based.

And we also offer citizenship classes on the weekends.

I'm happy to say that last year we helped 21 people gain their citizenship.

And then lastly, just through that class.

And then again, a large part of our work, it's not only staff that drive the work, but we rely heavily on our volunteers to do that.

And we are out in the community helping ensure that everyone knows all that we do so that they can use us as a resource.

I'm going to be super fast, quick highlights.

Again, we talked about the growing number of people that we served, and you can see that here that we have more than doubled our participation in some of our community focused trainings.

In addition to that, we more than doubled our participation in our QA sessions that we've had, and then we've had a huge increase in our skills development class as well as our family services division.

I gave you a quick overview of all of our programs already.

You can take a quick look here at some of our English language classes.

Last year we served over 860 just through that program alone and nearly 2,000 sessions.

Again, we are really trying to engage them a bit deeper through a better curriculum.

So we have themes-based instruction now.

We are providing a space where they can gather before classes and meet with their with our volunteer teachers and with each other to build a community.

And then we also have our piloting and online program as well.

In addition to that, we have our workforce development program.

As I mentioned last year, we served over 760 participants coming through and with nearly 5,000 touch points.

With our workforce development, I've sort of laid out everything that we provide for them.

In addition to that, and I'm failed to mention earlier that we have a day worker center where day workers can come in, you know, take take a break.

We have internet access, we help them, you know, we assess them for any additional needs and even provide some additional legal services for them as well.

With our workforce and looking ahead for next year, something that we're already currently doing is we're looking at our participants as a whole, and how can we meet all of their their growing needs?

So certainly, and how can we meet them where they are?

So we're offering year-round technology classes.

So somebody that enters in a level one can in one year can all go through the entire curriculum of all three levels and sort of graduate with some proficiency, if not fluency in again, these Microsoft Word Suites.

Um for our community.

And again, that is that was a growing need, and that is being utilized, and we're able to provide sessions for families as well as our day workers when they come to us for our worker council every other Sunday.

So again, it's a much more holistic approach and helping ensure that they are when they come to us, it's not only through one program.

Um it's wherever they may need support.

With our afterschool enrichment program, again, we provide tutoring, homework help, and overall enrichment through our partnerships with throughout the community.

In the summer, it's a much deeper academic program.

And we're happy to say that next year we'll be partnering with Rogers Elementary and hosting the program there.

Again, we're looking at this holistically, and how can we better serve the parents to help ensure that they know their rights in terms of education for their children as well as are informed of every all of the additional resources and supports that are not only through B1C but across the community.

With our family services team, uh we are again taking again a holistic approach to meeting their needs with case management.

We also partner with Simplify CT to provide tax preparation.

We're completely booked through uh tax day next week.

Um we again through our many partners, we're able to help ensure that our community is fed and that we are providing again the the additional resources with family services looking ahead again.

We want to help strengthen our work, especially across mental health services, um, especially for those families that have had a loved one that's been deported.

And then certainly we are looking to grow our in-kind donations as well and support just again to meet the growing need.

Um, and when I talk about when I say speak to that, it's diapers, it is hygiene kits, it is gift cards also to uh grocery stores.

And then lastly, a major major component of our work.

Again, this started in 2017.

This team is our immigration legal services and looking at again increasing um community education about their rights and whether uh they know that they may have a pathway to citizenship, they can come to us for a consultation.

Um we do multiple consultations a month, and then um we constantly try to stay on top of all of the changing policies and practices.

Um, and we have uh launched a communications initiative as well, where we have again videos in all three languages on basic immigration pathways and information.

So, again, just looking ahead for ILS, we want to help ensure that we remain a trustworthy uh source for our partners uh for our community, and again, um rise up to the challenging climate.

You know, I think one thing to note, and that's it.

So if you have any questions, please uh chime in now.

Thank you.

Any questions?

No.

Anybody else questions?

Marissa, thank you very much.

Thank you for being very A for waiting to be for being.

We've got one more.

I'm sorry, we go home.

Thank you, Burso.

All right.

All right, I will go very quickly, very, very quickly.

And hopefully it's my pleasure.

This is our first time um seeking funding from the city.

So I'm incredibly grateful to be here, and I'm willing to wait all night um to have the opportunity to talk with you.

So thank you for allowing me that.

Um, I'll go very quickly through our PowerPoint presentation.

We were founded in um in 1968, so we're in our 57, 58th year, um, and we have grown to be a really full social service agency serving 28,000 people throughout Fairfoot County.

From day one, our our bulk of services has always been Stanford.

So today we're 67% of our clients, the people that we provide service to are Stanford residents.

Um that's over 15,000 Stanford residents.

That means at any given time in any given year, 13% of Stanford residents have walked through our door at least once in the past year.

Um that is a population that is also continuing to grow, our Stanford Services continuing to grow.

Our goals are to stabilize families and individuals and then offer them pathways to help them thrive.

Uh, next slide.

Next slide.

There we go.

Very, very fast.

The main drivers of need, unsurprising, high cost of living in Stanford, high cost of housing in Stanford.

A minimum wage worker would have to work three full-time jobs just to afford an apartment.

And even though the housing wage is $50 an hour, we know that our hospitals, our retail workers, two of our three highest uh largest employers in Stanford.

Uh average salaries are close to 50,000 than 100,000.

So uh there's a big gap in what um people are able to afford more than half of Stanford renters are paying more than the recommended third of their income and rent.

20% are paying more than half of their income and rent along.

Food insecurities on the rise.

It's more than doubled since the pandemic.

And all of those metrics, as with many things, are worse for people of color.

We know that things are going to get worse.

One of the things we're doing is paying attention to who's going to lose their SNAP access.

It looks like Data Haven is predicting that a quarter of all staff recipients will lose benefit.

Some are going to no longer be eligible, others are not going to be able to keep up with the paperwork and the work requirements.

So we're trying to be proactive in working with the people that we know to help them understand what the guidelines are.

We're providing volunteer opportunities in our warehouse, specifically to allow people to maintain their work requirements.

And so we're using our wraparound casework services who speak English, Haitian Creole, and Spanish to make sure that we're working with those people.

There'll be, it's predicted about 1,200 Stanford residents are going to lose access to their food benefits in the next couple years.

And at the same time, there's abundant research that shows children with proper nutrition, less likely to be hospitalized, do better physically, emotionally, socially, educationally.

Next slide.

So how are we addressing our mission?

We have two sets of programs.

And then we have a number of programs to help people achieve economic stability.

I'm going to focus more on the critical needs programs because that's really where the bulk of our spending is.

We have four full-time food pantries.

Three of them are serving Stanford residents.

Two mobile food pantries that are the size of an RV.

They are all of the food that you can get in our brick and mortar pantries is available in our food in our mobile pantries, refrigeration, freezer, same self-select method, nutritionist designs, the food.

So families are getting food that they can prepare meals for, three meals a day, all the food groups, same food on our mobile pantries that are in our brick and mortar.

Our dairy on brick and mortar, which is our headquarters where we were founded, primarily serve Stanford residents.

So about half of our Stanford people shop on one of our mobile food pantries, half come to Darien.

And then we also have a food pantry in Norwalk.

All of our food pantries are encased in multilingual case workers.

So everything is involves wraparound services.

There's a Wi-Fi-enabled office on those pantries.

We do home delivery to people who are homebound and also people who are fearful to come out because of immigration.

Luckily, that hasn't been as big an issue as we expected, but we're keeping our eye on it.

So there are about 6,000 Stanford residents who receive food assistance from us every month.

Of the two and a half million meals that we provide enough food to prepare, one and a half million are going to Stanford residents.

Housing is our second largest program.

We'll provide in a year about 800 over $860,000 worth of financial assistance, emergency financial emergency financial assistance.

I'm going to start tripping because I'm trying to talk so fast.

Most of it goes to rent, but we are seeing increasing demand for heating assistance, home heating.

This is a big issue right now.

We also help people with security deposits and a variety of smaller emergency child care medical bills, those sorts of things.

Again, our our goal is to keep people stable, get to them before they're evicted, get to them before they're in eviction proceedings, because we know that if families are stable, children don't have to move schools, they're able to stay in their communities connected to the support systems they have.

It is much less costly, and it's better for everybody for people to stay housed where they are than to go into eviction, get into court and have to come out of that as well.

We have a clothing center as well, and we have a variety of other programs, smaller programs like toys, diapers, car seats to help families make ends meet.

Next slide.

I'll go very quickly, but these are all really focused on Stanford as well.

We have a financial opportunity center.

It's a one-on-one coaching model that focuses on access to income supports, financial coaching a lot around credit and how credit impacts housing and access to workforce development opportunities.

We have college scholarships.

We're working with all three Stanford high schools to help administer our college scholarships.

We have summer camperships.

We work with the elementary school social workers in Stanford to identify the kids that are going into the campership program.

And again, all of our services are scaffolded by our bilingual case workers.

Um I talk about partnerships, you know, everyone in this room that you've heard from, we all work together.

We are all partners.

Our mobile pantries are uh our warehouses in Stanford, but our mobile pantries are in 13 different neighborhoods.

Um every week.

We have Saturday hours, we have evening hours.

Um we partner with DOMUS and B1C and the library and housing authorities.

Anywhere you can imagine that people are in need, we're able to go there, we're able to flex and um move to where we need to be.

I am gonna beat the record for being the fastest presenter tonight.

My last slide is really about finances because this is our first time requesting funding.

Um, and all of this is all these charts are showing you is that demand is continuing to increase, particularly for food, particularly for emergency financial assistance for housing.

Those that middle chart that shows you how our budget has increased post pandemic until now.

The last chart shows you our overall agency budget.

So we have spent the past few years coming out of the pandemic strategically managing a surplus to offset planned deficits because we knew demand was going to stay high.

Uh pandemic giving was going to drop.

And so we've been managing very carefully with a very engaged board, very savvy finance committee to manage that um that deficit.

We have a balanced budget this year.

We're projecting balanced budgets going forward.

But the most important thing I want you to take away from this slide is that we are efficient.

We are good stewards of our donor dollars, and we save the city a lot of money by doing the work we do.

Um, we have a uh four million dollar endowment, a healthy operating reserve, six-month operating reserve, um, and we're we're financially strong, but we know that there's so much more that we knew we need to do, we want to do, and that the demand is going to continue to increase as the federal government continues to pull back.

Um, through our partnerships, through leveraging uh wholesale buying arrangements.

Um we are able to provide services cheaper than the city can.

And we do like to think that by uh feeding all of these people and keeping people housed, we are helping not just the people, the residents of Stanford, but the city itself.

So thank you for letting me come in and talk to you about the work we do, and I am happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Nancy.

Any questions from anyone out there?

One quick one.

Uh, because food is such a big part of what you do.

Do you have a point of view of what the impact would be if the city stopped subsidizing 100% suit for free meals?

Yeah, that's a so long conversation to me.

School meals.

School meals is a no-brainer because the ban you get for your buck is enormous.

We know that kids, when there's not universal school school meals, kids don't participate.

And we know that there's a lot of kids that that's their primary um source of nutrition.

And if everybody's eating the school meals, people will eat it.

There's there are so many parents who will just tell us stories about um skipping meals so that their kids can eat.

And when you get into high school, kids can eat a lot.

So to me, this is the it's inexcusable to me that the schools wouldn't pony up and pay for school meals.

The the return on investment is enormous.

It's I think it's really important.

Great.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Matthew.

Thank you, and thank you to all the city employees who have been so patient.

All right.

Um, it is your turn.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We are running late.

I appreciate everybody who's been patient.

Uh we have the Star Wars technology management.

I think you're up.

Good evening, everyone.

Can everyone see and hear me?

Yes, we can, and thank you very much.

Great.

Thank you for having us.

Uh also on the on the meeting is Mike Benciero, uh, my partner in crime, and um with whom I work really closely to um um manage uh the city's the technology finances and uh as well as this PowerPoint deck that we are seeing on the screen.

So I'm gonna be presenting the budget um for the producer 2026-27 fiscal year.

Um thank you for bringing that up.

Um so I was asked to present um an overview of the uh technology um structure.

Obviously, I'm not going to go into this in detail.

Um we will we do have um some anticipated growth um in this coming year, although not in terms of the program expansion.

That has that has not transpired.

But we do have some consulting workforce that is continuing to support us in delivering key technology resources.

Please, at any point, if you have any questions, feel free to stop me.

All right, next slide, please.

So the summary for this year is that the capital budget, as you can see on the screen, again, not going to read out the numbers, but no request was uh or no increase was requested in this uh from the previous fiscal year.

Um but so this is a net increase that is.

Um the carryover funds that we have been carrying over for the last few years have been put to great use.

Um the city has invested in uh bolstering its uh information security in terms of uh the firewalls and its backup and redundancy by having the the backup site and uh from an email perspective, having that migration done from Microsoft Exchange to the subscription edition enables us to grow more um uh more proactively and also have that that uh that overhead kind of uh transferred to the uh to the cloud provider.

So those funds have been uh leveraged and used wisely.

Uh the operating budget um increased by 236,000 year over year.

Um there have been some cuts in the in the professional consultant line item uh to the tune of 100,000.

Uh that said, we still anticipate having uh the consultant workforce, as I said before, continue to support us in key areas such as business analysis, um information security, and um hopefully in the next few weeks uh at data warehouse, which I'll get to in a second.

Uh the software maintenance budget also increased by 250,000.

This is a result of the vendors um increasing their prices year over year.

That is um pretty normal occurrence in the software industry.

Uh, we try to control it to the extent possible by having uh longer term contracts and leveraging um free free software where possible.

Um, but obviously we need to be cognizant of the um the support aspect, which is usually done by having the paid version of software.

Uh I just I should mention that the uh capital budget also includes uh an amount or a dollar amount of uh actually it should say 840,000.

Um that's a uh that was the earlier amount for the police department's records management services.

They do have uh a vendor at this point, the police department does, um, that is an on-premises, meaning that that software resides on servers that the city maintains by itself.

They are proposing that that software be moved to a cloud service provider by the name of Pro Phoenix, the company based out of New Jersey.

And the reasons for that, which I won't go into too much detail, but at a high level, they are better suited to manage the police department's requirements in terms of ability to process um uh you know, you know, mugshots, et cetera, as well as uh having the capacity to grow and manage the incredible amount of data that the PDE gets in terms of its dash camps, uh body one footage, drone footage, and so on and so forth.

All right, next slide, please.

Um in the year 26-27.

There's in the coming year, um, we do plan to carry out a number of things.

Um, as you doubtless know, there are some equipment that continues to age.

And again, I'm not gonna read through each and every one of these, but these are termed as end of life um ominously titled.

But we do plan to replace uh quite a few of these, uh, which are mission critical, including servers for the fire department, um, the uninterrupted power supply in the government center, as well as the uh virtual server farm uh for the PD, which enables them to again, as I said, grow and and and and and provision more users uh in a faster way.

Um from cost optimization standpoint, um, we plan to lease uh fiber connections or we plan to migrate, I should say, uh, our fiber optic cable connections, uh, which are currently leased uh with fiber optic service providers to city owned fiber.

This will give us that uh predictability that the city needs to have to manage its own infrastructure.

Although the admin the overhead will also increase, this also increases our need to have control over our own assets, especially in these times of uncertainty.

Um I think we already talked about the RMS, the records management service.

And then lastly, one of the big talking points in the last few years has been the Oracle Fusion ERP.

Um we've uh relied heavily on Oracle providing its own consultants to help us navigate um the labyrinth that is uh the Oracle uh software that hasn't uh transpired, or the the results for that haven't kind of been to the to our our expectations.

So we are transitioning to a different firm, uh one that is more specialized but also cheaper.

So in the end, there is some cost savings there to help us uh what is known as uh or transition what is known as uh redwood uh fusion or redwood version for the fusion software.

Um and hopefully this will yield better results.

All right, next slide, please.

Um we did um gain some cost savings by discontinuing some software, uh some uh some of these that you see on the screen.

Um some of them are light for like replacement, um, but even there, the cost savings are there, meaning that for fresh service, the one you see on the top, it is what is known as an ITSM.

It basically enables employees of the city um to raise help desk tickets and in some cases do self-service tickets so that they're not uh on the phone you know for um for valuable you know time that might be spent otherwise and then essentially manage their own help desk tickets.

Um so there's some cost savings there.

Uh splashtop is a remote work solution, and we we have used um uh you know VMware Horizon, which is sufficient for us.

Uh, we are encouraging a return to the office for uh most of our employees, and um I think that seems to have uh work for the most part, which uh with the result that not no more than 50 users at any point of time are logging in remotely, which has enabled us to phase out um some of these software that people use to work remotely.

So there's another cost savings there.

And then lastly, uh Microsoft, as is as you know, we use Microsoft pretty heavily and Microsoft Azure, which is the cloud um uh flavor for Microsoft, uh has its own storage.

Uh, but we are uh we are transitioning away from that.

Uh it's again a better solution, and it's also cheaper.

So that's that's another uh cost savings there.

Next slide, please.

Uh that the changes that have happened in the last year or so, uh, notwithstanding there, you know, we we continue to have challenges, um, and we also have quite a few initiatives planned.

Um talent continues to be uh an issue, uh, especially for attracting the best and the brightest to work in the public sector.

Um Mike and I are working um creatively, I should say, to uh to bring in talent in some cases um you know on a on a temporary basis, and um hopefully we have enough of uh um technology uh expertise here or um you know specialization here to continue to attract and retain talent.

Um cybersecurity threats, as as you can imagine, have uh seen an uptick, especially in the last few weeks and months uh due to unrest in uh the Middle East and uh continued um attacks from um from the from the east.

Um but uh we are bolstering our firewall, as I said before.

Uh we are we have upgraded our Cisco firewall to Palo Alto 5410.

So that has um helped us um have a better view of the incoming traffic as well as traffic that's going out of the government center in some cases.

Um as you might know, data um loss and data exfiltration is uh is a key risk.

And uh we have invested in some tools and continue to invest in tools that'll enable us to do that.

Um we've heard uh over the last one hour or so the incredible work that's been happening in the city uh in terms of some of the nonprofits that are working for various residents of Stanford.

And uh I would be remiss if I didn't um at least uh mention that in the technology space, uh we are fully aware that everything that we do here has to have an impact on the broader community.

And uh we are uh in the early stages of investing in what is known as the data warehouse, essentially a way for us to bring all the work, all the data that is currently residing in silos across the various departments.

And and the hope is that we are able to do this and bring together um key uh patterns and and analytics that we may then then um use to have to drive better decision making and enable the city to serve the needs of the of the community better by uh by connecting needs to resources.

And uh we are hopeful that um by investing in this um technology uh platform, uh this will have a real world impact on the lives of uh Stanford residents.

Um along those lines, um AI is obviously top of mind for everyone.

And we are continuing to use creative ways for us to um get um third-party expertise.

Uh, we've recently, and you will see this in the in the in the in subsequent slides.

Uh, we have used Pro Bono um consulting experience uh to help us uh to help create for us uh uh an AI adoption roadmap.

The mayor has been very vocal about the need uh for the city to be more efficient in terms of uh using existing resources to uh to deliver more.

Um and that is something that we have we have taken to heart.

And Mike and I are constantly on the lookout for, not just for getting the AI expertise that the city needs, but also to look outside in terms of partnerships and tie-ups that we can continue to leverage to make the city more smart, so to speak.

But we are continuing to work with the uh with the rules that we have with the uh with the funds that we've been given and uh the support of the board is is absolutely and you know is very critical and is is definitely appreciated as you keep us honest as well as um ask us the questions that will make us more disciplined and uh you know more streamlined in some cases.

I think I've covered the uh yeah, thank you.

Um as I mentioned before, um funding is is a challenge, but we we continue to use.

I think I've said before, I think I've covered at least one of these two, uh, these three here.

Um we have used um uh one educational institution, it's actually my alma mater or Babson College for uh conducting a consulting case study.

Uh we've just kicked it off in the last few weeks.

And essentially what they they'll do is it's it's a student team that's being managed by uh a faculty member of the college, and they will study our departments, the uh the work that they do and propose um creative ways for us to get smarter uh without um any material changes in the in the in the resources.

Uh so essentially using our existing uh tools, processes, and uh and personnel to deliver better services for the city.

Uh and uh in addition to that, we'll also have um uh grants, we'll continue to leverage grants um in from various sources.

Um and I think uh we have at any given point of time uh Mike feel free to chime in here, but at least a handful of grants that are being actively being being put to use for the betterment of the city.

I'll just pick one example here.

Um there is a Wi-Fi expansion project uh that is being funded by um SE and Grant, uh, which will um essentially give broadband symmetric Wi-Fi access uh in two key locations in the city.

One is the Cove Island Pavilion by the beach, and then the other one is the Lathenbinder community center, which has been um undergoing renovations for the last few years as a result of flooding.

Um so we are hopeful that these two will be the first of many, many stories that will uh bridge the digital divide um that is prevalent in many parts of the country.

Uh Stanford is a leader in that area, and we hope to continue to position it as a as a leader in the in the future as well.

All right, next slide, please.

And that's it.

Um we appreciate any questions uh if you have any, and uh.

Thank you.

Um quick question for you.

I when I look at your the totality of your budget, which is on our book, page 51.

Uh I don't know if that if that may if you if that corresponds to what you're used to looking at.

But it looks like year over year.

You're looking your your budget, your department's budget is gonna go up 240,000.

Is that the number you're familiar with?

Yes, that is correct.

That is a number.

And when I look at that, there's some puts and takes, but more or less it comes down to one line, software maintenance.

Which is going up 250,000.

My question to you is how much of that 250,000 is contractual that you absolutely know for sure what the cost increase is going to be and how much that is an estimate.

What you think it will be.

There's a very it's a very high percentage.

Um sir, that uh that has that is contractual.

And in fact, in in many, many cases, the invoices for them uh for these uh estimates are very predictable.

Um as you know, we have um uh annual licenses that we uh we have to honor year over year in order for the lights to stay on.

Um software in general has uh very small component of capital aspect to it, um, simply because a lot of this uh is uh SaaS applications, meaning that they have a subscription model.

Um so that makes it uh both easy and challenging at the same time, easy because we are well, when I say easy, it's um it's it's predictable because we know what the uh the increases is are going to be.

Microsoft is um is pretty cut and dry when it comes to their software uh license increase, and we are as you know, primarily a Microsoft um, you know, using organization.

And uh I uh you know, I'll just say this at the end.

There is some small component of capital aspect to this, meaning that if you purchase a new software, there is some element of us kind of using our uh startup uh expenses, so to speak, uh, which will be in the capital side, but not on the operating side.

So um sorry if I haven't answered your question clearly, but uh, but in a long-winded way, but uh, but I would say that the it's a very high percentage um of that uh that total budget that is um that is license based.

All right.

So basically non-controllable by us.

We we get handed a bill and we don't have much input.

More or less.

I mean, we do have uh some control in the sense that um we have some modules.

Um I will say that we have uh taken a very um self um regulating approach.

Um as I mentioned before, AI is uh something that it's almost become a buzzword, and every software vendor worth their salt uh wants to include an AI module in everything that they do, even if it's not required.

So we have taken um uh kind of a conservative approach.

Obviously, we we don't want to be um the at the leading edge of any technology adoption.

We want to be in the in the you know in the in the center.

So we have asked them to remove any modules uh specific to AI or anything else that is considered kind of um uh exploratory, um, that has resulted in some cost savings.

So that aside, you're right.

Most of it is uh kind of you know, use it or you know, or leave it.

Okay, and then the other the other question I had was your salaries line is only up two percent.

Um as you said earlier in your presentation, you were having trouble attracting talent.

Um, when we look at some of the other your your workforce, I'm assuming is non-unionized for the most part.

Is that accurate?

Uh no, that's not accurate.

Actually, most of our workforce is unionized.

Um I in fact, I I'm I believe I'm I'm I'm pretty much the only uh employee who's an appointee.

Uh every other employee in the technology department is uh part of the MAA or UAW.

Okay.

So that 2% is all contractual locked in.

Um that I believe is something that we do not have control on.

Um I don't have the answer to that.

Mike, do you have a uh answer to that?

Whether it's contractual, yeah.

Well, with the exception, and I think uh you the this board probably knows this, but um the uh I think it's the MAA and the UAW contracts are uh due to expire um this June and contract negotiations are underway.

Uh I'm not quite familiar.

I'm not on on the union board, but I know that uh they're working on that as we speak.

So um that's in development as well.

Okay, so you don't have any prospective increases built into that two percent based on estimates is it's purely contractual.

Purely contractual.

And actually, in full disclosure, it's not developed by us in IT.

Um this these are OPM numbers, um, and they do that across the board.

So it's right.

That answer might I assumed that, but I wanted to ask out loud.

I yield Mr.

Sherman.

All right, thank you.

Noah Yes, I uh two quick questions.

Thank you for the presentation, Persan.

Uh the uh the two positions that uh are not being picked up in the mayor's proposal for the two analysts.

What's what's the uh what's the consequence of not having those two roles as part of your team?

Uh the only consequence is that we won't have the uh the uh the predictability of having these roles for the indefinite future, uh, because we do have two consultants who currently do this work for us.

Uh this proposal was to convert them into full-time employees.

Um but uh as it happens, we do have um a consultant that does uh information security uh for us and then another consultant who does business analysis for us.

They've been providing um uh great yeoman service and have been you know produced some excellent deliverables.

And that will continue because their contracts are expected to be covered by the uh by the consultant um by the professional consultant consultant line item, which is to the tune of 450,000.

So we don't foresee any any impact for this coming fiscal year because that amount is uh more than sufficient to cover uh those two consultants uh in their in their present work uh arrangement.

Um but um yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh and then you mentioned this uh AI adoption roadmap that you and Mike are working on at the mayor's asked you to do when will that be and how will that be presented?

Yeah, so this uh project that I mentioned uh that is being done by the um uh by the student team out of Babson College um in Wellesley, Massachusetts, is an eight uh, sorry, I should say is a six-week program.

Uh we initiated that uh and at the end of April, um sorry, at the end of March, I should say, and is expected to they expect you to produce the final report by the first week of May.

Um, and we will uh we'll take that obviously with uh with a grain of salt because um there is no one right answer.

Um, but we should have a pretty clear picture of what it is that we want our initial um you know, year zero, if you will, uh, to do from an AI perspective.

Uh we are really testing the water search um, but yeah, we should have some some uh report doors by uh by the middle of me.

Okay, I'm sorry.

I thought they were a an input into your project report, but that is the report.

What they prepared to be the report.

Yep, that is great.

That's first okay, thank you.

Mr.

Chairman, I might make the suggestion that we ask Person to come back and brief this committee on that output.

Yeah, that's a great idea.

Yeah, because technically, I guess because he rolls up to administration, which is physical, we have oversight for technology, although it's never been explicitly expressed.

That'd be uh courtesy.

Yes, uh so Persong, as a courtesy, we would be grateful if you would come and give us a presentation on that uh proposal from Abson College.

I'd be glad to uh happy to share any insights and um get the boards um beyond that.

That would be great.

Thank you very much.

And thank you, Mike.

Thank you a lot.

All right.

Any further questions from anybody?

I have it to do for you, Mr.

Chairman.

Somebody will need to put that on steering.

Well, I forgot.

Okay.

Uh with that, let's move on to legal.

Tom.

Sorry, I was I was having trouble finding my buttons here.

That's all right.

Thank you.

How's everybody this evening?

Thursday.

Thursday, and uh.

Um, so uh let's see.

Um very briefly.

Uh you have our org chart hasn't changed.

Uh we currently have eight and a half, uh, well, actually, eight and uh a third um assistant corporation councils, a third is because we have uh one that's part-time uh and eight full-time, one of whom is um uh basically does Board of Education work uh completely.

We have a deputy uh corporation counsel attorney Lavosi, and we have myself.

We've got three full-time paralegals.

Um we have an executive assistant, Judy, who knows most of everything, and um and a uh a part-time, a permanent part-time paralegal, um, a couple days a week.

Um we uh all of our um increases with the exception of um our proposed program expansion um are uh just nothing really remarkable um labor increases and things of that nature.

Um and this is our uh little chart um to demonstrate um why we need uh to add uh or a full-time attorney and a full-time paralegal.

Um as you all know, we represent all the um all the boards and commissions, all the employees, um uh uh you know, the city of Stanford, all the departments, and uh we handle all everyone's contracts, um litigation, most both the plaintiffs for collections and tax foreclosures and things of that nature, and uh blight lean, and also of course, uh personal injury, uh police misconduct, um uh a variety of other uh uh CHRO, freedom of information complaints, you name it.

Uh we handle them all.

Um and um and our staffing is as you can see uh for a city our size is uh less.

I guess it's uh equivalent um to Bridgeport, um, but um but uh with uh with the other comparable towns and cities, um we're we're a little bit smaller.

Um our current need is really driven um well it's driven by a couple things.

One of the one of the things it's it's driven by is an enormous amount of contracts.

Um I think in our memo um we told you like just in the last several years, we've basically doubled the amount of contracts um that we process.

We have although all of our attorneys uh handle contracts, we have two in particular who handle most of them with the others handling other matters, including um uh uh CHRO complaints and um freedom of information complaints.

One thing that's interesting about those is with the uh advent of uh of artificial intelligence, um which I guess uh Prasant will be back to you on.

Um we've seen a lot of um complaints that are filed, either CHRO or uh freedom of information complaints, and people handle them by themselves, and the be they become not that they're more meritorious, but they're certainly more time consuming uh because they feed the information into chat GPT or something of that nature and spew out a complaint, which we have to you know devote an attorney to responding to step by step.

I mean, we are the government, so we have that responsibility.

Um so that's increased uh CHRO and freedom of information complaint time response considerably.

Um but um but primarily the driving factor why we're asking for program expansion is the contracts.

Um so that's if you have any questions.

Um hey Tom Emil.

Um your uh your salary line up 18%.

That's the two that's the two new positions, and and I guess the rest of it is your mandate, your your contracted year over years increases because of your union.

Is that right?

Yeah, there's um just seeing how many assistant corp counsel uh yeah nine.

Um it's all it's all in the assistant corp counsel line.

One program expansion up to the top line there.

It's also two senior paralegals, right?

We have uh all of our paralegals are now senior paralegals.

Um I see.

Uh um so uh so we had one senior paralegal, now we have three, but they're all the same people.

Um then maybe there's uh something weird here because it uh last year or maybe this year, you had three paralegals, and now you have four.

No, we have three.

If you look at the bottom line, paralegal and senior paralegal.

Um we can get your budget on page 294.

I see four paralegals, one paralegal and three seniors.

Is that an error?

Oh yeah, I'm sorry.

Yeah, the fourth is fourth is a requested.

We asked for an additional uh paralegal also to assist the additional attorney.

So we would have four, yes.

We have three.

Okay, great.

That's if you if if the boards uh funded another position, we'd have four.

We'd have a one regular paralegal, we'd uh and then we'd have the three paralegals, but in the last year we um we I don't know, promoted two paralegals from paralegal to senior paralegal.

Got it.

All right, if you look at your look at FY2526 and then FY2627.

Yeah.

That's where those numbers, that's where his four comes from.

You can see the yeah.

Right.

So if you yeah, so like the um yeah, that's thank you.

So I mean the rest of the puts and takes.

I mean, it's all your salary lines, kind of the big action, but I did notice you had under software, your spending was going down.

It looks like uh 60 grand.

What's up with that?

What do you start?

So okay, so we have we have to use litigation management software to basically keep track of all of our of our of our cases, claims, and and legal cases.

Um and also uh, you know, um we have you know uh if if the board of reps were to ask us for a formal opinion about something, um we'll open up we'll open a file on that.

And just in order to keep track of that, we we've been using something called city law.

Um it's no longer um uh a good program for us.

So we are trans, we are going to change to something called Matrix, which is just a more advanced uh that'll hopefully interface with um uh uh you know the what the uh what the IT department um uses.

So um so the startup cost, which we hope to spend this year, but haven't um have we, Judy?

I'm waiting for an answer from Judy.

Here we go.

Um, not yet.

Um so uh assuming we spend the money and buy the new software this year.

Um and although we are apparently working on it, uh then the purchase won't, you know.

The the the cost will have been the startup cost will have been taken care of.

And um and that's why we need less money this year for that.

Got it.

Okay.

And then ongoing is it gonna be materially different costs year over year?

I assume it's SaaS, it's software as a service.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, I assume this is software as a service.

Yes.

And you'll just what do you expect your run rate cost to be in line with what you're going to?

Or I I'm I'm sure that uh the cost we put in um is what we've been quoted, but you know, I have no idea how it's gonna alter in the future.

Yes, it's uh hi, it's Judy.

There's a contractual increase each year.

I believe it's uh four or five percent.

Okay.

Great.

Don't forget to footnote that so that I don't ask this how much is controllable versus non-controllable next year.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I yield.

Any other questions?

Any questions from any of the members online.

Thank you very much, Judy and Tom.

Thank you.

All right, thank you guys.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are you guys done tonight?

So sorry, uh, I'm sure that was not my point.

Oh no, Paula, okay.

Hi, Paula.

All right, I'll see you guys.

Paula for human HR, human resources.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you for being it's okay.

Um so HR, yes.

Okay.

So to begin with, um, the organizational chart.

So excuse me.

The current model that we are currently operating under relies really heavily on HR generalist roles.

And so the proposed model that we're looking to go um forward into for the fiscal year 2627 budget, um, really just tries to introduce targeted functions such as HRIS, human resources, information systems and data, leave administration, and also um operational coordination.

The goal basically is to align our structure with the actual work and demand that we're seeing across um the departments that we do currently support.

Next slide, please.

In terms of the budget summary, starting with the salaries, the changes do reflect um the functional realignment from the proposed model that we had on the prior screen.

It's not a broad expansion.

The increase in medical and professional services, it is tied to um compliance-related evaluations such as fitness for duty and psychological assessments, and the software increases driven by vendor cross increases as well as expanded functionality, especially within the um workforce management system.

But overall, these targeted investments are used to support compliance and as well as operational and efficiency.

Next slide, please.

Excuse me.

For this slide, um, starting with the key area of HR software maintenance.

Um, we are in the process, we're almost at the tail end of being able to implement a performance management system.

We've never had that for for SAMFR, so we're really excited about that.

Um, and then with the expanding services, that's also attached to the expansion of specialized HR roles.

And this is where I do want to highlight the role that we are asking for, which is the leave of absence administrator.

This position is really key and critical for HR right now because leave administration has become increasingly complex and compliance driven, especially with FMLA laws and things like that.

Also, right now the work in a leave administration is currently spread across multiple HR staff.

So to centralize this role would be very beneficial for HR just to have a leave of absence administrator because it will not only centralize the role and the function, but it'll also improve consistency and also reduce risk if we are missing missing people who are out on extended sick leaves of absences or we're not being told in time by managers.

So when it comes to the new and extended services that we are looking forward to for fiscal year 26 and 27, we're really just trying to focus on putting a more structure around the work that already exists.

Next slide, please.

In terms of King's challenges and changes, we are continuing to see rising costs, increasing regulatory complexity.

We do have a greater reliance on our HR systems and data, recruitment and retention challenges, as well as increased service demand across all HR functions.

And so our response to this is to um hopefully have an organizational realignment, which will move us away from pure administrative roles, but really invest in specialized and high impact functions.

And this would allow us to be more proactive than reactive.

Next slide, please.

In terms of performance improvements and efficiencies, we have made strong progress over the past year.

Um advancing, like I said, we're almost at the tail end of um introducing the performance management system.

We also have expanded training through a centralized learning management system.

Um we have improved recruitment efficiency through our applicant tracking system under NeoGov.

And we have been supporting multiple labor negotiations.

I think for this um coming year, we're looking at six contract negotiations that we are currently involved with.

We have also completed a comprehensive pay plan update for our pay plan employees, and we do continue to administer the benefits program, including the state partnership plan um transition with our retirees.

And I believe that's it.

Yes, the end of part of that portion.

Any questions?

Yeah, I I you know one.

Is there anybody else?

I'm I'm working through the personnel.

Yes.

And it's how much of the change?

Let me ask two questions.

I related.

You it looks like you added one person in total.

Yes, you arrange job titles among other people.

Is that correct?

Yes, through reclassifications or upgrades, but yes, it's just one extra body that we're requesting.

Okay.

And that looks like there was about a 5% across the board salary increase.

Is that we've is that uh is that contractual?

Yes, all contractual.

All contractual.

I only have two um non-union uh members of HR myself and uh labor relations specialist.

Right, I see that.

Okay.

So the rest is up at it goes up by around 5%.

Is that right?

Something like that, 4.5.

Around, yes.

But we do have six contracts due to expire, so we shall see.

All right.

Um it's a with all the reorganization and rejugling, I'm trying to figure out who went where and what happened.

But all right, thank you.

That was my only other question.

Otherwise, everything else looks like just it doesn't look like any other expenses look at reasonable.

So uh it does look like your software maintenance went up.

Yes.

Can you very briefly talk about why that happened?

So software, because we are, we did move over to a excuse me, a new applicant tracking system, but that just places us in a better position when it comes to recruitment as well as retention.

Um, we are looking forward to doing the performance management system, uh, a system that we have not had in existence with the city of Sanford.

Um, so that's a huge uh new endeavor.

So that would also lead to the the software maintenance line being increased because that's a system.

The good news is that we are contracted with a it's called NeoGov.

So we have applicant tracking system through them, and now we'll have the performance management system through them as well.

So we did see a significant um discount because we have multiple um systems through them, but um that that's explains the increase for the software line.

All right, thank you.

You're welcome, excuse me.

Hi, Paul.

One question quickly.

The the performance management system, you said a couple times this is new for the city to put this in place.

So uh you're accounting for the software costs, but usually for an organization of scale, that is an enormous change management project.

So who's who's managing or where's the cost of human implementation, not technological implementation?

Right.

So I want to say two years ago, um, the former HR director uh requested and we did get it approved for a career development leadership and training manager, and so under that person's purview.

Um her name is Jessica Arnold.

She's going to be rolling out the training portion for the performance management system, as well as all any and all training um under the leadership and institute training leadership and training institute that we do have under HR.

So great the human capital piece is is spoken to um overseen by the CDLT manager for short.

Great, and every cost then associated with that component.

All right, great.

Thank you.

Yes, of course.

Thanks.

Like Oracle and to help manage in Microsoft 365, or is it an island unto itself?

So the applicant tracking system currently um does speak with Day Force, which is our um payroll/slash HRIS system that we do have in place now, as well as um all the popular recruitment sites because this is how we advertise our positions and get people to apply.

So we're strictly on online right now.

Got it.

Okay, so I'm glad that here it's integrated.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Now the second part.

Yes, you get to hear me again.

So this is um for employee benefits.

Uh, this is actually a presentation that was um put together by Lockedon, the city's health insurance broker.

So I'll just go through this slide.

Um, the overall budget for active and retiree for the fiscal year 2025, the budget was initially projected at 48.1 million net, and it was modestly um adjusted upward by 1.1% based on updated census data.

But looking ahead for fiscal year 26-27, it actually reflects a projected 9.7 increase, um, which is about 4.7 million over the reprojection.

But this growth is largely rate-driven.

It's also tied to the state partnership plan, SPP for short, and it's particularly because of the medical and Medicare trends, it's not the actual structural plan changes.

Next slide, please.

Focusing on the active employees, fiscal 25 and 26 saw only a 0.8 increase, which is about 311,000 after enrollment updates, which is relatively stable.

For fiscal year 26-27, it does project, like um I mentioned before, a 9.7 increase, which can translate over to 3.6 million.

But this does reflect the state partnership plan rate adjustments affected July 2026.

It has nothing to do with the utilization spikes or any benefit expansions within our plans for active employees.

Next slide, please.

For retirees, um fiscal year 25-26, it did increase by 1.9, which translated into 213,000 following the updated enrollment for fiscal year 26-27.

It does show a 10% increase, which is 1.1 million.

The key driver here is Medicare related costs, including an assumed 15% increase for Medicare populations.

Next slide.

Yeah, a question here.

How you're 15%?

Do you have any insight into that number?

Is that you've been told that we've been told this number, or it's just a best guess?

We've been told this number via locked in, and that's just based on the trends that they've been seeing.

Okay, thank you in terms of uh a projection, yes.

Before you go on, can I just ask another question?

So I I know I asked this question last year and I can't remember it.

So under employee benefits, there's like a dozen, there's two dozen page numbers.

So under employee benefits, there's like a dozen, there's two dozen page numbers, and I recall that that's because we break down these numbers by department more or less, but what line within each um budget and should I be looking at to reference these increases?

453 is 453.

I'm remembering a access last year.

453, all right.

Thank you.

I think that's the roll of glad you asked.

Every year I get that looks like it lines up with what you've shown.

Uh 452.

452, sorry, and fill it 450.

Yeah.

I think that's a yeah, it looks like this was the same conversation we had last year.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's like and my print out.

I don't have we it our printout might be just done differently to yours.

Yeah, because mine is I have like the breakout of it's fund 7006, and then eight 8341, and then each one of the next six numbers is the individual account breakdowns.

Does that for activity in place as not retired?

That's right.

So there's there's a program number 8404, other retirement benefits.

That's what it shows on my um that speaks to the retirees and all the number 84.

Oh, here uh 8341, that's active.

Right.

Um I don't have a page number on my thing, but it's program 8404 speaks to retirement benefits.

So you know what?

We probably need to ask Tony.

Yeah, to decode this first, because I remember every year this is confusing.

Yep.

Sorry, Paula.

I just no, it's okay.

It's okay.

I tell you what, Paula, would you mind asking Tony?

Sure.

To send us a note on how to click and 345.

345.

Yeah.

345 is retirement.

We're working on it.

Yeah, that's us.

Those those two pages and switch putting.

How would you figure that out?

345 and 450, so yeah.

Okay, that's active and retired.

Yeah.

That can't be right, because then numbers are.

Oh, I see.

Okay, yeah.

Oh, other retirement benefits.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

Post retirement benefits, 8480, 344.

Yeah.

Yep.

Okay, okay.

Oh, it's confusing kind of.

You found it.

But I can put a footnote for next year.

I think it's really helpful.

So we don't have to read it.

To reference this, I can do that.

Okay, so 80 38.

Um, so for caveats, so just so you all know the city is now we're fully aligned with the CT, the Connecticut State Part Partnership Plan, SPP, and the projections do assume continued um participation.

Any cost increase are still external and are um market-based based on the SPP rates, Medicare trends, but they're not the result of any internal plan design changes.

Um reprojections are based on actual claims experience through December of 2025, and that does improve the reliability of the um forecast.

So the bottom line for this is just that for fiscal year 2526, we did remain largely stable after the um adjustment, and then for fixed school 2627, it does reflect an anticipated um market pressure, particularly in healthcare and in Medicare, but we do continue.

The city does continue to leverage um the SPP, the state partnership plan for stability and predictability, even as broader health care um costs do rise.

And I believe that's it.

The next two slides just um just highlight getting everyone over to the plan when that took effect, and um yeah, when when folks, so now everyone is officially on with the state partnership plan right now.

So that just shows that data there.

So these are estimates that you get handed and you plug into the budget, basically.

Yes.

Yeah.

So once again, uncontrollable by uh non controllable by us.

Technically not, but however, I we do um just as HR, especially with these rising healthcare costs, we do ask, we circle back to locked in when we hear rumors of oh, another significant premium increase.

We ask them to do uh a market pulse check just to make sure that we are in the best position when it comes to staying with the state partnership plan.

How is it how is it um comparable to other health insurance carriers?

Just to make sure that we are we are getting the most for the money that we are paying.

Yeah, well, there's a lot of buying power.

I notice on this chart here, their asterisk next to police and cobra.

Is there some reason for the asterisk?

Well, for that, let's see.

No, and they're loxing's pretty good with putting notes.

So maybe you can check on that and send us a note.

Sure.

That'd be great.

All right.

Thank you.

Any other things?

Thank you all.

We don't have much control.

Thank you, Paula.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

All right, appreciate your time tonight.

Thank you for being here.

You're welcome.

Oh no, you're welcome.

Have a good night.

Thank you all.

Bye bye.

Well, another successful evening, Mr.

Sherman.

Yeah.