All right, let's get started.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Andrew Zachary.

I'm co-chair of the fiscal committee of the Board of Representatives.

It's 5 31 on Tuesday, April 14th, and this is a remote meeting for budget presentation.

Present tonight are other committee members, representative and co-chair Eric Morrison, Representative Le Pine, Representative Bouchard, Representative Graham, and Representative Goldberg.

And we are ready to go.

All right.

Thank you.

Carmen or Pilar.

You're presenting for the Multicultural Center.

And promised you'd be fast, so that's great.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Do you mind if I share my screen?

Because I think they'll just help aid us and go a little faster.

That's great.

Please do.

Okay.

Could I ask everyone who is not presenting to mute your microphones, please?

And you can see my screen.

Okay, perfect.

All right.

Well, getting us started real quickly.

Um, quick introduction introduction of myself, Carmen Hughes, Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the City of Stanford, and I'm here presenting with uh Pilar Pelez, and she is the chair of the Mayor's Multicultural Council.

Um, she just accepted this role um at the beginning of this year.

Uh, and really just want to start us off revering us with you know about the mayor's multicultural council.

You know, we're really um we're put in place uh well over a decade ago as actually the brainchild of the board of representatives, and really it's there to inform, celebrate, promote, understand, and appreciate and respect the many diverse cultures that enrich Stanford.

Um, and really at the top of the page here, what you see is the mayor's unity pledge.

I won't read it, but um that pledge really just talks about the fact that Stanford is the 19th most diverse city in this nation, and we truly do affirm that our differences make us stronger, smarter, and more innovation more innovative.

And so through the mayor's multicultural council, we really do uplift and um create events where we can celebrate people from all backgrounds, faith, and make sure everyone feels like they're welcome and safe.

And here on this page is our chairs of the mayor's multicultural council.

Um, and they do phenomenal work to make sure that everything we do is done with in a first class way.

Um and really what we're asking for is, and I'll just leave these pages on the screen so that way um you can read it, but for those um who are listening in and can't read the page, I will quickly just read through them.

Um our strategic initiative for this year is that um our greatest sense of pride and strength as a city comes from the diversity of our residents, businesses, and and visitors, and celebrating diversity as Stanford fosters unity, inclusivity, promotes understanding, and a richest community, and with hate crimes on the rise in this country.

The events of the MMC strives to bring people together through unity, social activities to create a more um harmonious and vibrant environment environment.

And I'll just call you to this page here, which really highlights the types of events that we're doing.

We're asking for our budget to stay flat to last year, which was $10,000.

Um, and you know, I'm not sure how we will do it, but um, I'm sure we will.

But our events, our signature events is the um Jazz at the Ferguson, which just happened.

The room was full, and we had um JARS jazz artists from all different types of jazz there, and it's a free event.

All of our events are free.

We have Stanford Day, typically in June, but this year it'll be May 31st.

Um, and that's another great event that's gonna happen in um Mill River Park, and it's a day where we truly have all different cultures come out and demonstrate their um their traditions and heritage.

Um and we also have vendors that are there.

This is the first year where we will have um we'll we will be supporting local businesses, so um, there'll be an opportunity to take advantage of that and shop local, another um important theme for the mayor.

And then in September, we always do our rhythm and rumba and salsa, which um it's always a popular favorite that it's sold out that we have to do it twice.

Um, and then throughout the year, we are constantly promoting health fairs, flag raisings, um, we're in parades, we're doing different uh cultural events and community events, and we hope that you will approve us to um stay flat as last year because with the um increased demand, our events are getting bigger with rising costs and um with a reduction that we get every year with in-kind donations.

Um we will be will need to continue to get creative to make sure that we are able to get this all done with that budget.

So with that, I will ask for any questions and I will stop sharing.

Thank you very much, Carmen.

That was nicely done and very fast indeed.

Okay.

Are there any questions from anyone on the board?

No.

Well, thank you very much.

I did not know that Stanford was the 19th most diverse city.

That's impressive.

That's good to know.

Thank you very much again.

Thank you.

Thank you, Pillar, as well.

All right.

Uh next is we'll go back to our regularly scheduled programming senior center is up next.

Uh is that Christina?

Is that you?

It is.

It is.

Good evening.

Uh I will share my screen as well.

So let me just uh well, let me request to share my screen.

Okay, awesome.

Great.

Okay, so um I'm the executive director of the Stanford Senior Center.

And I also want to introduce on the uh meeting today our board chairwoman, Claire Bulldock, who's also joined me.

Just want to introduce Claire.

So am I controlling the slides?

No, I think someone else.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

So the mission of the Stanford Senior Center is to enrich and empower uh seniors from all backgrounds to thrive physically, socially, and emotionally.

And our vision is to build an inclusive community where older adults are valued, respected, and inspired to live life to the fullest.

We have been designated as a community focal point by the Southwestern Connecticut on Agency, which recognizes us as a uh premier organization on aging issues and a trusted resource for older adults and their family members to come to for assistance with you know health insurance, uh, home care, long-term care insurance, uh, and the wide variety of needs that uh we face as we age and as our loved ones age.

Next slide, please.

So we offer about 50 programs a week.

Um we average 20 different programs each day.

Um we have a heavy emphasis on fitness classes, offering 20 fitness classes weekly for all ability levels from low-impact chair classes to yoga, Pilates, Zumba Gold, what have you.

Uh, we offer art classes, enrichment programs, language classes.

We are a multicultural senior center, uh, as Carmen said earlier, 19th most diverse city in the state, and we have a large Latino population, so we do provide programming five days a week in Spanish for our large immigrant population of older adults.

We um teach English as a second language classes for those that uh have come to this country and don't speak English as their primary language.

We also offer classes like Spanish, Italian, and French for people to learn other languages.

We have a daily subsidized lunch program that's in partnership with the Oh My Gosh Cafe up on the fourth floor and Catholic charities.

So we offer a subsidized low-cost meal uh five days a week to anyone over the age of 60.

I mentioned the the Hispanic Club.

We have health and wellness and lifelong learning programs, benefits counseling, uh assistance with Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP benefits, information on aging issues, including housing, health insurance, and then uh additionally, we offer multicultural trips as well.

Next slide, please.

So our organizational chart, we are governed as a nonprofit.

We're governed by a board of directors, currently 17 members, all volunteers that provide governance and oversight.

Uh the executive director's all, which is mine, is a full-time position.

We have a program coordinator that's a fairly new position, just two years since we've had a program coordinator.

She is 32 hours a week, an assistant to the executive directors full-time.

Our Hispanic program coordinator is 30 hours a week.

And then we have a full-time receptionist and a part-time cafe attendant that manages our cafe where a lot of our seniors have lunch.

Um, breakfast in the morning, we get donations of baked goods.

So a lot of our seniors that you know don't even have breakfast at home, will come here to get some kind of um nutrients.

Next slide, please.

So our budget request for fiscal year 26-27.

Uh we asked for 330,000.

Mayor Simmons has proposed in her budget 328,640, which is a 4% increase from our uh current year grant of 316,000.

And that primarily is helping to offset a 13% rise in health insurance for our employees.

Um, I'm sure my colleagues and other nonprofits can relate.

Health insurance costs are killing us year after year, double digit increases, and a modest cost of living increase for our staff.

Next slide, please.

New and expanded services for 26-27.

We've expanded our fitness offerings.

And that's really because all of our fitness classes are pretty much operating at capacity.

You can see that top picture below.

Our auditorium's full for pretty much every fitness class we offer.

So we continue to add classes to meet the demand of a growing membership.

That includes a second afternoon yoga class, a strong bones class, which is an evidence based evidence-based program specifically for people with osteoporosis and osteopenia.

And then a new fitness program focusing on strength, balance, and coordination.

Our lifelong learning programs, we've included expanded language classes and new music and music history classes.

We this past year also participate participating in the farmers market senior voucher program.

So we've provided 70 vouchers last year to low-income seniors so they could go to one of the local farmers markets and get fresh produce and vegetables.

And we will be participating in that again in the coming year.

As far as curtailing any services, we have no plans to discontinue services as our demand is rising.

We're really looking to expand, but we're up against the challenge of having outgrown our current physical space on the second floor of the government center and really butting up against capacity issues and being able to add more programs to meet the demand of a very double-digit growth in membership, which I'll hit on the next slide, I believe.

So in this past year, we saw a 21% increase in membership and a 22% increase in daily attendance at the center.

We're now averaging uh almost 200 members a day that are coming to the center for various programs.

Our membership grew from 944 members last year to well, 1149, now it's 1152.

We're averaging about 25 new members a month joining the senior center.

And despite double digit growth, our staffing levels have remained largely unchanged.

We increase our program coordinator from 24 to 32 hours this past October, thanks to some state grant funding that we received.

So now our biggest barrier is physical space, as I mentioned.

We're really um, yeah, we're out of room to expand programs.

Our members are starting to feel it.

Uh they're complaining that they're coming to join a fitness class and there's no more space for them.

It's a good problem tab.

It's great that we're, you know, we're seeing such an increase in growth, but it means that there's a huge demand for older adults that want to stay active, want to stay connected.

And I think, you know, people are discovering, I mean, we really don't advertise.

I think word of mouth is our best marketing tool.

And, you know, people are discovering what a great benefit the center provides for a very low denominal cost.

Our annual membership dues are you know, start at 40 a year and cap out at 130.

And that doesn't that includes all fitness classes, all of our classes without additional charge.

So it's much more affordable to come to the center than to try to join a gym as seniors are struggling with, you know, what we're all struggling with rising food costs, rising utility costs, rising rents.

Um they're looking where they can, you know, continue to stay engaged and active at an affordable price.

And that's something we're able to provide.

Next slide, please.

So performance improvements and efficiencies.

Um, as I mentioned, we're serving an average of 200 seniors a day, higher participation across all of our programs, and uh really maintaining an existing staff, which is you know putting a strain on already small staff, but um, we have a staff that's been here, I think, aside from our program coordinator that we hired two years ago, which was a new position we created.

All of our staff have long-time tenure here, 10 years or more.

Um, so they're really dedicated uh to the mission and to serving our population.

We don't have a staff, so yeah.

I'm sorry to interrupt your presentation.

It sounds like you're cutting out from time to time.

Oh, I don't know why.

Um, I'll try to speak louder.

Is that no, no, it's not this, it's not the sound, it's the fact I think your connection is dropping, and it could be mine.

I'm in the government center too.

So how is it talking about?

It's not yours.

Okay.

Okay.

Um, so our staff is cross-trained.

So, you know, when someone takes a day off, um, it definitely puts a strain on staff.

So we're all cross-trained to do everyone else's job, which is really helpful and needed.

And um, like I said, we're delivering more services with the same resources and really trying to stretch every dollar to maximize community benefit.

Next slide, please.

So, in closing, we're serving more adults, older adults than ever before.

Um, we're providing more programs and services that promote health, reduce isolation, and strengthen our community.

And we're really trying to stretch every dollar and be very fiscally responsible with the funding we do get from the city and um other grants and other fundraising dollars.

So, in closing, we're really facing uh just unprecedented growth over the past two years and uh urgent space constraints that require an investment in the future of a growing senior population.

You know, we have almost 30,000 older adults in Stanford over over the age of 60.

So I um I'd like to see a bigger investment in looking to secure a bigger space that can serve the growing population of seniors that are looking to access services.

So I want to thank um Mayor Simmons and the Board of Reps and the Board of Finance for the support you have provided the senior center over the past 30 years.

We are celebrating our 30 year anniversary this year, um, and we really appreciate your support and hope you will fund us at the mayor's recommended level.

So with that, I'll take any questions.

Uh thank you, Christina.

I open the floor to questions.

Uh Representative O'Pine.

Thank you.

Uh, and thank you for the presentation, Christina.

I'm I'm just curious, uh, and I I want to just say up front, I'm such a supporter of the services you provide.

I understand how important it is of the growing population.

But with the scarcity of resources and rising costs, how do you all work with silver source?

It seems like there's a tremendous amount of overlap, and you're serving a similar demographic.

And I'm just wondering if there's an opportunity to consolidate in certain places.

Actually, um, we really have very little overlap.

Um, and Marion's on the call and she's gonna uh present her budget request.

But um, we are we are senior center.

We provide programming to keep older adults active in mind and body um and connected, engage the community and reduce isolation.

And of course, Silver Source um does some of the same, but they're serving a more uh low-income engine population and I would say more homebound population that's looking for assistance with you know housing costs and prescription drugs.

And I don't want to give, you know, talk about silver source, but we really um we do a lot of programming.

I think silver source provides a lot more of critical services.

Um we do work we provide a safety net to seniors in need.

We're not um necessarily putting on programming.

We're we're helping people keep a roof over their heads with the heat and lights on and food on the table and and uh covering their uncovered medical costs.

Gotcha.

Thanks so much.

Yeah.

And we do work, I mean, we do have a good relationship with silver source, but we're providing definitely different services.

Yeah.

So I I do have a question.

First of all, we're I see we're joined by representative Dorsey.

So thank you very much.

Uh second, uh, my other question is with this big development at uh Mozilla.

Mosaic, sorry.

Yep, yeah.

Uh too many years working with Firefox.

Anyway, uh, how is that right who to affect what you're doing?

It's all seniors, it's all supposedly independent living.

Um I don't see it affecting us at all.

Um the majority of the population we serve is uh lower, middle to low income seniors uh that don't have the resources to belong to a club, to go to a gym and mosaic's going to be a great addition to Stanford, but they're really serving a high, much higher income um cohort of older adults.

And I mean, I'm sure they'll be doing programming there, but there is such a need in Stanford.

There's such a huge senior population that I welcome them.

I mean, the more, you know, um, there's also a little nonprofit, it's called Over 60 Club in Stanford.

And, you know, we don't compete with there's such a need.

So the more services that are out there to try to meet the need of every demographic of older adults, I welcome them.

I don't see them as um having any effect on the senior center because it it's largely a different demographic of seniors.

Right.

Thank you very much for the clarification.

Uh Representative Goldberg.

Thank you for calling on me, Mr.

Chairman.

Um my question is uh as you think about the the 30,000 adults, uh senior adults over 60, which I guess I now qualify for.

Um how would you break that population down into the various brackets?

Um socioeconomic brackets, the ones that need support uh from an organization such as the senior center versus those that don't.

I I'm trying to get a feel for is your service audience 10,000 people or 30,000 people.

I would say our service audience is probably half of the 30,000.

I mean, um I I'll hesitate.

Guess there's a handful of us on here that are either approaching our 60s or are in our 60s, and a lot of us are still working and very active in our 60s, right?

So that's not the population we're necessarily serving, although that population will come in for a Medicare presentation, a long-term care insurance.

They'll come to benefit from an educational program.

But the cohort we're serving on a regular basis, um, our average age is uh people in their late 70s.

I mean, we do have members in their early 60s, we have members in their mid-90s.

Um, but we tend to be serving uh an older population, but still a very active population that has been retired, um, that really wants to just maintain high quality of life.

So um to answer your question, I mean, I would say about half of the 30,000.

But the bigger issue is I think there's so many people that we should be serving, that we could be serving that we currently don't have the capacity to really serve.

Um yeah.

And uh okay.

Um that's helpful.

Um so what when you say that you tend to serve a lower socioeconomic or how would you qualify that?

Once again, I'm trying to I'm trying to understand your your service audience.

And and although your prior answer was helpful, I'm still curious.

So although we don't try we don't our programs are not means tested.

So let me say that.

Um, but when I say lower income, we're talking people living at 200% of the federal poverty level or less.

So they would typically be people whose under 30,000.

Right.

And so they're mostly uh Social Security is probably their only source of income.

And and maybe a small pension.

Maybe a small pension.

Okay.

And okay, that's very helpful.

Well, you do a lot with a little, don't you?

Okay.

Thank you.

I yield.

Thank you very much, Representative Goldberg.

Is there anyone else who would like to ask a question of Christina?

That thank you very much, Christina.

That was an excellent presentation, and thank you for all you're doing.

And I invite I know there's many uh new members on the board of rep, so please we're on the second floor.

Stop down anytime, talk with our members, get a tour.

We'd love to love to see.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Next is curtain call.

Um, there you are.

Thank you.

Making sure the volume's on.

Hi there.

Um, I I don't have a uh fancy PowerPoint presentation.

I'm not sure if you saw the the uh the letter that I've traditionally sent or not.

Um but if you didn't, I can I can recap swiftly as our as our other colleagues have done.

Uh we're honored to to be managing uh the property for the city of Stanford.

Uh Curtin Cole has had a management agreement with the city uh for 30 plus years now.

Um, as someone who grew up here, uh, very fortunate that the uh the city saw a fit back in 1969 to uh buy the property for cultural and recreational activity.

So it wasn't just being built as the golf course and the theater as an add-on.

It was all kind of done at the same time.

Uh we like all arts organizations, the uh the COVID years were pretty tough for us.

Um, and it's been a slow build back.

Uh I think for the uh the program year that was truncated.

We were scheduled for 186 performances over 44 weekends.

Um that's been a slow build back, but uh for this year uh we're back to 158 performances over 39 weekends.

And our current plan for next season is to get back up to 44 weekends of of the year and 175 performances.

So those are that's where we're planning.

Uh prior to the shutdown, we were doing about 30,000 patrons this year will be 27,000 plus.

We have uh two more shows to go in the season.

So that's projected, and with the anticipation that next season we'll get back up to 30,000.

Um we're continuing to offer our summer youth theater program with a minimal participation fee of only 50 uh per student, other other area programs like Fairfield is 225, Wilton is 500, uh Westport 775, Greenwich 1350.

Uh so we continue to offer that at a very nominal uh fee for the the kids in in town, the program that I grew up in.

Uh so feel very strongly about maintaining.

Um if there are siblings, we offer a sibling discount, and we also provide uh scholarship uh to a number of students every year uh that even the 50 is is too much for.

Uh so we're continuing that.

Um, our budget, our our contracted amount because of our manage agreement, management agreement with the city um is for 95,000 to cut help cut defraying the cost of utilities, you know, electric, oil, gas, phone, et cetera.

And um this year the will be about 120,000 uh with four buildings that are very old and not exactly energy efficient by any stretch.

People say, you know, can you get them to can mice come in the building?

My response is some of the holes are big enough for a moose.

So the the uh the energy costs are significant.

Um I would I've spoken with facilities and hope that we can continue uh doing a significant LED lighting upgrade uh throughout the property with four buildings.

It is significant.

And um hoping that at some point, and this is on a capital site, obviously.

Um with the the stage, the fly tower over the Questkin stage is significant.

It's about 40 feet by 30 feet, completely unobstructed.

And it I think would be a really good place to put a solar field uh to help defray some of the costs.

Uh all of our buildings are nearly 100 years old, so they they all have issues.

Uh, we we have water problems in the dressing room theater silo and the uh the Quest Good Theater stage has a tendency to leak only during performances when people are dancing.

Uh and that's really it.

The only other thing, again, it's on the capital side.

Uh many of you may know that we have we've had our outdoor Shakespeare uh free to the community for 24 years.

And last summer, through a free micro burst, our our stage was destroyed.

So we're uh we're gonna be doing a truncated set again this summer and would love to have further conversation uh with board members about the possibility of uh making something of a more permanent structure that could be shared by uh others on the golf course property.

It could be a place for weddings, etc.

Okay, fast and serious.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Uh, are there any questions from the representatives?

Um I did have a question, and you mentioned something about a capital raise.

I didn't see any request in the budget for uh capital for the outdoor theater.

Uh no, I by the time I it did not get submitted by the facilities department.

Uh though I had I put it into my request to them.

So it's something that I'd like to see when we go going forward.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Lou.

I appreciate it.

And uh thank you for the rapid and well done presentation.

Um next, and if there are no more questions or none at all, uh, I'm going to move on to Center for the Arts and the Palace Theater.

And who will be presenting?

Good afternoon, Mike Moran, President and CEO of Stanford Center for the Arts Palace Theater.

Thank you all for your time this evening.

I also have a few slides that I would like to share.

Let's see if I can actually get them up here.

Can you see that?

No.

Okay.

So I'm going to be completely ineffective here with my little slide presentation.

Well, there is one way you could do that.

If you can email them to Christina, she can present.

Um, I'm not sure.

I think you can share your screen.

All right.

Well, let me just recap really quick.

So the palace is a 501c3, not for profit organization.

The mission is to entertain, educate, and enrich.

And when we entertain, you tend to hear about it.

You probably all know that Smokey Robinson is going to be there on Thursday night.

Wildcratz is there for families tomorrow.

Alton Brown from the Food Network is there on Friday.

What you don't know is that Diana Ross is coming back in August.

So we really try to do bring world-class entertainment to Stanford.

When we do education programs, you hear a little bit less about that, but we actually have a success story.

Dylan Cantrell, who lives in Stanford, is actually touring the world in the cast of Stomp, and he credits all of his training for that particular task in life to the triple threat performer intensive that we've been doing every summer for about 12 years.

So it the education programs are robust and they work.

And then we do our enrichment programs.

You probably never hear about it.

But for example, the Stanford Police Academy has had their graduation at the Palace Theater for the past few years.

Wright Tech does their graduation at the Palace.

We underwrite a portion of the rent for Orchestra Lumos for Connecticut Ballet and several other not-for-profits in our community that we hope enrich the quality of life in our community.

The Americans for the Arts Connecticut version of the arts and economic prosperity study show that on average a person that attends a theatrical event spends about $30.47 above the cost of the ticket.

Food and beverage, retail, local transportation, lodging, et cetera, et cetera.

And when you consider that our fiscal year that's going to end on June 30th, we'll probably total a little over 80,000 people.

That's 2,437,600 in local economic impact that the palace provides to the greater Stanford community.

I think that that's relatively important to share.

We did ask the mayor this year for 150,000.

Last year we received 50.

The reason for that was if you saw the budget presentation, we are going to be losing a tenant at Rich Forum.

NBC is closing the division, and we've been renting that facility to them for about 16 years.

I anticipated it coming.

It wasn't official.

So I really asked for a big increase this year from 50,000 to 150,000.

I believe we're in for 52,000.

And you know what?

We're grateful for that.

I'm happy to have that 52,000.

Every little bit helps, and every not-for-profit that's presented to you tonight will attest to that.

Um, one of the things that we've been working on over the past few years, and keep in mind the palace will turn 99 years old on June 2nd.

So we're getting ready to celebrate a centennial.

The building has not responded well over time to plaster, between water infiltration, heating and cooling issues, and things of that nature.

The ornate plaster in the theater has just deteriorated to a very, very at one point last year, it was determined unfit for occupancy.

We were doing a $350,000 plaster restoration project with help from the city of Stanford.

And when the plaster team came on site, they determined that the ceiling was unsafe and deemed my auditorium unfit for occupancy.

Again, in association with the city and some it was about a 50-50 split between the city and Stanford Center for the Arts.

We installed safety netting.

The safety netting has a 10-year life expectancy, but well above and beyond what I would ask the city for is about a $5 million restoration project on that ceiling to get that ceiling back to the condition it should be in and restore it to its 1927 grandeur.

I intend to work with Representative Collins Maine from the state to get a bonding uh item for that particular project because it's something that absolutely has to be done.

But one of the contributing factors has been water infiltration.

And I had three capital requests, and I prioritized them this way, and we'll only talk about the first one.

We have to get an engineer to determine where the water is coming into that building.

So my exterior wall rehabilitation capital project CP4000032 is for $50,000 so that we can get some kind of an engineer on site to determine where that's coming from, because it makes no sense to put $5 million into restoring a plaster ceiling if water is going to continue to get into the building and we can't identify where that's coming from.

So I'm happy to answer any questions.

I've been at the palace uh for 26 years.

I've been working in downtown Stanford since 1987.

I've seen a lot of changes.

I think that we make a really positive impact, both in terms of foot traffic, world-class entertainment, entertainment uh education programs.

So I uh I thank you for your past support and hope for your continued support moving forward.

Thank you, Michael.

Uh I'm sure we all appreciate the good productions and good work done at the Palace Theater.

And thank you very much.

Uh are there any questions from the board?

I did have one question.

Are you doing any uh, if I may, uh are you doing any outside fundraising, any development officers on the city?

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

Uh Laurel Lee is our director of philanthropy, and Thursday's Smokey Robinson show is actually our annual gala.

It's our largest fundraiser that we do every year.

We do outreach on a continual basis through a membership program.

We do a golf outing.

Uh, we do as many different things as we can to try to entice people to participate in the philanthropic side of our mission.

Um it's I will say that over the past, I don't know, we can all probably attest to this as not for profits.

Over the past 20 years, things have gotten more and more challenging year in and year out.

Certainly contribute to increased expenses as an organization, and a lot of the fundraising efforts get kind of eaten by that additional expense.

But we're always looking to do something that will help our organization flourish and uh including city funding and state funding and uh a lot of private donors.

If you look at our website, you'll see that there are several private private donors.

Um, some of them we call season sponsors.

Those are people that have committed to us at the $20,000 level or higher.

Um, and I think that they understand the value of the organization, and I know that you folks do as well.

Thank you very much, Michael.

Who can I email my slides to?

Uh, the best thing would be to uh uh representative Morrison do you is it Christina or Barbara?

Send it to uh Christina Gaiman, G-A-Y-M-O-N.

Yep, that'll do.

All right.

I don't know that she will make sure.

I don't know that I will get that done today, but I will get that done so that if you folks want to take a look at them, you certainly can.

That would be great.

Thank you very much again.

All right, thank you for all you do.

Have a wonderful evening.

Thank you.

Are there any questions before Michael signs off?

All right.

With that, we will move on to the next, which is a Stanford Youth Peace Foundation.

And I do not know who is presenting from that.

Is anyone here from the Stanford Youth Peace Foundation?

All right.

Uh, since I'm not hearing or seeing anyone, we'll move on to the next, which is History Center 516.

Sorry, coaches agree.

I see uh participant Andrew Sklover.

Oh, yes, you just showed up now.

Accept.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Christina.

Uh Andrew Sklovar, you are up.

So sorry, guys.

I use remind all the time, and I've never used that button.

So sorry.

Yeah, it's okay.

Thank you.

So good evening.

Thanks so much for your time.

I know it's a busy schedule for you all.

I will go pretty quickly.

Um, perhaps not as quickly as some of the other presenters, but I wanted to give you some background on the organization.

So in 2016, Stanford Peace Youth Foundation was reconstituted with a more tailored mission reflecting a comprehensive commitment to youth development beyond athletics.

Recognizing the acute need for accessible, high-quality academic support services.

Stanford Peace made a strategic programmatic decision in 2022 to transfer its basketball programs to the Stanford Jewish Community Center, enabling the organization to concentrate its expertise and resources on educational intervention through its flagship Beyond Limits Academic Program.

And I will get to these slides in a second.

So the mission, as you can see, of um of Beyond Limits is to level the academic playing field and mitigate opportunity gaps for learners, primarily in Stanford.

We empower every learner to achieve their full potential through high-quality subsidized, non-school-based peer-to-peer tutoring, mentoring, academic advocacy, and enrichment programming.

By collaborating with local partners, we create a sustainable inclusive academic support network that fosters a thirst for knowledge and fair access to opportunities as it supports our vision to build a just and balanced academic ecosystem.

Our predominant participants, excuse me, are predominantly fourth through 10th graders.

That's intentional.

Students with over 65% of participants are in uh late elementary and middle school.

So we focus uh as an entry point, those middle grades, particularly fifth grade.

While currently serving over 250 students annually, this figure represents only a fraction of our community need.

And five years post-pandemic, students continue to struggle with foundational skills, underscoring the ongoing critical need for our targeted academic support to meet the ever-growing demand.

And again, we're just addressing the tip of the iceberg.

We are again requesting a $25,000 grant from the city of Stanford, an investment that will help us further expand access to critical academic support and eliminate barriers to academic success for hundreds of local students.

90% of our students come from families eligible for discounted government services.

And we have a 95.2% parent satisfaction rate.

So an investment in Beyond Limits delivers a proven measurable impact for Stanford students and families.

And thank you for moving the slide along.

I appreciate that very much.

So you can see here that we're much more than just peer tutoring.

That is the core.

Math and science, peer tutoring is the core program.

However, we have a long-standing relationship with Stanford High's early college studies program.

We provide enrichment and advisory meetings on site as well as academic support.

Our middle school summer scholars program is entering its 10th summer this summer.

We do it in late August to avoid conflicts with camp, and that's all rising sixth graders.

I think we're going to have our largest cohort this summer, and it's almost all scholarshipped students.

And we encourage that building of a bond, not just purely academics.

And as I mentioned, the enrichment programming before, but there's also a lot of workshops we do in terms of academic skills, life skills, such as networking, advocacy, leadership, panels, career pathways, all within that academic focus to make them better students and just give them exposure to the world around them.

Enable them to dream and color.

Youth employment is a key piece, and that's really our tutors are hired.

And they they do have a lot of responsibility, and we encourage that and we and we look for referrals from our tutors and other sources to build that roster of tutors.

If you can please move that forward if you can.

We are true collaborators.

We don't just say collaboration, we collaborate with multiple community partners, and that list is always growing.

And holistic growth.

We want the students to actively invest in themselves and broaden their perspectives.

The next one, please.

Thank you.

So as I said earlier, 90% are eligible for discounted services, and that's intentional.

So we don't just distribute flyers and encourage any family to walk in our door.

A lot of it's referrals from community agencies as well as from existing families.

So we maintain that high, high percentage of eligible for discounted services families.

You can see some of the um some of the survey results in terms of improving confidence and positivity about school.

And I mentioned earlier our collaborative spirit, and these are just a few of the long-standing collaborations we have.

Next slide, please.

Thank you.

So here's just a kind of a summary of some of the things I mentioned.

Over 250 right now.

90% of our sessions are on site.

That's intentional, especially with the elementary and middle school.

A lot of our high school sessions are remote and they're very productive, remote because they have the students, the two Ts are mature enough to take advantage of that situation and make sure, and we go up to calculus and advanced chemistry on the science side.

And there's an improvement in confidence, but there's also a very high satisfaction rate.

And we're looking to build that confidence and that resilience in our tutors.

But as I said, and you can see in the blue box here, you know, just recently on the NA NAI National Assessment of a math assessment, 39 points lower for economically disadvantaged students.

And that's some of the impact of COVID, but it's been going on for a long time.

And we're we're determined to close that gap and not just keep it where it is, but close it for our participants.

So I guess I did go pretty fast.

I'd be happy.

Thank you.

I'd be happy to answer any questions, and I've always encouraged anyone to drop in.

We're on Long Ridge Road.

Uh, we're here every afternoon and evening and Saturdays.

So we welcome any visitors just to walk in.

Thank you, Andrew, for all the work that you're doing for our young students who are need who are struggling or need extra help.

And it's great that you can do that.

Particularly the economically disadvantaged students who are competing in a highly highly competitive world these days.

Anyway, uh I don't have any questions directly.

Is there anyone on the board who'd like to ask a question?

No, seeing none.

We'll move on.

Thank you again.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Take care.

So now we have History Center 51C.

And I do not who know who's presenting.

Hi, I'm uh Bill Ein and I'm the treasurer of the History Center.

Oh, all right, thank you.

Um I believe I have a presentation there.

Can somebody bring that up?

Or um do I need to share my screen to show it or possibly.

Let me see if Christina has it.

She has it.

So you're all set.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Oh, we got this one.

Um, this isn't gonna be very hard to read, easy to read.

So uh I did put together a um PowerPoint that was more succinct than this.

This is the uh budget request we sent to the mayor's office for consideration.

But uh I'll run through what I have.

The uh Stanford History Center is uh the miss municipal historian of uh Stanford.

We're an educational and research institution.

Um we seek to serve all the people of Greater Stanford through educational programming on-site uh events and exhibits.

Um we also support the uh Stanford 2035 comprehensive plan by providing cultural and educational programming to enhance the quality of life for Stanford residents.

Uh the most significant program that I want to highlight is our educational program.

Um we offer uh a variety of educational programs to the Stanford public schools at no charge.

Uh we uh are trying to develop the understanding of the local community, uh local community, the indigenous occupation of Stanford, the colonial period of Stanford and the development of the local industries and the ongoing history of immigration.

Uh we bring students uh we we visit the schools and do these programs.

We also bring the students to the history center when there's transportation available, and they get to uh have the programming there and uh also visit the Hoyt Wynum House to get an understanding of uh the uh what life was like in the colonial period in Stanford in the uh 2024-2025 uh academic year.

We served approximately 2200 students.

Uh those are predominant predominantly um uh elementary school students from Stanford.

Uh for the current year, we're on track to uh reach 2300 students or more.

Uh we also are going to be putting on a uh colonial day this year uh in June that's run by the educational department, which will be for families and they'll be in uh including some of the same uh type of education, but also some crafts and games uh so everybody can get a feel for the colonial period in Stanford.

We have a number of on-site events every year.

Uh in addition to what I just mentioned about the colonial day.

We have the reading of the of the declaration of independence on 4th of July and uh a number of other programs that we continue to run.

Um financial highlights um in.

I don't know if anybody wants me to go into much detail with this, but uh we're we're maintaining our uh um uh our budget.

We we we're keeping uh our heads above water with the help of the city by to a large degree.

Um but we're controlling the expenses as as best we can.

Um we're expecting uh this year we're gonna have a um approximately ten thousand dollar operating loss for the year.

Um because we're we're not gonna be able to put on a galo this year, which is kind of switches that back and forth between uh uh profit and the loss.

We have I re will have the fundraising gala.

We usually make a little bit of money on an operating basis.

Uh for the coming fiscal year, we're expecting to have a gala, and we're expecting to be essentially a break-even basis.

Our budget uh uh runs around uh a little over 100,000, uh, depending on uh whether there's a gala or not.

Some sometimes we'll be a little higher, but that's about where we are each year.

And the uh the uh uh budget information was attached to this uh memo that's up on the screen.

I'm sorry, I must not have gotten the uh uh PowerPoint presentation there correctly, so that they didn't bring it up, but it would have been a little more succinct than than this.

That is obviously something you're not gonna be able to read on screen online.

So I'm sorry about that.

Um, but um prepared to answer any questions anybody has.

Uh thank you, Bill.

Appreciate the extra information, and I open the floor for any questions.

And I do see you have a capital appropriation.

And I misread this 51C.

I thought that was the name of the organization.

I apologize.

My mistake.

Uh it's actually a misprint.

If anybody is looking, it's actually page 52 in a mayor's capital budget.

Uh yeah, the the capital budget, uh, the mere major item in the capital budget for this year is having the um parking lot repaved.

Oh, okay.

When the house uh when the Huit Barnum House was moved uh seven or eight years ago now, uh the uh parking lot was supposed to be repaved after the move was complete and and all the heavy equipment left.

Um that didn't happen.

Then we got it into the capital budget again uh a couple years later, but then after that, the um uh someone in the engineering department decided we needed to have a new oil tank, and we uh had a a new oil tank installed, and they took whatever capital budget money we had available and approved at that point in time, and put it towards the um oil tank.

So we want to get it back into the budget.

Um and uh that's 75,000 of I think 125,000 that's been the that's the request this year.

Uh the other money is to add uh some outdoor lighting, uh which we don't have at this point in time, and there's uh concrete steps and um walkways that need to be replaced.

I'm not sure some of that's being done now under a project that just started to replace the um uh handicap ramp on the front of the building, but I think there's some more concrete work that needs to be done after that uh to replay it repair the uh sidewalks and walkways and stairs.

So I believe there's 125 altogether in at the capital budget level.

All right, well, thank you very much.

Yeah, I think that's what's been approved so far.

Um thank you for the explanation.

Um thank you.

All right, any other questions?

All right, with that, we will move on to our last speaker.

Uh from Silver Source.

And thank you very much, Bill.

You're welcome.

Good evening.

Um my name is Mary Ann Delaney.

I'm the chief development officer at Silver Source here in Stanford.

And I'd like to give you a quick overview of the agency on a PowerPoint, if I could first, and then address the actual request and take any questions.

So if I may share my screen, I hope that works.

Um can you all see that?

Uh short answer is yes.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh progressing.

There we go.

Quick facts.

We have a staff of 17 at Silver Source.

Our budget is 2.8 million.

The senior population is about 29,500 in Stanford.

That's for people age 60 plus.

And in fact, there are more seniors in Stanford than there are public school children, which surprises many people.

Silver Source provides a safety net to seniors in need to keep a roof over their heads with the heat and lights on, food on the table, and the medical medical care they need.

The cost of living, of course, is very high in Stanford.

Older adults are the most likely group to pay too large a percentage of their income for rent.

The lack of affordable housing is well known.

It's one of the top challenges facing our area and facing our clients.

And how we help.

We have the individual assistance program that helps with housing, energy assistance, food insecurity, access to health care, and outreach.

We have a medical transportation program, which provides about 4,000 rides to and from medical appointments door to door each year.

And we are an information information resource center for seniors and their families.

This is a breakdown of the poverty levels of our clients.

I think it's interesting that 77% of clients are at or below 23,000 a year, which it would be difficult for any of us to fathom surviving on.

But uh 51% below 15,000.

Um this is the 2025 federal poverty guidelines.

They've only gone up a little bit, so that gives you an idea of the challenges being faced by our clients.

Our population served is very diverse.

We have average age 79, the ages range from 60 to over 10.

Um, and as I said, very diverse, and 70% of our clients are women, which also surprises many people, but uh of the 7 million older adults in poverty in America, two and three are women.

They've had disparity in pay throughout their lives, and the opportunity, wage, and wealth gaps they experience, including the bulk of caregiving responsibilities, mean that more women age into poverty.

Our individual assistance for housing stability is the majority of the financial assistance we provide.

It's 62%, and you can see medical dental 24% and food assistance 14%.

Well, our housing stability assistance provides includes security deposits for someone who's just found an affordable apartment and needs a security deposit to help them make the move, rental payments when people are in crisis, energy assistance, and if eviction does occur, temporary housing, emergency housing until they are rehoused, and also make safe repairs and safety equipment to make home safe.

We have a lot of community outreach going on.

We have a social work team.

We have four social workers and an outreach coordinator, and that is about to grow because the demand is great.

Our outreach includes weekly meetings at senior housing sites, where issue all the issues we've discussed are addressed, home and hospital visits, and we even place social workers out in the community in neighborhood locations such as the library and other nonprofits.

So sample accomplishments in the past year, we've met the urgent needs of 1,430 senior households with financial assistance, case management services and support.

Specifically the housing stability issues of over 550 older residents, preventing over 220 evictions.

And we paid for 1600 prescriptions and medical expenses that were uncovered.

Our ride to wellness program I addressed earlier.

It really preserves seniors' limited incomes, so they can have that money for rent, utilities, food, and prescriptions.

Though it's not just a transportation service, it really has a huge financial impact on the lives of our clients.

So I'm gonna stop sharing.

And then if I may just talk about our request, um we appreciate the opportunity to speak with you tonight about a critical investment in Stanford's older residents.

Silver Source is respectfully requesting support for fiscal year 26-27 to sustain our housing stability program, which plays a vital role in preventing homelessness among low-income seniors in our community.

We serve, we have served Stanford for 115 years, dedicated to advancing the dignity, independence, and quality of life of older adults.

And today we are recognized as the go-to organization for services for seniors in need in Stanford.

We are also a designated focal point within the Southwestern Connecticut Agency on Aging.

The need we address is urgent and growing, including housing costs.

15% of Stanford's older adults live in poverty.

And Fairfield County is one of the most expensive regions in the nation.

Women are especially impacted, as I mentioned during the PowerPoint, with 70% of our clients being women.

And our housing stability program intervenes before crisis becomes catastrophe.

Silverwork social workers provide case management, financial counseling, emergency assistance to prevent eviction, financially stabilize older adults, and help them remain safely in their homes.

When eviction cannot be avoided, we fund temporary emergencies, shelter, and work with community partners to rapidly rehouse seniors.

In 2025, Silver Tourist provided more than 380,000 in direct financial assistance to 1,482 older adult households.

We prevented over 220 evictions, and in doing so, saved the city of Stanford between $8 and 11 million dollars by avoiding shelters, shelter, emergency care, and long-term institutional cost.

Housing costs continue to rise sharply.

Security deposits for seniors have often more than doubled, even for affordable units.

Fixed income seniors cannot absorb these costs, and uncertainty around federal funding only increases pressure on local services.

This year, Silver Source anticipates serving 450 to 500 seniors through housing stability assistance.

And overall, we we anticipate serving over 1,500 older adult households.

Housing protects dignity and saves taxpayer dollars.

Thank you for your time, your leadership, and your commitment to Stanford seniors.

It is our moral obligation to protect the most vulnerable among us.

And we are deeply grateful for your partnership in meeting this critical need.

Thank you.

Thank you, Marianne.

Are there any questions?

I did have a few, if I may.

I see that you had a request for substantially more than we received last year.

Can you explain why or what the reason was for that?

Well, we are applying in the category of tackling homelessness.

And in just direct payments, we spend about 250,000 to make people stable in their housing.

But the rental assistance and all that we I just talked about the housing stability category of our individual assistance emergency financial assistance program involves 250,000.

That does not include staff, that does not include overhead.

The program is probably costing about 1.4 million or 1.5 million dollars.

So where are most of your sources?

Where's the source of most of your funds?

Or I should describe what is it?

The revenue we raise comes from foundation grants, corporate grants, some government funding.

We we are funded for our case management from the Southwestern Connecticut Agency on Aging.

They fund our case management to the tune of about between any each year between about 30 and 35,000, and our transportation program is funded by them as well at about the same level.

It used to be higher, it's lower now.

Okay.

Um, for instance, we were awarded uh a good chunk of money in congressionally directed spending, which then got because of government shutdowns and continuing resolutions.

We were supposed to get it in 2025, it's been moved to 2026.

We have our fingers crossed that it may actually happen.

Uh so we there's a variety of of those government sources, the state of Connecticut.

Um, we just started getting money from last year.

And we just started getting money from the city of Stanford last year for the very first time.

Oh, I see.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

You answered my question very well.

Uh are there any questions from anyone else?

Oh, thank you for the important work you do and for working for all the seniors that uh who are economically challenged in the city.

We appreciate your service.

Thank you, and thank you for your time tonight.

And um and with that, I think we are done for the evening.

Uh all we will meet again soon, I think, and we'll talk soon.

Anyway, I call the meeting ended at 6 37 p.m.

We are done.

Before you do that, uh, co chair.

I just want to that this is the last uh of our of our hearing sessions with agencies and departments.

Uh so first I want to thank every everyone who has come before us the past couple of months, members of our committee, members of the board, and I want to thank co-chair Zachary for his uh immense role in in uh being my partner in in leading this committee.

I want to thank him myself.

Thank you, happy to do it.

And uh Representative Goldberg, I see you have your hand up.

Yes, thank you for recognizing me, Mr.

Co-Chair.

Um, you know, it since this is our last meeting, I just wanted to take a moment to sort of point out that a lot of burdens are being transferred from the federal government to state and municipal government.

And a question I had, and I hope I'm not catching representative Morrison off guard because I know he's uh he's a tax expert.

Uh Representative Morrison, could you give us a feel for what you're seeing in tax policy?

The the amount of um tax relief at the federal level and how it might be affecting sort of the average Stanford resident.

I realize that you're gonna have to take a lot of license to give us your perspective on it, but I think it would be good for the public to hear that and have some insight.

And and if and if you need more time to answer this, or you want to take it up at a at a subsequent meeting, I completely understand because I know I'm catching you off guard, but um as I've been listening to this, I've been thinking more and more about that that issue.

How do you feel about giving us some thoughts on that?

If I may, I think it'd be great if we could do this offline.

Uh well, I'd like the public to hear it, Andrew.

Well, I know that Representative Morrison is tax day tomorrow, and he's swamped and overloaded.

So let's give it a break.

I I appreciate the question, and uh we we can certainly discuss it uh right now is probably not the best time for for me.

And I do want to put some thoughts together.

Uh and I also uh whatever I do say, uh I I've obviously need to preface it by I am not giving by expressing my opinion and my observations.

I'm not giving anyone tax advice um without an individual consultation.

So uh that being said, if we want to talk about it uh as we go through budget deliberations or at another time, uh we we can do so.

Yeah, I think that'd be really helpful because my my fear is folks aren't calibrated to the puts and takes that we're that we're gonna have to suffer this year.

Okay.

Got a hand from Representative Dorsey.

Okay, yeah, I was about to.

All right, I yield.

Sorry.

Hello, everyone.

Um, I just really quick, I just wanted to confirm.

I did see that Barbara had um sent that the meeting for the 27th was canceled.

Is that just Zoom or just the meeting in general?

That's a good question.

No, I meant to look at it, call her today and find out.

Yeah, the okay.

I'm looking at it and seeing that the Zoom, it's gonna be rescheduled.

The Zoom will be reestablished, but we the fiscal committee is meeting the night of the 27th.

Okay, I just wanted to make sure.

Sure.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Sure.

That's a great question.

I'm glad you asked.

All right.

And that many others still be hybrid.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

Good night, everybody.

I think all goodnight, everyone.

Good night.

Thank you.

Good night.

And thank you, Christina.

Thank you.

Good night.