All right.

Welcome to the 1 p.m., which has been now it's the one 38 p.m.

uh budget and uh special projects committee meeting.

Sorry for the delay getting this started, but our 1030 went over a little bit.

Um so item number one, I call this meeting to order two discussion with the mayor's office regarding the proposed FY 2026-2027 budget, historic operational outcomes, private fundraising efforts, and a line item overview of the 2024-2025 and 2025-26 fund utilization for the mayor's office of children, youth, and families.

Is the mayor with us?

I don't know, you're here the whole time for our last meeting, so I like things that's a short one.

I think there's an extra one here for what we're doing.

Yes, exactly.

And then you have asked you, I think.

Or just playing musical chairs, real quick, yeah.

Uh it is no one deserves a little careful in the corner.

So it's a wonky chair.

Alright, good afternoon.

Hi, Consular.

Thank you so much for for having me.

Um, yes, I'm the deputy mayor of the city of Tulsa.

And today I'll walk through the items that you shared on the agenda, um, and then provide a little bit more context on the office, um, and then really excited to have this conversation after the TPS conversation and see where there's intersections.

Is there's like a radio?

Is there an owl outside?

Sorry, we're just hearing some kind of noise.

It's in there.

Oh my god.

Thank you.

It does sound out.

I don't know if we're quite a small.

Sorry, Crystal.

It's just sorry that tell me you sound like an owl.

So my feelings are picking up the radio.

No, it does sound like there's a bunch of.

Sorry, Crystal.

We apologize.

I was just sorry.

It's been a long morning.

Yeah, well, do you want to jump right in?

Are we?

Yeah, wait, yeah.

We're ready.

Let's go.

The cats have exited the building, so yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, I thought I'd start with um this slide just to illustrate um how we really are thinking about youth outcomes as interconnected with the rest of our priorities that we've been talking about, you know, for the last two years.

Um, and I think that's something we all agree on.

Um, the kind of really top of mind ones that we talk about a lot is really a child that isn't housed, can't focus on school.

Um family financial stability directly impacts housing stability, um, and then a community that uh does not experience public safety.

Um, it's difficult to navigate walking to school or tracking investment or trying to get to jobs.

And so I really wanted to start with that, but um, I kind of I don't see youth outcomes as a separate initiative or a separate priority.

It really is an interconnected priority with everything that we've been talking about.

Um, and so to tackle or to address, you know, the the experience the kind of challenge we have with with achieving student outcomes or improving student outcomes, and I'm talking about student outcomes for the whole city, right?

Um we just heard you know from TPS.

Um we have two other school districts in our public school districts in our city, and we also have of course um charter schools and children that are not participating in any public school or maybe homeschooled.

So we really are taking a holistic approach to who are the children we're talking about in our city.

Um and so to reiterate, I think what what uh Dr.

Johnson had shared in terms of how we can collaborate across the city, it really points to that barrier that a lot of things that impact student outcomes do not um are not in the classroom or are not within the school walls.

Um not all our children in Tulsa, and we have the data on this, are meeting those milestones that lead to economic mobility, and those milestones I'll talk about a little bit later, all the way from pre-K to graduating from postsecondary experience to getting a great good job.

Um, and so Tulsa, through this mayor's office of children with them families, is organizing around these issues, and I just want to note it's not replacing the work of schools or the nonprofits that provide such a safety net that keep our families afloat, it is supporting it.

Um, and so MOSIF and the children's cabinet, which uh is under there, um, fill this gap.

So, um, and this is, I just wanted to put together a few data points that I think we all know.

And I also don't want to, you know, dwell too much on these, but at the top, I really I really think it's important that we all know this number that nearly 50% of families in our community cannot pay for basic needs.

The wonderful work of the United Way has really illustrated that for us.

And kind of the simplest way to put it is that the portion of families in that that 50% are those living below the federal poverty level, and then an additional, I think 29% of families are not making enough to make ends meet, and that means paying rent or having to you know trade-off between you know food versus medical bills.

And so that really is a high number for our community.

And you can see the correlating statistics, including data that is from the U.S.

Census, but also that we calculate through our partnership with United Way as well on our quality indicators, for example, you know, our child abuse rate is and neglect rate is higher, is twice as high than the national average.

And we also know more granular data, transportation continues to be a barrier.

And I think we all know about the child care desert and the child care crisis that we have right now.

But again, those are just some of the barriers.

I didn't want to dwell too much on those because what I didn't have time to do is put a slide together on the resilience that our families have, and all that has been able to be achieved in spite of barriers, and all the nonprofits that provide such a safety net that keep our families safe and housed and afloat.

So to make the connection between those barriers that are outside of the classroom to some of the outcomes, and this is county-wide outcomes, 25% of our third graders are scoring proficient or above.

So it's a very small amount that are reading at grade level.

We have data through impact Tulsa's analysis that you know, if a child has experienced eviction within one year, 70% of those children are chronically absent.

And then we also have data that 14% of young adults, 18 to 24 in Tulsa, are not in school or not working, or what we would say disconnected.

And so MOSIF is really the unifying kind of convener of the systems in the city that impact those things outside of the classroom.

And it's a way that we get together to talk about shared priorities and what are those shared outcomes we want to see for children and youth in Tulsa.

And so the city's role in this is to convene to align.

We heard that a lot today, have a platform of unity around what we want to see for young people.

I think we're all kind of normalizing those outcomes.

We really want to see pre-K enrollment that makes kindergarten someone kindergarten ready, reading at third grade, being able to experience career-red connected learning in high school, and then going on to achieving post-secondary success and eventually getting that great good job.

So the box on the right summarizes what we've been doing this year to build what we're calling the civic infrastructure to address child outcomes.

And so I do I do compare this work, and I thought it might be a good analogy, comparing this work around what we're doing around homelessness.

You know, Way Home for Tulsa as can is our continuum of care.

It convenes the stakeholders, the providers, there's common data, there's a common understanding of what we would like to see and outcomes, and that all takes a lot of coordination and a lot of work to bring people around the table around that common goal.

And so I kind of feel like that might that's similar.

We are basically creating kind of a way home for children in this work.

And then I wanted to point to a Pier City, Dallas established this work in 2012 through an organization called Commit and the Child Poverty Action Lab, and they've seen some great outcomes, but you know, it took uh you know, it took years to kind of like get the data together, the convening, and then really tracking those population level outcomes.

Um, and so um, yeah, on the on the right, just to reiterate this adoption of shared metrics, which is the cradle to career milestones that I talked about, and then we'll talk a little bit more about the partnership with our backbone organization, Impact Tulsa, which is also a data organization.

So in Dallas, it's kind of two separate organizations, and Tulsa, we have that in one, the commitment to citywide goals and identification of priorities, which we actually talked about those earlier today: transportation, early grade reading, youth jobs, and housing stability, and committed system leaders who are around the table, and then of course, participation of community organizations through our action alliances and also, of course, young people.

Just a quick illustration of this type of work.

So we're not doing something that is out of the norm, or uh, you know, we're trying, you know, uh being the vanguards in a way.

We are in good company with about 60 to 70 cities across the country who are using a cradle to career framework to organize their city partners around child outcomes.

Um, and all of those cities have a backbone, a cradle to career backbone, and we're lucky that impact Tulsa, we have that here already.

Dallas is kind of our closest one, a lot in uh in Texas.

And this is just a quick slide on I think kind of started the conversations in 2011.

In 2012, they launched this Cradle to Career Initiative.

Um, CPAW, the Child Poverty Action Lab, which is their partner with Commit, does a lot of the data work, and they brought people around the table, and those statistics I pulled just most read, they're the most recent statistics that they have on their website.

So they've seen a substantial increase in students attending pre-K and increases across all the grades and subjects in their state test scores.

And I love that they also track living wage attainment around 25 to 35 year olds.

That is our workforce, and and hopefully we can we can see those outcomes here in Tulsa as well.

Um and so the funding requests to the first question.

Um, so in fiscal year 26, um, 275,000 was allotted or allocated, and that funded our contract with Impact Tulsa.

Those four areas were what we're in the were were in the budget, so staff time to support the cabinet and national alliances convenings, meetings with with me to plan to plan things and co-create kind of the operations that support all that, of course, community engagement, so you know the time, resources, materials it takes to convene a good meeting and have a create a good experience, and then program design and implementation, which included a lot of their data analysis work to understand to pull data and also to create the analysis that inform the programs.

And so for fiscal year 27, we're we're asking for flat funding, but with a slight change, um, and so we want we wanted to see if we could carve out some funding for someone to be 100% full-time leading this office.

Um so that amount, I I think I put a note there, you know, it's it's estimate because two things.

Um we don't know kind of the timeline of bringing someone on, so they may not be here the full year, so we might not expend the full amount.

Um, and then also the contract with Impact Tulsa in a spirit of co-collaboration and partnering, you know.

Definitely we need to talk about what is a sort of more narrow scope that could support the work and what that would cost.

And but that's generally the split that that I was thinking for this next year.

Um, and so just to kind of reiterate the the work to support the action alliances, the cabinets, that does take time, it's coordination, it's people's time to to convene, host the meeting, have the executive uh committee meetings in between, preparing the meetings, and then the action alliances, while we had two big convenings that convened the five action alliances across, including many organizations.

There was interim meetings in between as well to really move the work forward and produce um produced delays for the cabinet.

And so um, you know, I use kind of the metaphor of like civic infrastructure.

You know, we maintain like streets and roads and we connect neighborhoods, we have signage, we have you know roads and streets that we can traverse, the children's cabinet is building the civic infrastructure to connect between all the systems that impact the environments that children grow up in, um, and also having common metrics, common signage to understand where we're going.

Um, and then to put a little bit more detail on kind of why, you know, one person kind of focused on this 100% would be very helpful to advance the work.

Um these are the kind of six, or I'm sorry, eight functional areas that this person would oversee.

So the first three within those brackets, we would coordinate with impact Tulsa, and so the contract would support those activities.

Again, convening the children's cabinet.

That cabinet consists of 35 leaders and not including their proxies, so that's many more.

We convene everyone from the head of the health department to the housing to transportation, the three tribal nations, our business community, so member of our regional chamber, former chair, our community-based organizations that kind of see a system level approach.

We have a faith-based leader, and of course, we have three high school students, and so we were really intentional in convening the system leaders, and with the action alliances convening those that work directly with families.

Again, the action alliances include five groups that have focused on early childhood, youth jobs, youth voice and leadership, as well as flourishing families, and that really is a out uh action alliance focused on supporting families that are feeling destabilization shocks, particularly around housing and also immigration.

The youth workforce ecosystem, that one is really exciting to me because we were able to leverage a partnership with a national organization called Fuse Core, and we created a project with them to have someone focused for this whole year on how do we create a youth internship program or kind of youth workforce ecosystem that is accessible to all.

So the wonderful work that TPS is doing, how can that be a citywide thing that is youth-centered and also like very easy for a young person to navigate and also easy for their parents or their helper, right?

Mentor or teacher to navigate.

So we have someone that's been working to meet with our stakeholders across the city related to that, and I'll talk a little bit more about some of the activities.

But these are kind of the functions that this director would oversee.

The other piece that would be something that is would be added value with someone focused on this is that policy piece, tracking all the you know, state, federal opportunities, developing recommendations.

I think that you know the conversation you all had two weeks ago on child care.

There are some state-level initiatives that businesses may not know about you know matching funds.

Um there's opportunities maybe within our own code to be able to address issues that could maybe ease the burden for parents, and so that is something that I would love to see build out, having sort of that policy analysis arm as well, and of course, addressing emerging needs.

That to me is one of the great value adds when you have a priority and someone that is focused on that, and of course, I'm not like you know, uh cutting myself out of this at all, but I do have other duties as assigned sometimes, and so being able to have someone that is like 100% always thinking about this would be amazing, especially as those emerging needs happen, whether there's a community shock that happens, or there's a great opportunity that's coming down the pike from federal government or the state, and we can rally and really really organized, kind of similar to how we were able to do that with our immigrant refugee community.

We were able to leverage some opportunities to support our Afghan neighbors when they evacuate because we had someone on board that could like convene people really quickly and identify gosh, transportation is an issue, and we were able to pull down a grant.

So, this is this is something that our director would be able to do.

Um, and then I think just to show you really quick, you know, coordination of a lot of people takes uh takes time, but these are the amazing people that have been part of the children's cabinet.

Um, we've had great attendance for the most part, and um we we have some members here to support on the oh, counselor.

Did you want to take a picture of that?

I can also send it to you.

Um, that's the children's cabinet, and then the action alliances.

Um, so again, we we launched five this year, and uh what we wanted to do is build on the great work that's happening in Tulsa.

So a lot of these organizations um maybe have been meeting separately or kind of you know, meeting kind of consistently.

We've actually been able to add more people to this to these groups.

People reach out to us, they they uh want to see how they can get involved, and as we've been continuing to have these conversations, we make connections and are bringing more and more people to the fold, and we have some great national TA partners that have helped us convene these and move these forward as well.

Okay, this is a summary of the fiscal year 26 activities.

Um, so on top of the children's cabinet, again the I think one of the the really great things, and I I just love that TPS um highlighted some of these as well.

The children's cabinet decided on four priorities they were going to focus on, and they gave that charge to the action alliances.

Um, and so the action alliances have developed reports, which I'll talk about.

But those four priorities, we heard about those today.

So the transportation barriers that children and families experience, housing stability, early literacy, so getting uh ensuring our record graders are looking at level, and then youth workforce, so improving opportunities for young people to experience you know what it would like to have a career in you know XYZ, the action alliances connected to the children's cabinet.

So we activated the five, and again, over a hundred organizations, individuals, and students are participating.

We had those two large convenings in the fall and one in the spring, and with the support of Impact Tulsa, they've created four reports, each related to those uh priority items that include some barriers that they've elevated as well as possible solutions for that cabinet to consider uh the emerging needs area.

That one when the federal government shut down, that was an area where there was a lot of concern about what was going to happen to people who have SNAP benefits, and so being able to kind of jump in and support emergency food collection with the partnership with United Way, and just connecting with our food organizations, those are the types of things that's that was a small small effort, but the type of thing that when there's an emergent need that there is some place that we can kind of galvanize and rally the troops around that, and then youth workforce.

Um, I uh am working with our fellow who is Stacey, who maybe some of you have met.

She has experience in this area in Detroit and Atlanta, and she's done some really great work in Tulsa right now.

She's met over 70 people across 30 organizations and doing kind of structured interviews, and also she's surveying uh young people and also looking at peer cities and collecting information on um uh uh what other cities are doing to improve outcomes for young people related to career connected learning opportunities.

Um, and so um some of the things that that she's uh learned in her um sorry it's thrown off a bit by uh by something there.

Um, some of the things that she's learned uh through this you know landscape analysis we're talking about is that young people don't know how to connect to those opportunities.

Um there was also the nonprofits you talked to are saying like we don't know how employer how we can get employers to connect, right?

So it seems like there's uh real need for coordination and connection, um, and young people are really like wanting this.

It's hard hard to navigate right now unless you have such like a you have like you know, a program or a teacher that has like created something in their school, or there's like micro micro bright spots in the city right now.

We want to have that go across the entire city.

Um, and so her her goal or her deliverable will be to uh develop recommendations for Tulsa, um kind of how it could be funded through various funding streams, what it should look like.

She's also prototyping a possible database or a portal that could support how someone could navigate getting a referral into a program like that.

And then some of the planned activities for fiscal year 27, um, again, strengthening the cabinet governance, continue to work with the executive committee.

So grateful that they take the extra time to to help us plan in between the cabinet meetings.

Um the cabinet will play a role in guiding kind of what will be implemented or tested this year, so launching pilot programs or practices, ideas, policies, using data and evidence that'll be part of the planned activities.

We'll also work with the youth council and the youth action alliances to get more of their feedback.

So that's already kind of taking place.

The fiscal map should be published pretty soon with incorporation from our edits uh that you all had a few months ago on how it should be presented.

We're also also doing the Pier City survey on youth workforce and then rolling out the know your number campaign.

That is it's gonna take a little bit more time this year.

We're gonna be figuring out what is the best way to share, like what are the milestones and the number of students each year we want to be seeing meet those milestones.

And um I think you know, earlier this year we released like some preliminary numbers, um, and I think we learned some lessons around like okay, how do we present these numbers?

How do we say how does everyone know uh that these are citywide and and there's a collective impact um behind that?

Um so we'll be rolling that out.

Impact Tulsa is using a uh a national methodology similar to how um we use a national methodology for our quality indicators, um, and so we're really um looking forward to that because that's a way for community members, organizations to also contribute to know your number.

What are they doing that are contributing to um to increasing the number of young people uh achieving those milestones?

And then we'll launch two additional action alliances, so one on place-based initiatives, um, and one in post-secondary career pathways, and that is really exciting to me because we have so many great place-based initiatives taking place in Tulsa on various ends or various parts of the continuum from a purpose-built community to um a nonprofit that's that's serving their kind of neighborhood and not really as connected to the broader purpose-built efforts, and so um, we'll be working with the William Jules Wilson Institute to see how we can embed uh kind of child lens, cradle-to-career um lens into those place-based initiatives, and then the post-secondary career pathways.

I'm excited about that as well because um some of the conversations between housing, the housing barriers and challenges that young people are experiencing, and also the um the experience of those trying to get through the post-secondary path.

Um, those conversations I feel like are coalescing, and we can really do some amazing things in that space, and the Tulsa Higher Consortium has been a great uh thought partner on that.

Um, and then just the uh I think this might be the second to last slide.

So the action alliances um have developed some ideas for what could be tested in the city to address some of these out uh some of these challenges related to transportation, early literacy, youth workforce, and housing stability.

Um, and so we are um aiming to activate some private funds to support testing out these programs.

Um they could be an intervention, a policy change, a program, an inter pilot, and it'll be focused on those four priorities and action alliances, and some of the pilots would expand work that's currently taking place or pilot new solutions.

So that's the the general timeline.

It will depend on if we secure those funds.

We've been invited to apply from a foundation, and they will make that determination in June.

And I'm hoping with all the work that we've already done, we'll be able to really get hit the ground running to develop and design and be able to launch some things before the end of the year within those four priorities.

And then lastly, I mentioned the cradle to care milestones, that's them right there.

So I think that might be the first time I've I've shared the slide.

So all the way from pre-K, early grade reading, middle school math, high school graduation, post-secondary enrollment, post-secondary completion, and then you know, a great job that pays a living wage.

Those are the milestones that according to research put a child and a youth on on a path to economic mobility.

And so that's what we want to what we want to track.

Um we want to see young people in our city achieving all seven.

Um, we again we have baseline data from 2024, um, some preliminary data that we've shared, but really, we need to roll out a more comprehensive way to explain the explain this know-year number, explain kind of the children achieving those milestones across the cur the continuum.

Um and so that'll be work that'll take place this year since um I think with no intention at all.

If there was any kind of understanding that that the mayor's office of children, youth and families achieved those milestones this year.

That wasn't the intent to take any credit for you know those achievements, but it is a citywide collective achievement.

So I think lesson learned from that, and we'll be able to maybe design something that's more clear and um makes it understood that it's a collective achievement for our city to see children achieve those milestones.

So I think that is it on the I'll end there.

Do you have any questions?

Yeah.

All right, Councilor Bellas.

That's all we're doing.

I was curious.

Um you mentioned if like that grant comes through, there'd be certain efforts piloted.

I was curious, could you tell us more about what would be piloted and about how much like how many like grant dollars are being pursued to do this?

Yeah, and again, like because nothing's confirmed, it feels you know, like I don't know, presumptive.

But yeah, so we um cost or what it looks like.

We're thinking uh we'll be able to apply for up to $500,000 from this from this grant, um, maybe piloting two to three or four initiatives.

Some of the ideas that have emerged from the cabinet and the action alliances include, for example, an early grade literacy, supporting um literacy navigators for families, launching a citywide uh early literacy campaign, um, on housing stability, there's already work that's been done to create uh not only eviction alerts but also connecting families to legal services that's been piloted in one high school.

Perhaps we need to see how it's working in another high school, so that could be something that's funded.

Transportation has come up a lot.

Um that might be like the biggest ticket item to figure out, is there, for example, and again, I'm not speaking for Scott or you know, I don't want to say that this is the plan, but things that have been brought up are how can we create more transportation opportunities?

So maybe like a micro link that is connecting young people to their internships and their high school, or uh figuring out how we fund certain routes with given all the federal um, you know, federal regulations around transit already.

So those are some ideas that have come up on youth jobs.

I think um one of the biggest I think barriers is just like the paying paying interns, right?

Um we're moving away from having free interns or unpaid interns, and so I think uh some of the uh kind of piloting we could do to create an internship program or prototype how someone can navigate getting an internship to getting support and getting paid, could be part of those pilots as well.

But we are still um going through the action alliance reports.

So we've reviewed early literacy and uh housing stability, and so at our next cabinet meeting, we're gonna be talking about transportation and youth jobs, and so we'll talk about possible uh interventions pilots programs that we would want to test at those meet at that meeting.

Is there a point?

Oh, did you put a specific point?

Okay, is there a point where out of curiosity?

Like thinking about the budget proposal this year being split between like an internal staff member and an ongoing consulting.

Is there a point where you'd see that like ongoing consulting from impact kind of sunset, and then those dollars could go to implementation of programming like that or piloting things?

Because I could understand why in a year or two you're like, okay, we probably still need this type of technical assistance and support is the like is the kind of idea, and I know this may be evolving to always have that paired with it, or is there a point where we go okay?

We need the staff person, and then we can move these dollars away from an outside external consultant to like direct programming, or I was just wasn't sure what the intention was.

I think we need we need it all, right?

And I think that's how it is how it's working in other cities, and even the Dallas program evolved over time, you know, with the mayor's office and the commit and then CPAW, and then kind of and I like the idea someone shared uh from one of these cradle to career initiatives, is like we don't have to own everything, right?

Like, there's no right and so I helped fundraise for CPALs first.

Yeah, so you know, yeah, you know, um like that role they can play, right?

Yeah, um, and so um I think that there we'll always have a need for a backbone, and that's why we were so kind of ahead of the game in Tulsa, because we already had that in Impact Tulsa.

Um this year, I think um, just given that we did need or I do see the need for one person, we have we do have to talk about kind of what their scope is, and again, in the spirit of collaboration, like I'm still gonna work that out with impact Tulsa to figure out what is the narrow scope that can be funded, but in terms of program dollars, I think the the amount of dollars we would need is just it's it's more than than this, right?

And so um one of the things that you helped counselor is uh find figure out how we could get a grant writer.

And so we're close to signing a contract for that, and so I think some of the ideas that emerge from the action alliance and the cabinets, like we need to go and seek bigger dollar amounts to be able to have that impact.

So I do, I mean, I don't I'm not saying no, I'm not saying yes, but I think I think this work will evolve over time.

I hope it's not a two or three year thing.

I hope you know this is for the long term, and you know, I think Counselor Gilbert, you mentioned like a previous education meeting that happened years ago, like it would be great to to always have like we're always at the table, and this is setting that up for institutionalizing the work.

And I do want to realize I'm glad you brought it like thinking about like Dallas and CPAL.

I think I've realized at this table before, but it's been quite some time like getting to experience that at their onset where they reverse engineered here, these milestones that matter, which one of the first programs they did was replicating actually by nonprofit, which was really cool to get to do um related to like healthy birth outcomes.

But um and it was great that they were playing, like just to realize my colleagues, like they were putting that convener, and I think we heard from TPS today how invaluable that is, I think.

But like or just like attention, I want to acknowledge.

I don't even know if this is a question, but if you have thoughts around this.

I mean, I know maybe this is something we're all grappling with from a budgetary perspective um as a city government, is that whole like collective impact as a model can be such a powerful convener and help mobilize and bring people together and knowledge initiatives, and it can also be this overhead umbrella that absorbs resources that then they don't get downstream into like direct service hands.

So I think I'm just being mindful of how do we make sure that like what happens even from like a dollar perspective isn't the dollars sitting like at that convener backbone phase that they're actually getting directly somewhere.

And I also sometimes understand the need to build up infrastructure and that that's why in the year two the dollars are still kind of like up in that umbrella place and that then the idea is to like have a great writer bring in dollars that we can then infuse more directly into the community.

But I just want to name that to me that's always kind of a tension.

Um and it's something that's also I think in was it one of Matthew Desmond's books like poverty where he talks about all of the dollars that these kind of overhead government and nonprofit entities can eat up versus what it would cost to get them directly to people.

And per your point though, some of these initiatives they cost a lot more than these dollars to launch.

So I understand it's important to be able to like have the infrastructure to go pursue those bigger dollars too.

I just want to name that too.

I agree, Laura, and I don't know if folks know my background, but I ran a organization in Hunts Point in the Bronx, and we were a collective impact organization, and um when I stepped in, like there is a tension when you have a kind of backbone organization that then also starts doing programming or you know, and so um, yeah, it's very important to be able to have um a backbone organization, a data organization, and that can leverage dollars that can get more directly into communities.

So I yeah, that tension definitely is there, and I appreciate that.

You then yeah, all right.

I've got uh Bangle, Hull Harper, and then Dektor Wright.

So put this in perspective for me.

When you can you go back to your action group, the the lists, yeah.

Uh huh.

So why wouldn't these folks fund this?

Why wouldn't the nonprofits there fund the interventions?

Right that are part of this.

Well, a lot of them are nonprofits themselves, um, and I think the idea is that we are bringing organizations that are maybe doing things separately and helping to align them and creating something that is kind of combining all of them.

Um so for example, um, I guess I'm thinking what would be a good example.

So the Birth to Three Action Alliance, they are convened um and they've decided to focus on two things.

Quality and respectful prenatal care, and also um r retaining recruiting and retaining the quality child care workforce.

No one organization does that, um, but they all have a piece of it or can inform it.

And so the idea is that whatever is the intervention or the idea that they fund would be outside of them.

Maybe one nonprofit could lead it or hypothesis.

Let me reframe my question.

Sorry about that.

No, no, no, no.

Because your answer didn't hit my ears right.

Let me ask this in a different way.

So all of these individual organizations have their own specific initiative that they're working towards, right?

Um quite frankly, in my opinion, a lot of 501 subsist off of government funds.

Not anymore, don't worry about it.

Yeah.

So the problem for me is what I heard here kind of feels more like an ABC versus the necessity of creating a convener, because that's basically what our ABCs do for the most part is they convene.

So when you were saying it takes time to do this and this and that, that's what our ABCs are doing.

They're volunteering their time and their expertise in this capacity.

So that's why I'm asking in your Action Alliance member organizations.

I'm not asking them to individually be the experts at that.

I'm asking why they wouldn't be if they're if this is impactful to them and important to them to become member organizations, why are they not helping fund this?

Hmm.

Did you want to say something, Mike?

I said a perspective, Counselor, that's a good question.

I think as I look at all the organizational lists, this may not hit your ears right the first time, but I think I think hang with me.

Um they are funding activities every single day.

They're doing things out in the community.

This is about making sure that as that these are laddering up to overarching goals that we have altogether.

I would even say an ABC as an example.

There's a cost associated with ABC as well, right?

Like there's somebody internally that manages all of our ABCs too.

So like we we still even invest there, you know, from a capacity standpoint, if we're just talking about ABCs, but but in this case, I think we can look at all these as assets in the community across those milestones that Crystal brought up.

And then how do you how do you package all that where you have an organization and we'll talk about TPS they were here earlier, where they have a massive contribution as it relates to children and youth.

No, you know, we all know that.

But that is somewhat contingent on their particular district boundaries, right?

Um, the same way, Tulsa Tech the same way.

Uh, how are we leveraging all that for greater outcomes and ways we can quantify it and articulating the role that we might have as a city that might be different than TPS or whatever the case may be.

So it's really about a partnership deal, and like sure, I guess there's a world in which each one of these organizations could um maybe more like a chamber of commerce type of a deal, spend some of their budget.

Um I would say that's that is a way to do it.

The best practice that kind of go to that that list of 70 communities that Crystal brought up.

Um that this is the model that works best in this context.

I guess is the best way to do it so like there's a universe where all these they could all pay you know, some money, some sum of money to do it.

The best practice in this space is uh that that there is a simple infrastructure bill, just like we think about physical infrastructure.

She said civic infrastructure thinking about this as the typing and everything else on the ground that allows us to build.

Yeah, but I was thinking about that in the context of this counselor balls was talking about.

Is there a potential where this gets stood up?

The infrastructure is stood up to a certain point where we're and this isn't gonna hit your ears, right?

It feels like we're paying for the twice, as always.

Yeah, I know.

It's not it.

It's like we're paying for the same thing twice.

I'm paying for a contract, right, for somebody to do specific part of the work, but then I'm also standing up a convener.

Um, and that's why I said this I I don't take issue with some of the goals specifically.

What I what I will say about studies personally is I find studies can you need to take them at face value.

So most of the studies that I've seen.

Because I had a conversation with somebody who tried to argue a point specifically with me about a specific study that was done at a university, and I said, Well, I can find a study that supports any good ideology or idea that you want to support.

And I said, I could go find one that says picking your picking and eating your bookers is good for you.

And I literally went and found it and shared it with that person.

And this came from an MIP this came from MIDI.

But that's what I'm saying.

This came from MIT.

Okay, we just want my daughter.

So that's why I'm saying I I'm okay with studies in relevance, but the funding, we're being asked to fund this, right?

As citizens, and so my challenge to me is is when you have all these organizations that have foundations that have funding.

They don't have foundations for that.

I I know that.

That's what I'm saying.

So why wouldn't these folks be if there's as invested in this work, why wouldn't they stand up for the funding for this?

That's what I'm really challenged in understanding.

So yeah, yeah, no, I totally get that.

I mean, and again, I go back to these every one of these organizations spending a tremendous amount of funding on programs.

And I think, you know, as we think about the programmatic impacts, community-level outcomes is what we're thinking about all the time.

And so is that our so I wouldn't uh, you know, I wouldn't uh say that they're not invested, but they're investing in programmatic supports that they have a mission to do as an individual organization.

How do you quantify that as a city for the impact we're looking at looking for at a community level?

It's a challenge.

Crystal put up the data earlier, um, and we do have challenges in this community, and some of it's not all because you know uh folks aren't doing a great job, but there is definitely a need for us to think about how are we fully maximizing all those collective efforts toward better outcomes, and so like I think I think what what everybody has learned across those 70 communities that Crystal showed and across the country is that yes, we have amazing practitioners who are have great programs out there.

There is something that's missing, how we do this collectively, how we filled in gaps is a big part of that.

And I guess the the reason why you know I believe that this was a shared priority for um those of us as elected officials is because we we recognize that maybe there is a role for the city to play to fill some of those gaps.

I think being clear on what that role is specifically, is in some ways a value proposition for us.

I mean, we had to have a conversation with TPS.

I track some of it.

There's a lot of questions about how what do we do about transportation, what do we do about this, what do we do with that?

There's a value in us better understanding that and how we get better outcomes from people who live in this community, which on the back end has a huge economic benefit.

And so the 275, in my view, um, you can certainly look at it as why are we being asked to pay for this?

I also hope that on the other side we see the value to us and being able to understand what is our clear role, what should we be investing in, how do we rally partners to get the things that we want for young people in the families of this community.

So I don't know if that hits your ears right, but I think that would be my best justification.

I get what you're saying.

I want to hope that at some point in this, we can expect to see what that return.

So one of the returns I will say, and Crystal talked about it a little bit, um, is the ability to go out and uh this year, you know, have you know $500,000 that can go directly to programmatic supports, which might be the tip of the iceberg, and then I think on the go forward basis, in addition to the things that might come here for pilots, even if we're able to help facilitate some of these other partners getting resources because we have this infrastructure built, I think is really important.

So I I feel very confident uh that the 500,000 as a starter for this year, this is a second for 2750 support, is one great way that we've leveraged the office already in this second year.

I think you can see more of that, and that stuff goes directly to the programmatic things that we that that were discussed earlier and others across this cabinet to say, hey, here are the things that we really are high impact investments that we need at the so I think that's something that's already happening, right?

Some of the outside money starting to roll a little.

Okay.

Well, and to go on Councillor Bangle's question, when when this program was first rolled out last year, we were told that you that the office that this specific office would go out and uh search for uh private funding.

Was that ever, did that private funding ever occur?

Well, that's what we're that's what I'm talking about.

This potential this opportunity, which we've been invited to, but we were told last year that we would be that you would be able to do that, go out and uh find uh private dollars to match what the city um put in.

So I'm gonna defend Crystal.

So part of the challenge has been theirs, and not you, but in fact, also, the mayor, also find the funding.

So one of the challenges has been the resource that we're talking about, this 500,000 dollar resource that'll go for basis of the resources.

Um, that's been part of something we've been working on for a little while.

Timing is there's been a whole bunch of reasons, broader partnership across this community.

Timing has been um the only thing that's helped us back.

However, you know, the time we spent last year has definitely put us in position to be able when that after June, whatever it is, when those resources become available, we'll be able to immediately put them to work, and it's gonna be uh on the recommendation of all the folks at Crystal talked about been part of this.

So some of the timing of it has been somewhat out of our hands.

Um but the identification of that resource is directly tied to the 500,000 dollars Chris was been talking about in the presentation.

All right, are you done?

Yeah, okay.

Uh Paul Harper and then Dr.

Ray.

Oh okay, yeah, thank you.

And I'm sorry I was late coming in here.

Um, and I've my name was listed on one of those.

Uh this year or something.

And I cabinet it.

Yeah, I'm on the cabinet, but when the meetings were shifted to Thursdays, they kind of threw me out because I teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

So hopefully the summer I'll be back, but I mean, I I just want to reiterate, and even Dr.

Ebony Johnson said it earlier how impactful this is, and to be in a a room, because I was able to attend several of the meetings before I couldn't attend anymore.

Uh, and it is very impactful the work that they are doing uh and the approach that this is taking.

I come from a public health background, and so we had similar uh uh initiatives as it relates to the uh uh indicators of of health and and those types of things.

So I'm certainly a supporter of this type of model.

Um, and it is I understand how crucial it is to have a convener.

Uh we served at the health tools of health department as that convener for many years for a whole group of entities in the community.

So I I get what you're what you're trying to do when you need funding for it because it's it's imperative that you have that if you're going to convene all of those organizations, they're all they all have their to your point goals and objectives and the things that they're working on, but to see the collective impact, and I think that's what would this is one of the missions of this is to be able to see that collective impact and have someone or uh organization convene that to be able to say okay, we need more of this and less of that, or that kind of thing that that their sole job is to look at it from a panoramic view because each organization they dig into what they're doing, and that's all they're focused on.

You see what I'm saying?

So you know how we get the funding for it, we that's what we're here to talk about.

But uh, that's why I was asking about the ABC model.

Yeah, I understand the need.

Absolutely, that's because that's just how yeah, it takes time and it takes money.

You you got to dedicate resources to get it done for it to be done right uh and and to be successful.

Um, so that but my question was if you go back to the to the slide, I think it was the last one, but well, the slide before the last that we and so when you when I was looking through some of these planned activities, um I can't remember what box it was.

I think publish a public facing business map, whatever, but anyway, dealing with children.

Um I'm getting a lot of calls now, and I'm just wondering is had this been a converse, a topic of conversation because I haven't been there, as it relates to the cuts in daycare.

Good question.

It is it is crazy.

I don't I still don't understand how the state was able to even think about doing something like that and actually carrying through with it.

Um my district has more daycares in it than any other district in the city, and this that type of cut is detrimental to society because you're talking about parents can't go to work.

They can't go to work.

I mean, that literally has the potential of shutting down our very economy.

And so I think it was from 70 million to 7 million.

Some some type of drastic cut like, yeah.

And so just wondering, again, having been at the meetings, has there been any conversation about that and the approach to addressing that?

Because I don't know that it is it has hit us as a s as a city, it hasn't hit us yet, but it will.

It's happening.

It's just a I think it's a slow rolling case.

So yeah, it's it is gonna take another historical.

It's gonna take millions of dollars to outfit that type of negative impact.

So that was just a question.

I'm not laying it on this old, and it's office of children you the better.

But it has to land somewhere, right?

But it has to land somewhere.

It's convening around that issue.

Yeah, that's that yes, for Tulsa's children coalition is okay.

What is it?

They put a report out as a coalition, yeah.

Yes, like yeah, and they are part of so convenient, okay.

Well, yes, for well, the members are, yeah.

So yes, for Tulsa Kids Coalition is a uh non-like a coalition of organizations are growing slowly, but more coalition members.

So did they start as a result of this decision?

No, they've been working for several years, but they're responding to the responding to the child care and out of school time, okay.

So my babies will added it.

So I just was wondering that for my own personal.

So it's good to know that.

And then uh on the seven milestones that that the last slide to the okay, that one.

Just wondering uh having measuring progress obviously is great.

Um, how do you foresee actually being able to do that and maintain the measurement?

You talk about kindergarten.

Well, will this be incorporated into TPS where each child will be marked or or tracked to say milestone met milestone met mount?

You know what I mean?

What's the thought about the detail of it?

The methodology, and they are figuring yes, they're figuring it out, but again, the external how we talk about it, we need to um plan for that more.

Okay, I just think that's great.

Yeah, to be able to literally check check going through that process to make sure that we reach economic mobility at the end of the day.

But I was wondering was there.

Yeah, they're they know how many students are reaching those milestones, how many more we need to get to the full everyone achieving those milestones?

So they can track that clarifying question about the milestones.

So uh was it Dr.

Raj Chaddy came and was presenting last week?

I'm so sad I missed that.

I was out of time.

So let me send you my notes on my screenshot.

Whoever send me screenshot.

Counselor doctor and I were there, and something interesting, he really highlighted where he was looking at the overlap of these two maps where it was upward mobility and um like social capital connectedness and how overlapping those heat maps are, like in places that have upper mobility, they were able to use creepy Facebook data to go.

These are people who have connections to social capital, and he highlighted that like the earlier in life a kid's family moves into a higher mobility neighborhood.

He's an example of Tulsa of moving from Springdale to kind of linear that like the early the more economic mobility and opportunity they have.

And one of the things he highlighted that was really eye-opening for me, just someone who's worked in education before, is he talked about you know how important obviously investing in early childhood is and that access is in neighborhoods to upward mobility, um, and that and I know a lot of people who look at this data have historically looked at how that gives such a great boost to literacy rates, but then you see it fade by the time you hit third grade reading.

But then what he actually spoke about that I thought was fascinating was that he said that those were like kind of in some ways, you know, those test scores.

I know it's better than having no measure, but it's a flawed measure because you still see this bounce back later of more economic mobility in those youth, and that those like reading scores aren't an end-all to be all, like, right?

Like that there's other, you know, it's a catching a snapshot point in time on one metric, and there's a lot of other things that have much more to do with like neighborhood condition and access to resources that that does.

So I'm just wondering because that is a a lot to like track it like kid or community through and like I don't know, it's like the same thing we've wondered when the conditions index came out, for example, about the way you like label a kid or a neighborhood as being one thing or another.

So I'm just trying to think of how to um like I'd be curious if this is about more like the whole note your number thing.

Is that like individually for a kid, or is it more of like a broad like what's our community status yeah it's more broad yeah so no your number okay that's good so it's like this aggregate yes that's okay thank you for asking that it was more like what is the number of young people that are that you're shooting that you're yeah you're supporting yep yeah though I know that's hard too because ultimately this is like really longitudinal data that we would you don't know if you're successful with any of this until it's like a 17 gear plus spectrum so that's or like economic mobility what Dr.

Chetty was showing was like by age 35 are you earning or out earning what your parents earned is considered like a marker of mobility okay are you done yeah is that a question or a straight I guess just a just a more common thing I can tag on to what she's sharing so for our standpoint as policymakers we can't expect people to move neighborhoods we need to improve the neighborhoods and across the city.

Right which that's good is that more of our pieces and also I don't think I've heard at this table but previous counselors complained a lot about certain folks moving into their part of town and we don't need any more apartments for those folks and this is exactly why we do because the data over a whole generation of kids shows that if they get the interventions early it changes the complete trajectory I will just speak from personal experience I I am here today because I was one of those kids in those neighborhoods that got the opportunities not in this town.

Fuse core fellow I must have slept I missed the press release she is had to yeah I'm paying it it was after Bangle and then Counselor Dr.

No I'm talking about is there a few this fuse core fellow literally this I feel like this is the first I'm hearing of it so I must have missed the press conference or press release because this person's been working at the city for some time they're a fellow placed in Tulsa yeah how long have they been placed in Tulsa?

Since November okay and is that like a full time position um yes they work full time um they're paid by fuse core so they're kind of uh on loan to us for the year they're just for by who a national organization called fuse so they're on loan to us for one year November to November so they'll be leaving this November or December sadly okay that was my question.

Yeah is that grant funded or outside funded position part of the staffing pattern that's been proposed in the budget or is that a different position?

That's a different position.

So yeah um she has been part of my team which has been great but she's 100% focused on the youth workforce piece.

But she's not going to transition to this director position that's a different position that's being proposed that yeah okay I was just getting a little confused.

Um so that is the split that you have the slide up half contract half full time and then this grant writer position is that for the whole city for the Office of Resilience or just for the mayor's office of children of you that um was put into the budget this past year and so I finally we're able to get an RFP send it out and I believe the grant writer is going to be signing a contract this week hopefully and it'll be for the whole city so the idea is that we had it's a contractor uh yeah about the whole city is that the one we've been talking about yes for two years yeah just one initially dollars were allocated the wheels turned years ago so okay so for for budget purposes since this is a budget maybe um we have 275 thousand dollars which is flat from this year to next but now we're going half in-house half contract what is this 500,000 resource we're talking about is that outside grant that would be it would be applied for by this person that we're contracting uh yeah well with my support yeah okay we would so that well oh I'm sorry the grant writer you mean no the mayor was talking about if we can get the 500 thousand dollars that Crystal's been talking about.

Yeah so that would be we would write it we would write it okay that's a different 500,000 than the two seventy five that we're being asked for in this budget.

Correct.

Okay.

Yes, so 275 from the general fund items and we're gonna go and apply for this five for another 500 to build capacity or uh to do the program to to deliver programming, yeah, or interventions, test out pilots, yes.

And that's gonna be through the partners that we're already convening.

Likely we haven't identified all the pilots, so that's to be determined, but it will be to support those interventions, pilots, programs, scaling something.

I'm kind of going back to your um housing solutions Tulso, Way Home for Tulsa analogy.

Because you know, in 2019, we had this convening of 300 partners at Greenwood Cultural Center.

We had a consultant come in and kind of say this is how other communities as practices are.

We had an outside funder say we believe in the work, let's put together an organization after the mayor had just kind of had a staff member start to do the work.

So I guess my question is is the goal to seed something that then lives outside the city the same way that housing solutions kind of started germinating here with policy and piloting and convening, and then it went and now has become what it is.

It's it we're contracting with them, but it's not you know here anymore.

Yeah, I mean, I think the work will evolve over time on what Tulsa needs and what is the most effective way.

What you're describing is what has happened in other cities, other cities have it in-house, it really depends, but I think the the infrastructure we're building is very similar.

Um, but I yeah, I can't predict that knowledge beyond.

Yeah, like that like we wouldn't, I don't foresee anytime soon, like creating a nonprofit to do the work.

Yeah, I guess where I'm struggling a little bit is one.

I think we've said this before there's nobody at this table that thinks that families, children or youth do not deserve the love attention and investment, public, private, and otherwise.

I think where I struggle is we're a sales tax funded entity.

Um, we know that inflation is outpacing some of the costs.

We also know that we I think budget well on the conservative side with our projections on revenues.

We project every expense we could possibly have, and you know, we hold the line pretty well, except sometimes in things like overtime or other areas that we're still working on.

Um I agree with Councillor Hall Harbor, like the work is important to have a convener that brings all these entities together to focus on this thing.

I also kind of see Counselor Bingles' point of view.

Not too many years ago, we were struggling a little bit with our tribal nation relations, and we too were like who's convening everyone to just be in the room so we're not reading in the newspaper about amicus briefs and all manner of things that were beyond our control.

So we as a council said, why don't we just invite folks to our table?

And we started having quarterly meetings, and folks came, and you know, there was some real problem solving that we could engage in at a time when the rhetoric was very divisive.

Um I'm not saying the council needs to be the convener, but I'm just wondering kind of to Councilor Bingles' point like how much do we have to drive the bus on getting these folks around the table?

And if it's a limited amount of time because then we are gonna adopt it out, launch it into a nonprofit space.

I feel like I could be more supportive, but this kind of open-ended, we'll see where it takes us.

It could be I don't know what these other cities invest annually in their office, let alone the actual programmatic dollars.

We heard earlier today from Dr.

Johnson.

Some very specific things.

Help with transportation, give us some out-of-school time programming in your parks.

Like those are things that are also already aligned with our core functions as a municipality.

So those things in my mind make a lot more sense.

Um or you know, bringing some problem solving around the state has abdicated their responsibility.

So now it's well, we've had to do that over COVID.

Yeah, I mean, a lot we had to step into making sure kids had Wi-Fi and food delivered to their house because there was a gap.

But we it wasn't sustained for a long period of time, so um, you know, in the grand scheme of things, uh 275 flat spend is you know, on a 1.2 billion dollar budget is not a lot of money, but I just want us to know I want to know better, and maybe we're just not there yet.

Like year one was like, let's stand up and get all this organized.

Year two is growing that out a little bit, but I've just like when do the results come, or like what are the anticipated results or the anticipated point where it's like we've built the infrastructure, we're now launching it out to a new nonprofit or an existing nonprofit that's gonna take and run with it.

Cause that's what happened with housing solutions.

We remember Becky Gligo being here at our table as one person, kind of getting all that groundwork done, and then a nonprofit showing up and saying, okay, we believe in this work with you.

And it's not that the city is not involved in homelessness work anymore, we're just involved in the pieces that we can be instead of trying to do it all, and not able to do any of it.

And I mean, clearly there's tons of partners delivering in on their mission, the same way in our homelessness space, those individual organizations deliver on their mission.

So I do agree, like the convening aspect and the coordination aspect, the data collection aspect are all valuable.

I just wonder when we have to ask ourselves really hard questions about where our dollars go, you know, how long and how wide are we able to make the investment?

So that's just an ongoing conversation.

I think we need to have and it probably will come up around the homelessness stuff too.

You know, there's gonna come a point where it's like we've got to do our part, but you know, we're talking millions and millions of dollars, and to counselor Hall Harper's point in conversations with these folks focused in on how do we like this is a crisis.

I think people are not fully understanding it yet.

They may understand it when summertime hits and kids aren't in full-time school.

Right.

Now you're gonna have 11 and 12-year-old kids looking after their little brother and sister.

There's gonna be impacts that we see this summer.

Um the number that was thrown out to us just to try to backfill Counselor Bells.

Help me if I'm misquoting, is over six million dollars, right?

All over just to backfill that zero to six fourteen hundred slots that have gone away, and that doesn't reach businesses, and like eight thousand um K through twelve slots for summertime activities, so like two hundred fifty dollars per kid in that cohort, and then more like three thousand dollars per kid in the like babies and toddlers, which is a bargain.

Let's go some of three thousand dollars for a whole year just to have that out-of-school time that is with the subsidies going away, what we see receding out of the and that's in Tulsa County.

Now I recognize a lot of it's in your district, but um that's a lot of money.

But then the question is if we don't spend that money, what happens and where are the impacts and the cascade?

So it's a lot right now.

We're really focusing on this 275 for the mayor's office children, youth and families to hire a full-time director and then continue contract work with the entity that's already been contracted.

Um what you had said earlier, like there could be some cost savings realized just from the timing of like an HR process, posting, interviewing, bringing someone in.

Um, what is the hope like if everything goes away as opposed to that you actually have this person hired and like in your office in the office?

Um, the hope if like the ideal person and you're gonna say the job to start right away.

Yeah, is like the job description already written, it's already like ready to go if the budget's approved, or is there still that process of like um no?

I mean, I I've the job description, I have the bones of it.

Um kind of have an idea of their duties and what they're gonna oversee the level of experience.

So I have all that.

Um, but I think what I'm more worried about is if it is approved, um, just finding someone that would you know come, you know.

Sometimes that takes a little while.

I mean, by the end of the year, do you think you would have someone in?

Or I mean, I would hope by the end of summer.

I would hope the end of the summer, yeah.

Okay, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, uh, just as a reminder, we're into our 230 meeting and we have one other agenda item.

So it's a crazy day.

Counselor Dutton, if you go quickly.

So can we go back a couple slides?

Yes, nope.

Yes, the alliance member organizations, so that's a lot of members, and I'm thinking about what counselor Dr.

Wright just brought up, and I don't recreate the wheel when we have all of these entities that are collecting data and information necessary.

I know that growing together is doing that, and they collect a lot of data necessary.

I think standing up all the data that we have right here in all of these organizations can be part of the convening aspect where we won't need to consult with outside or pay an outside consultant to come in and figure out what we can figure out with what we already have.

Yeah, I think you're right.

Those those organizations collect data.

The issue is they're collecting it in different ways and different timelines, or you know, so I think we would need a little help to figure out how can everyone contribute to the data in a common way that can be translated and then reported out.

Well, I'm just thinking for the last year.

I mean, that could have already that process could have already started with these members.

Yeah, and we could be ahead in the cost values that we're looking at for funding the children, youth, and families department.

Yeah, well, we're, I mean, that's that's part of the work this year is to finalize and the know your number campaign and how we include communities in it too.

So yeah, that that'll be that'll be.

Okay, all right.

Okay, briefly, ready, we'll talk about just the the press release that named kind of what the standards, what kinds of um outcomes have been resolved or attributed to either the work of all these agencies or the mayor's office of children within families.

I'm I still go back to this, it says I'm just gonna read it.

Well, much of the MOY, MOCYF's first year of operation was about convening partners and setting up civic infrastructure to make the office successful for the long term early indicators from the first planning year, blah blah blah, include 159 additional children enrolled in pre-K.

Did the office enroll 159 different children?

So I'm just trying to understand what and that, and we talked a little bit about that.

How going forward, you know, if there is a uh and not intentional and you know that it sounded like we were taking credit for work that TPS was doing, and like that.

Should that preliminary that's preliminary data um showing kind of like what has happened in the past year going forward will be more clear on but because of the mayor's office or because of just the efforts of these partners?

It was meant to talk about the collective efforts.

Okay, and same with all the other things.

Yeah, and the mayor's office was reporting on it, reporting on the data and the collective improvements.

Is that the goal to report on what's being done or to cause things to be done?

Uh well, it's the main goal is the is the latter, right?

We're removing all these organizations and working together, seeing if there's different interventions or funding or things we can leverage that can move very important like priorities forward, so transportation solving transportation issues, helping on early grade literacy, all that.

Yes, that's the goal is the outcomes.

Okay, um, and then but reporting on that's very important.

So we can you know track progress over time, like our quality indicators and are we starting with reporting element?

I mean, I just I know that you and Kelsey Bradley just talked about the reporting element getting getting all the entities aligned.

It's we're gonna get all those entities aligned, we're gonna spend tens of millions of dollars.

Oh, I hope not.

Yeah, well, the good thing is that yeah, the good thing is that in uh impact tilsa, our data, our cradle to career background and the data backbone have a methodology, so yeah, we'll be able to do it.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Sorry, okay.

All right, we're done with this item.

We're moving on.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

All right, item number three discussion with the mayor's office and finance department regarding the proposed FY2026-27 budget and capital plan, including a discussion on proposed counselor and amendments.

Do you mind if I start please?

I don't mind at all.

So on this item we posted this so that you had this general discussion item.

If you have questions that either we can answer now or can be answered in the future going forward.

Um, and then also um it is a good time before the technical change memo comes to put um any budgetary changes um or concepts out on the table.

I've been trying to keep a list of maybe maybe changes that don't have enough specificity around them yet that I can go over if you want me to, or if you guys have ideas, and I'm not sure that everybody's even had the opportunity to put out their ideas yet.

So if you want to put some out of just to start the discussion, and then if uh Christy or Mr.

Miller have anything to say, do you have anything you want to say before Sarah gets started on that?

No, I think it'd be great to start with with Sarah and to listen and have kind of a conversation.

All right.

Okay.

So these are just the concepts, and again, dollar amounts probably aren't attached to these or if these are final, but these are the things I've heard you talk about in your budget presentations so far.

Um so you had a presentation on the gap in the uh zoo in the zoo project.

Yep.

Um you had a presentation on mental health funding.

Um, since that time, some counselors I know have have followed up, um, and I've I've followed up on that.

There's essentially two initiatives um possible on that one.

One is the 911 COPS funding, um, the other is um a team, um, the they call it the forensic ACT team.

Um both of those could have potential ongoing funding obligations, and both of those have different potential models on how they could be funded.

Um you talked about having a maintenance fund, which I interpreted as uh with a Route 66 starting as a Route 66 focus.

Remember you had Ana Um and Team come present on those items.

Um it sounded like this would be initial start year for that.

Um, we've had uh counselors talk about demolition funds um for some significant projects um potentially for code enforcement.

Um, these are these are items that maybe don't necessarily have a funding thing, but there were a lot of questions and discussion.

Um so you had a request for an FEC presentation, which comes at your 230 meeting.

Um, so you you haven't had that one yet.

Um mayor's office of children, youth and family, and you just went over um how those dollars were appropriated.

Emergency management, um, you did a presentation on that.

Um, there were questions about the increased cost of emergency management with the split.

Um, on the Kirkpatrick Heights uh Greenwood Master Plan.

This isn't a funding change, but in the budget, how that is listed for the capital programs would need to change given the Brown ordinance um vote that you had last week.

So just noting that change.

Um then there's this kind of long-term um funding of personnel and compensation.

Um, so that obviously depends on the employee group, but just as a reminder in FY2526, there were certain positions eliminated that were not restored in this budget.

There are proposed positions frozen and that are reprioritized into other positions.

Um, and then you also had some follow-up questions um regarding where certain personnel were um within the city and how how they landed.

Um the final thing that I had noted was just some questions about family safety center operations.

Sounds like we don't quite have enough information on that one yet about how our relationship works there.

So I have noted to to follow up on that.

So that's what I've heard you say so far on your paper.

Yeah, yeah.

You're a good listener.

Yes.

I have counselor Bellis, then counselor Director Wright and Counselor Lake.

Yeah, no, I'm sorry, listed it, but I just wanted to like reaffirm an uplift that I do think, especially given what we've already invested with alternative response teams between fire and police, um, and then the state cuts to mental health funding, the federal instability, not the COPS funding and the fact team.

I just see at least personally see as non-negotiables and really want to do what we can to find the dollars for those.

So just reiterating that on the record.

Yeah, I agree, 100%.

Okay, and Counselor Dictor, right?

Thanks.

So in the budget, there's $80,000 for a master art plan.

Yes.

When do we get more information about that?

It's my well, I wouldn't.

It's my understanding they were gonna say do you want to answer that?

Yeah, sure.

Um, sorry, I was directing the question of the pillar.

I don't know.

I didn't know if it'd been communicated broadly.

Yes, no, thank you for your sensitivity.

So, in the budget proposal.

No, that is correct, and we we would uh propose removing that in the uh technical changes.

So, is there any documentation that says like what led to that request, so we can at least so I can understand what a public art master plan might be, considering on the No I think they're I think they're having conversations with some counselors, and I think there will continue to be more with our um director of public art and partnerships.

Okay, um, and if she has not reached out to you to meet, I'm sure she will very soon she has not, she has yeah is it's something that you can talk about your hand.

Was this on the agenda sometime soon?

I guess so, but I heard three questions, so I don't know.

If I'm supposed to answer any of them, yeah.

Sorry.

Counselor Deck, yeah, I would just I mean Councilor Bellis.

I mean, the oldest professional arts organization in the state, and I've sat in this table for eight years, so I find it a little concerning that we're talking about funding public art in a way that the professional artist on the council has no knowledge of.

I'm not saying it's deliberate.

I'm just saying when things like that go public, guess who gets the calls?

Your arts commissioners and the professional artist who happens to be an elected official.

So if we're not gonna do it, that's fine.

I didn't have any way to answer to people that saw that on what it might be or how it might impact vision arts grants or anything else that the city funds when it pertains to art or the one percent for art.

So I would just like to know more about the overall public art strategy.

Um I think at the end of the last the the 10 30, we kind of brought up the $300,000 for the jail.

I think I would strongly re-articulate at this table.

Unless we understand more fully why we would put more money into a building we're about to blow up and put a hotel on.

I would just say that $300,000 probably could be better utilized somewhere else.

Um unless we unless we could get more information about you know the urgency of doing that um expansion in that way.

Or the costs adopting my verb finally.

What is that?

Blow up.

Oh, I mean proverbially, although I I heard for demo the highest bidder will get to push the buttons.

And then the other thing that I didn't hear you talk about, um Ms.

Davis, but I just wanted to say to Christy or um to the team that can go find the information.

We talked about this last week, uh Mr.

Miller.

Fifteen positions for TPD funded two fiscal years ago for warrant clearing, dropped down to 10, never filled those.

Now we're proposing eight.

I still want to better understand what those eight positions are gonna do.

I think last week there was like it's gonna be civil service.

So we proposed two new positions this fiscal year.

The eight were in last year.

The eight were in last year, and it was repurposing some of those 15, they were not new.

Okay, so we went from 15 to 10 to 8 or 15 to 8.

15 to 15 went to eight.

Okay.

So I made positions, and they took some of those positions and created.

Okay, so it's like a net change of so we're getting rid of six and we're keeping two.

No, we're adding two to the three card money here.

Yeah, that's kind of how I think.

Yeah, so I mean I understand your confusion because that we came in and we said what are all these positions that are unfilled for?

Right, right.

And so, um, rather than add positions in the current fiscal year at the civilian positions, we asked the police to repurpose some of those to die.

So are they already filled positions?

So they have filled some of those positions in the current fiscal year.

Got it.

Um, but we eliminated several of them in the current when the budget proposal this time last year.

Was it six that we have?

So it went from fifteen to eight, so I guess it's seven, right?

So could the three hundred.

And are we keeping those seven?

Yes.

So this, what we see in the budget proposal is not new, it's just catching up to what's already been happening.

Well, I think that was a follow-up?

Like in the presentation, I think someone asked that we include what did we do what we said we were going to do in the budget for FY26.

And so that was being presented as yes, we've we've done it.

That was a response to a question that wasn't part of our budget proposal.

It's eight with civilians and moving on.

We're not doing a 15-unit warrant clearing moment.

Great.

And so in this year's budget, we have two.

Yes.

And also in this year's budget proposal is this independent office of emergency management.

We talked last week with the commissioner.

I think we have some outstanding questions about it.

I do want to, since we've all slept since a week ago, one of those positions was already filled right now.

I don't know what is it one of these things where it was a different unfilled position.

Let's reclassify it or reorganize it to be in this capacity, even though I'm just trying to wrap up.

I have a little bit of a frustration where like the train is pulled out of the station, and then we're getting asked to be like, do you agree that this is what we should do?

We have no choice.

The train is already down the tracks.

So it feels like we have not a lot of control over, hey, we're standing up something that's gonna be 60% more expensive than the way we're doing it.

And so I'm just trying to get clarity.

Is the position right now that we get emails on weather days from that assistant person, a reutilized unfilled position that now we're just moving into that office?

It's a new position with new dollars, and the dollars were from the money that would have been going to TMA, but it's not because we changed our agreement with them mid-year.

So it's like a cost savings realization, just repurposed.

But what it does, and this is what I want to flag for you all, is obligates us now on this new first track.

Well, not just one person, full office.

So I don't know how we avoid those things moving forward, but that's why I continue to ask when we ask for an accounting, what things are one-time and what things are going to obligate us in the future for can sustained funding or even additional.

And so in the in the um emergency management, this is additional dollars now that we're gonna have to find, and I don't think we can go backwards because I think last week we understood that the whole contract or agreement has been dissolved.

So we don't have alternatives.

Yeah, okay, those are my questions.

Okay, all right.

Uh councillor Larkin.

So in our in I don't know if that's our previous meeting or the 10 30 meeting because of the lost track of time already today.

What time is it?

What day is it?

The beautification fund and how we scripted it out, where we have these tranches of money coming in every single year, same thing with parts.

I wonder if we just use the same strategy for this maintenance fund.

You know, it's a bond could be seen as an endowment fund.

What we need are consistent distributions of money that are dedicated for purposes, designated purposes.

So instead of saying we're gonna take we're gonna find 10 million, and which is just a number that I'm making up and putting it over into like an endowment fund and then using the distributions every year for those activities for the $100,000 that we'll get out of it or $400,000, whatever it comes out to be, maybe coming up with something like that.

For the $10 million in the zoo that we're potentially looking for $10 to $15 million, um, I would say a match of some kind makes sense if that's not already been spoken.

But $10 million for the zoo could could come if we get the grant for the public safety center.

So I know we're looking.

Yeah, yeah.

So I don't know what the grant amount request is, but if we get that grant um and it's $13 million, 10 of that $13 million could go for the zoo.

Um it's three can go to maintenance.

It may, yeah, it may help them help us get the grant.

It may help all of us get the grant so that we can serve both the public safety center and the zoo.

Just as an idea.

Well, can I say something real quick on that too?

On the zoo, I mean, just not on the public safety center, but also if we find um partners for jail, or if we find a building that we can utilize for court instead of having to build all new brand new facilities.

So it could go for that purpose as well.

So on Tima, I I like the this, the opportunities that have been put on the table.

Can I just ask how much it cost us before we split and how much it's projected to cost after?

Do you have an article?

Or sixty seven five sixty nine.

You definitely said it last week, but I don't have it in front of me.

I feel like it's two sixty.

263, plus now we're adding 200,000.

Okay, so it's doubling the amount of money that we're saying, utilizing for emergency management.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it's a 200 increase.

Double hundred thousand.

Is it any of that capital?

Yeah, 200,000 increase.

I think there's some one-time funds, but then in FY28, there's another position.

So it's gonna go more.

Yes, yeah.

Yes.

Basically, your 28 has a deputy management position added in.

So that's a three three or four person staff.

Yeah, it's tough.

It's not going back.

Child supports.

There's there's the possibility of going back.

I I will reemphasize what counselor director right is that maybe maybe none of us had any opportunity to do anything about this, but we're putting in a bad catch 22 situation where if we don't fund it, then we risk the lives of Tulsa citizens.

Right.

Um and the liabilities that come with that, all of us.

Yeah, we just have to have emergency management area.

Right.

Um I just don't like spending more money for maybe what are the same services that are being produced.

So I would I would love to try to get together with the county and figure out if there's any opportunity to keep things together.

Um maybe that's been tried, but I think our governments are stronger together than separate.

I agree.

Um, and we spent a lot of time studying different cities and counties focusing in on what they do collectively rather than separately.

I think two last things I'll say early settlement.

I don't know if that's in the budget or not.

It is good, at the plan year amount, which was 24,000.

Oh, which is half of what we gave last year.

Yeah, that's what you put in plan year last year, because we were the trade was consistent this year.

So it may be that that's the number, or it may be that we would want to go up to the number that we gave last year.

And then I don't know if this is on agenda topic or not, but I I am concerned about the use of ARPA funds in safe move that already hasn't been articulated, and I just need to know what the last possible date is before we say move still has X balance, we gotta move that away.

You already know that day.

Now we've got uh we've uh I think we spoke earlier, Chris uh because you spoke briefly earlier.

We are having meetings with them regularly to make sure that that process is smooth.

September 30th is the last day that they can go uh and then they've got to do their invoices early October so that before the end of the year, we will be able to have time to reappropriate that money if there is any left or a goal, of course.

Reappropriate and spend.

Yes.

Yes, that's very good.

Thank you for that clarification.

That is true.

Yeah, and do we have a process for spending that money quickly where we have something in mind opportunities and can those be shared with us at our next meeting similar to this one?

Sure.

So that we kind of know the outline of that.

Okay, that's all I got.

Thank you.

That's what I was getting at at the 10 30 was bringing that sheet to the table.

Yeah, yeah, so we know about it.

Okay, anybody else?

Sarah, thank you for being such a good listener.

Welcome.

Well, and this is a living document, so right.

I don't know about the rest of you, but when I can focus on this job on the weekends, then I gather up all my stuff that shoot emails over to Sarah, which I'm sure she's pleased.

I have received more questions in the last few hours that I have not forwarded on.

So I'm about to follow the point.

What's our angle?

What's the deadline to like keep digging into the stuff?

I know.

Oh, Sarah.

So your projected budget adoption date is June 10th, which means technical change memo and the budget ordinance are coming on June 3rd.

Okay.

You have a backup date of June 17th after June 17th.

Christine, are you too scared?

Yes.

And you don't you don't meet next week.

So if there is something that needs to be on the agenda with answers on June 3rd, we really do need to know what those things are.

I just did want to say it was 263 when we were in the partnership with the county, and it's gone up.

Um an additional, I think 200,000 plus the plan year, which is another 200,000 for the capital.

In FY27, it's 162,000 higher than plan year, which includes 83,000 for a vehicle.

So it's about ongoing operating costs about 80,000 to want in FY27, and then in FY28, it is closer to that 200 going higher.

And in this, we're going from 263 to 425.

With the one time expensive, like standing.

I would just like to highlight what counselor Lakin said.

When we're going to make investments, we need to know what the ROI is.

Like what how are the citizens going to experience a better outcome, a better response, a better whatever?

So it was the data that really drove the change.

I mean, I think we're okay with spending money if we know it's going to improve lives of our constituents or make things safer.

But I haven't heard that argument.

I've only just heard we have this opportunity when this terrible thing happened to the county to just do our own thing.

And then other cities, some other cities do it this way, and I'm like, well, right.

Well, but I mean, if there was some real compelling reason to it increase the cost, then let's do that.

But I think that's true of a lot of these initiatives.

You know, when it costs more money, it doesn't mean we're getting better outcomes.

So that's what I'm trying to be mindful of.

You're just staring.

Sounds to me, so counselor Bengal.

Do I finally get a term?

Yes, you do.

No, I'm just kidding.

And I appreciate everything you all have said because I've been saying this.

I know.

And I said, I'm tired of people adopting this monkey seed monkey do, and I'm gonna use that over and over again.

Mentality of so and so is doing this, so we need to do it.

But can't articulate what the costs are gonna be.

So now we've been talking about this duplicative services, the partnerships that we have.

When you create divorce, now you've got a split cost of maintaining the kids, right?

So that's what we're doing here, and so making unilateral decisions, and I'm gonna be frank, this was a unilateral decision.

There was no discussion with this council who was going to be responsible for funding this.

This was a unilateral decision, and that's what I take exception to, is because now we're stuck trying to figure out how to fund this, and I get tired of being at this table, certain people blurting things out, and that's what we need to take action on.

But when you have somebody who's cautionary, says, hey, you need to think about how this is going to be impactful to our budget, and people ignore it and go through the process anyway.

So I'm a little irritated about this whole thing.

Just a little.

Yeah, because this is now an increase.

We're talking about 275,000.

And then now we're doubling the cost on our ourselves for something else that we could have totally avoided.

Or at least we got a chance to play.

I think I think there's outcomes that we agree on.

We don't do it.

Yeah, I think there's outcomes we all agree that we want for our community.

It's just that pathway to achieving them.

Some of us are a little bit more like how can we efficiently and most affordably sustain this, and that's the push pool that I feel like I'm in right now, too.

Yeah, yeah, on the team.

Okay, are you are you done?

Do you have a do you want a response?

No, I no, I don't want a response.

I mean, there is no response.

Well, it's too late.

We're now stuck with having to deal with it.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And explain it.

And explain.

What do you get for 200,000 more a year?

It just doesn't make some name on the mark.

You can't go back on the storm tracker.

I don't know if we can go back.

We don't contract.

We don't negotiate those things.

We just pay for the stuff.

Ultimately.

We do.

I mean.

If our partnership worked, why did we dissolve it?

It just doesn't make sense to me.

Because it was a sickle.

That was one.

That's like an HR issue.

Yeah.

That's it.

We just need to we need to be mindful.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

Then any other questions, concerns.

Because we are now 3 15, 45 minutes.

So on at least the June 3rd agenda, you'll have the budget ordinance.

So you'll have a broad item to talk about.

Perfect.

There were some mentions on the Brown ordinance that relates to the budget.

So I assume we will put that back on committee to talk through that language.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then if there are any other items, then if you could just let us know as soon as possible.

Yeah.

If with the Brown ordinance, I mean with the the language that we're using for the public safety center, in the case that we do get the grant that you initiated with INCOM.

If there's somehow we can initiate that same language if we find partners with our jail, or if we find a building that we can use for uh for our courthouse instead of building or buying another building and renovating it.

I wrote I wrote down that and then also just there is one line item that maybe just the general use should be expanded a little bit.

Yeah.

So we can bring back drafts of that at that committee.

Thank you.

Jack maybe wrote them already.

No.

I was hoping that's what you were doing.

Okay.

All right.

So then item four, we're adjourned.

Um everyone back in five minutes.

And four.