Local call, today's meeting to order, and
this is a special meeting of the Board of Supervisors. So you should all feel special today. We're going to start out with the pledge of allegiance and I'm going to ask Trina or if she would lead us if we can get.
This morning is a budget workshop.
We started this.
Is this our second one or our third one?
Second one.
We started this last year.
And it was very helpful, I think, or informative to our board to be able to have the discussions
with department heads and employees present.
And so I'll just say, I think we're all, we've looked forward to having this discussion
and then also approving a budget on September 10th?
Well, okay, yeah, budget, our budget hearings
will be on the 10th and then approving in late September.
So, thank you all for coming,
and I'm gonna turn it over to Nate to run us through
today's agenda.
Thank you, supervisor Kingsley,
Nate Greenberg, County Administrator,
and yeah, it just occurred to me a few minutes ago
that I am kicking this off.
So, I'll try to kind of walk everybody through the purpose of the day and provide some high level preamble.
Before I do, I really do want to thank departments and the fiscal teams as well as the budget team,
Kerioni and Megan McCammon from the admin team, it's, I think, as I have said,
at least more than once, that the budget is very much a collaborative process and it starts
with departments and really you all helping us understand what your needs are to be able
to effectively run your teams and your departments and deliver the services that you need and then
us trying to figure out how to make all of that work. And it is often, you know, that there can be
a little bit of friction there and trying to figure out how to make it work, but I am always
impressed at how well everybody kind of works together and recognizes that at the end of the day we're
here to support you and really try to make the things that you need and the requests that you're
bringing forward come to fruition so that we can essentially deliver effective services.
So as supervisor Kingsley stated, the purpose of today really is to have some open conversation
and less formality to a lot of that conversation so that some of the sort of less solid pieces
of the budget can be worked through and discussed openly with the board, with the departments,
with the public, if there is any here, which I don't see any, but there may be some online.
And really give us as a budget team the input and the feedback that we need as we're working
toward the publishing of the recommended budget. And so that is going to be happening at the end of
month, we need to get it out the door around the 30th of August.
So, we need to have 10 days before the first budget hearing, which is on September 10th.
And so, this is basically an opportunity for us to help educate the board of the budget
process and just those that are not familiar with how we get to the place that we are today.
And then as we sort of work through the next few hours,
the big pieces that we're going to be discussing today are in the area of personnel requests and changes that have been brought forward by departments for 2425.
And then some of the other special projects or requests that have been brought with respect to addressing strategic priorities and the like.
Like most of the core aspects of the budget, sort of the operating expenses and those things
which you all are putting in on a year-to-year basis, we've discussed in the departmental
budget meetings, certainly if there are feelings from any of you that there's a need for discussion
around some of that stuff, we can have that same thing from the board obviously, but at this
point what we're kind of looking at more are those like larger areas of discretionary spend and
you know certainly the biggest ones are the ones that are on the table in front of everybody today.
So I'm just going to provide a little bit of background and hand it over to Danelle who's
going to talk through some of the budget position piece. Carrie is going to sort of walk us through
the personnel requests and some of the rationale there. We'll take a quick break and then wrap up
the morning really with some of the special projects and strategic priority discussions.
So just a handful of kind of lead-in slides to level set and I think that most of the departments
and probably the board at this point understand this but for those of you who aren't really familiar,
we just thought it would be helpful to share some of our philosophies in terms of putting together
the budget and I sort of started with this but really I mean we are here to support you as the
budget team and we really are trying to the best of our ability to support those
department requests wherever we can. The logic that we generally use is the
first lens is you know what are prior years actuals and that's not necessarily
just last year but looking back over a few years and you know we're not trying to
make deep cuts in places but we are trying to just be realistic about what are the
actuals that are being spent in any one budget area and you know what is
actually needed to operate on any given year and the reason we do that is we have to close
a budget gap every single year. We still have a budget gap to close this year. We're not
trying to be overly aggressive but at the end of the day we have to deliver a balanced budget
and to do that we've got to find money in various places.
We recognize that there are core services within each of your departments, each of our departments,
And we want to fund those and operational costs to kind of handle the day-to-day operations
before we look at new initiatives and that's new projects or other things like that.
Our staff are the most valuable part of our organization, it's also one of the largest
components of our budget.
And so we want to take care of existing staff and recognize that we need to have enough
money to do that before we take on other pieces.
We try very hard to utilize the funding streams thoughtfully and appropriately and that's
different funds within our set of accounts and budget units as well as matching one
time money to one time projects and using things like opportunities with LATCF or ARPA to
to fund where appropriate or other grants
and lines of revenue that we don't expect
or we can only utilize in certain areas
and really try to blend those different types
of funding as carefully as possible
and thoughtfully as possible.
And then lastly, really think ahead with respect
to reserves and continuing to build reserves
but doing so not necessarily as the last thought, but with careful consideration relative
to how we are balancing putting money into reserves while also putting money toward projects
that the community and the departments need to get funded.
Our budget cycle sort of never really ends and I think one of the new things this year that
we really started last year but just memorialized as many of you know a month or so ago with the adoption
of the strategic plan is really trying to insert that as a annual process to reconcile and ensure
that our budgeting is thoughtfully aligned to the strategic priorities that are out there.
And so really next year we will hopefully be starting that strategic planning process and the review of it earlier so that going into the budget development process for departments that conversation is already happened.
We just didn't have the time this year, but I think now that we've been through one of those cycles will be able to put that a little bit earlier in the overall budget cycle.
and then we recognize through the conversations with the adoption of the strategic plan as well as with the regular budget process that those regular check-ins that we need to sort of perform both internally as well as report out are going to be happening as we kind of move into the future budget cycles.
And so it really is an ongoing kind of process, and that also is true to the actual budget
periods themselves.
So I think as most of you know, we adopt a rollover budget at June as is statutorily
required by us, that really is focused on this first quarter and continuing our operations
and much the status quo nature that we're set out for last year with the exception being if there are
capital investments or significant things that need to be taken on in that first quarter,
we do try to address some of those. But really where we're at today obviously is working toward
this final budget adoption, which will happen at the end of September. And then we basically move
toward mid-year and that's when we have sort of the final reconciliation and any other adjustments
that need to be made with respect to revenue or other aspects of funding that are out there
and then our third quarter budget is kind of that that wellness check as a whole and making sure
that we're in a good position to make it through the end of the fiscal year and there aren't any
other surprises are things that we're not anticipating to make sure that we can get back
to that role over budget.
So we're always sort of living in multiple budget periods at the same time and that creates
some interesting challenges I know for all of you, but just wanted to remind folks of that.
And we've already kind of spoken to this calendar a little bit today, but this is more specifically
with respect to the final budget. We're here in the middle of the page on August 7th, the budget
workshop. I spoke to the fact that we'll be publishing that CAO recommended budget by the end
of the month. We'll go into budget hearings on the 10th of September and then two weeks later come
back for the final adoption of that budget.
The last thing that I'll say is I've kind of already
spoken to this in the first slide. But, you know, when we talk about priorities for budgeting,
we really are first looking at this core services piece. And that's, you know, the fundamental
foundation of the departmental budget conversations that we have with all of you. It's really looking at
what are your staffing costs for your existing staff. And then the new staff that are being kind of
proposed or reclases and those types of things sort of get put on a little sidecar because we know that
We want to take care of existing staff before we start looking at some of those other things.
We'll talk more about that in a few moments this morning.
Any other operations or fixed assets that are out there.
I mean, that's really kind of the majority of what we're talking about on a regular basis.
And then with the strategic plan, we're starting to think more trying to think more carefully and thoughtfully about
how are we putting money toward some of the strategic priorities that have been identified
by the board and the community and the organization as the whole?
And I think, you know, yesterday we heard an example or another set of potential projects
that are going to be coming out of the CWPP with wildfire mitigation and preparedness.
And so that's another example of a set of projects that will get put into the strategic plan
as part of strategic priorities and looked at relative to many of the other things that we are
recognizing we need to be trying to find money for in either existing funds or new grant
opportunities and the like. And then not to diminish the importance of reserves, but again,
we're trying to be thoughtful about putting money continuously into those reserves in case we do
come into a hard spot, but also balancing that against the need to have as much money
kind of flowing to these projects and other purposes as possible.
So not sure if there's any questions around that, I'm sure most of that isn't new to anybody
in this room, but if there are happy to answer before we kind of move on.
Good morning, Danielle Carrington, Assistant Director of Budget and General Services, so I'm
This first slide is really about our revenue sources as of last week, how we're bringing
our revenues in for both general fund and non-general fund and these numbers.
We're not finalized by any means. We still have a couple of weeks to try and button up the budget. We are still trying to find some operating transfers and some additional revenue to cover the gap that we're in right now. So, but as of last week, here we are. So you'll notice that most of the funds for both general fund and non-general fund come from other government services or agencies. And that's typical every year.
So, next we have, do I just do this?
These slides are our total county expenditures by not only category, but also by department,
so you can kind of see where your department lies in the expenditures for this next fiscal year.
revenues, I'm sorry expenditures typically salaries are the largest category that we have for all expenditures.
Then services and supplies and then for departments you know you can kind of see that the public works and health and human services are at the top which again is typical.
other financing uses is that when we use treasury funds to look,
are you looking at the
category and department expenditures, operating transfers, care operating transfers or any debt
service.
Okay, and then the next slide is just specific to general fund expenditures by category
first and then by department. You will see that 63% of our expenditures in the general fund are
for salaries and benefits. That is one that is our highest category for the general fund.
And then again looking at departments, the sheriff's department and health and human services being
the biggest pieces in the general fund.
This next slide is comparing what our increases are
looking like in the general fund from last year board approved to where we are right now.
There's a 17% increase in salaries and benefits. The services and supplies are typically the same.
Well, it's a 59% in internal charges, and those are directly related to the increases
that we're seeing in workers' comp and public liability.
We've got some really large increases in the insurance benefits there.
And capital improvements, we've just got a project or two in the general fund that might,
it's not a lot of money, it just looks like a big increase.
And then cost increases across all funds, you'll see that services and supplies is a big
increase in the because of non-general fund. But that's typical. Again, salaries
are higher in the general fund, whereas services and applies are higher in the
non-general fund.
Next, we have some fun-balanced slides that are
autocontrollable.
So as you know, we are in a we do deficit budgeting or fun
balance budgeting. I don't like to use the word deficit because every year we're
carrying over fund balance from the prior year to close our gap and when we so in what
that really means is that our budget in the general fund has less revenue than expenditures.
And so we need a carryover to close that gap because we're required by the California
your budget act to have a balanced budget. So we either have to have our revenues equal
or expenditures or we have to have balance from the prior year to cover that difference.
And we have that every year. And that is not uncommon and the reason why we have unbalanced.
There's a variety of reasons. We have salary savings and anybody who's in, you know, knows
that you have vacancies every year that create salary savings whether you're in a general fund or
a non-general fund because non-general fund budgets also have fund balances. You have to have
fund balance in your non-general fund budgets as well. Those are your reserves. Same thing, it's
same concept. And that money is carried forward year to year to be used. You just don't owe you
either budget it. Sometimes you'll have a bigger expenditure that you're carrying forward
from year to year. The fund balance can be made up of salary savings. It could be made up of
excess revenue that you may have gotten. When we're budgeting, when we're looking at our revenues
from year to year, you know, we can't anticipate exactly what we're going to get. Some line items,
we know the exact dollar amount that we're going to get and others we have to make an estimate on and we you know we've always been a little more on the conservative side so we will get more money an example of that in the 23 24 year was our interest earnings.
I am always going to budget more on the conservative side because it can be.
There's a lot of factors that go into the interest earnings and I don't want to overestimate
that revenue and then have it go the other direction where we have a huge shortfall.
So we did have excess earnings that added to our fund balance this year.
So those are all factors that add to our fund balance or your departments don't spend
every dollar that you budget that adds to your fund balance every year.
So, we, you know, this slide show that year to year, we, you know, we've had a fund balance rolling forward.
And we don't budget.
We stopped for years ago.
We stopped budgeting or anticipating the prior year fund balance because it is also moving target.
So we don't want to come up short and you know last year we had $5.2 million in fund balance.
Well, if we budget to that as our gap and it comes in at $4.3, we now have to cut another million dollars out of our budget.
So we were again targeting the $4.2 million as our fund balance.
So we're anticipating and if we have access that will the board can allocate that to several
different places, contingencies or other one time expenditures that they choose to prioritize.
Next slide.
It's a lot of money, you know, $5 million out of $120 million budget, I guess, or something.
Would you say that that is mostly made up of gallery savings or I mean, it's just, it
is a lot of money every year that we carry forward.
I'm glad we have it I'm not questioning it. So in the general fun when you're looking at it,
you know, some of it is year-to-year carryover or you look at our total revenue and expenditures.
We're our revenue and expenditures. We're just not spending the carryover from year-to-year.
But it's a mix. It's a mix of salary savings is definitely a large portion of that.
But then, you know, we, and just looking this year, we did have a lot of, um,
large revenues that came in that we, you know, we did not, yeah, that we weren't
anticipating. We bumped up revenues at mid-year, but we didn't over, you know,
bump them up high enough to, um, but they're just some of them are hard to
anticipate and TOT you know we went into this year expecting a large
decrease in our TOT and thankfully it did recover but with the circumstances
there was no way for us to project we were going to end up where we ended
up yeah I mean the park with all the natural disaster issues and with the
environment we were in and I think it would be irresponsible for us to you know
jump to the high end of that number and say, you know, we hope we're going to get there and then come up short.
I mean, because then we're in a, if we, if we don't, we don't want everyone to be in a negative fund balance situation at the end of the year.
Because not only are we having to close that fund balance gap, now we're going to have to take money out of reserves to cover that negative fund balance.
So you know there was a time when we were slowing down hiring and that was partly to build the to build salary savings, but now
We need to hire as quick as we can to get people because and so I just I have expected that at some point
We would have less salary savings because of that, but it doesn't feel like well
And you've seen in years where fund balance has gone up and down
It's not always just climbing. I mean if you look back at that chart, if you go back to the previous chart, you know, it's not a constant increase the year before it was 5.7 and then it was 5.2. So it does swing.
I'm year to year.
So I think I kind of covered understanding fund balance already, you know, from, in the first,
we talked about pretty much all the components, unless anybody has any specific questions or
and one of the things, you know, I know that everybody's kind of, you know, where are we going to land
and I will tell you is, you know, really until I certify
the numbers are changing on a day-to-day basis.
I mean, we're still, it can swing $1 million in a day.
So, until we certify, I'm still, we're waiting,
so I can't really give you any projections
until I'm locking the number in at the final anticipation,
because departments are still getting in receipts
and doing their final transfers.
And so we need that last, the cruel period doesn't
in until August 30th.
And I just wanted to add to that, that one
of the strategies that we use in, I guess,
to benefit from that uncertainty and try
to get as much into the budget when we adopted in September as possible while also recognizing
some things may not make it, but could still be afforded is looking at mid-year. Because by mid-year,
you know, we're six months into the fiscal, we have a better idea of how things are tracking,
we have an opportunity to realize more revenue in the budget and potentially add additional
expenditures is needed and so you'll hear that brought up a couple of times
throughout the morning that we are looking to defer certain things to that
kind of mid-year point because it does give us a little better idea and certainty
around what's going to end up happening with those revenues and what's happening as
a whole with respect to fund balance but that gives us I think the $4.2
million or a number gives us sort of that safety net but then how things
actually come in in the reality around that is sort of what allows us to take on some more or
adjust as things need to change throughout the fiscal year.
So as far as balance budget yeah
we you know just this is I think a really good just as simple as you can put it and it's a requirement
And you know revenue plus fund balance equals expenditures and that's just the formula as basic as you can get for a budget.
So I like this slide as far as especially for anybody new coming into county budget talking to constituents.
This is a great slide to show anybody who's trying to understand county budget.
So
this slide is just explaining how we close the gap and currently the requested budget is at a nine point almost one million dollar gap.
We're trying to budget to a 4.2 million dollars, so we're working really hard to close that gap.
We do that by reviewing the revenue we increase or decrease as needed because sometimes revenues are overstated.
We perform standard cuts to the services and supplies and we this is one of the reasons that we have meetings with all of the departments so that we can explain why our methodology is why we're doing what we're doing and you know these are the tools that we have to close that $5 million dollar gap.
We reviewed your department spending plans, we recommend changes that might optimize the dollars.
We reprioritize projects within departments.
We also work closely with public works to look at the projects for deferred maintenance.
And if they're a non-general fund project, we will work with those non-general fund departments to fund those projects.
We are constantly looking at operating transfers.
First, from different types of funds and trust to cover special projects on one time costs. We're reviewing personnel changes. We're making recommendations. We're working directly with each department to give and take as needed. And we're also, I haven't done this yet, but we will be seeking salary savings from the vacant positions that you have currently. And that means that we're, you know, by the time we balance our budget, it's three months from when we started our budget. And if you've got a position budgeted for 12 months and we haven't filled that one.
there are salary savings to be had, so those are just some of the tools that we have that helps us close that large gap that we start with.
Next, we have some personnel considerations.
Just want to do a quick check-in and see if there's any questions or comments from board or departments or public or anybody before we move on.
Okay, so personnel considerations, as Danelle said, our salaries and benefits are about half
of our total expenditures, and they should be, because our largest asset is our employees.
And so going through some of our personnel considerations, existing MOUs, so this year
there is a change from last year in April of this year, we verified the
desertification of the Elected Officials Assistance Association, they
petitioned and requested to desertify their exclusive recognition of their
unit, and so that was confirmed. So we now have only five MOUs and five bargaining
units. So we have the Deputy Sheriff's Association, the DSA, and their current
MOU as the time frame is July 1st, 2022 through June 30th, 2025. We also have the
Inyo County Correctional Officers Association, the ICCOA, and their term of
their MOU is November 1st. I put 2029. So obviously that's a typo.
2021 probably through October 31st of 2024. In Yolk County Employees Association, ICEA,
their MOU ran July 1st, 2021 through June 30th of 24, so we are out of contract with ICEA right
now. In Yolk County Probation Peace Officers Association, ICPPOA, and their term was April 1st,
21 through March 31st of 2024, so we are also out of contract with the ICPPOA, and then our final
unit is the Law Enforcement Administrators Association or LEAA, and their term was July 1,
2022 through June 30th of 2025. So currently we are in active negotiations with two units,
ICEA and ICPPOA, and we have our first meeting. We're starting negotiations with the
correctional officers starting in September, so we'll be kicking those off pretty soon.
So classification and compensation study. We're almost to the finish line. It's been a lot
of work on both the departments behalf on the contractor that we're utilizing, but we are
in the process of getting their recommendations back right now. We'll be using that information
with our bargaining units and talking with them. I know a lot of the conversation that we had with
departments during our budget meetings. We're probably sick of us saying that's class and
calm. We're waiting on class and calm. But what we're looking for is really trying to
standardize and have equity within departments. And so giving that same message to all departments
as we come to the finish line of our class and comp study, hopefully.
So that is going to come further in on to the next slide, so I won't go too much into
those requests right now,
so personnel budget priorities.
So we know that we, and I'll steal this from Nate because he says it regularly, that
But we don't want to balance the budget on the back of current employees, and I say that right.
And so we know that our existing MOUs, it's important that we are able to sustain that,
sustain the class and comp that we want to implement, because why pay all this money
if we're then going to say we can't do anything with the recommendations that they come.
So, budget priorities looking at existing MOUs, class and comp and the implementation of that.
The next two or three budget priorities is when we were talking with departments,
we talked with them about looking at their personnel changes and their personnel requests
in four different buckets.
And I'm going to tell you what those buckets are,
But Nate was really the one that explained this to the departments and so I want him to just reiterate what we've been saying in the budget meetings so that I don't misinterpret it and say it differently.
So what we've been looking at is one, class and
compartments is a request to come into the category of a class and
compartments. Two, is it a reclassification?
Three, is it a reorganization and four, is it a new position?
Thank you, Ana.
Sure.
So I think Carrie sort of explained the first one but I'll just kind of walk
through it again and and really that is to say that we've heard across the
organization about competitiveness challenges with recruitment as well as
issues with retention and the intent behind the class and comp study and
again thank the board for approving and supporting that process because to my
knowledge, this is the first time in a number of years that a comprehensive study has been
done looking at all levels of the organization at the same time. We've seen individual
MOUs and bargaining units trigger some form of a compensation or a market analysis and
be implemented, but not necessarily look at the internal equity across all of those other
departments or classifications in other bargaining units.
And so the value of doing a comprehensive class and comp study is that you address compensation
basically from the lowest level position in the organization to the highest level, ensuring
that internal equity is looked at across the board and at a consistent utilization of market
it and the competitiveness is applied across all of the positions as opposed to kind of
taking it in isolated chunks.
And so part of the reason that we've been holding off, and I know it's been frustrating
for all of us, myself included, say we're going to wait for class and comp is that by e-smelling
implementation of salary changes within any one division, you're basically breaking equity
in doing that. You're basically putting one classification or one association or one department ahead of another, regardless of the source of funding, et cetera.
And so we are looking in, I'll just say, I mean, class and comp studies are never perfect. There's always going to be little issues and flaws.
And I think that's part of why we have tried to move as quickly as possible in this process while also being deliberate in terms of the conversations that we're having with the consultant.
which is ever being consulting and has been a tremendous amount of this work.
But I think the study itself in terms of looking at both the internal equity of
how a individual in one position is looked at relative to an individual in another similar position,
whether it's the exact same classification in a different department or a similar type of position
which may have a different classification is one big component of that study and then the next
big piece of that is looking at how does that position compare to a similarly positioned or
similar classification individual or entity in another competitive county or other person in
the market. So we looked at a number of counties. What was it total? 10, 14, 15? Yeah, about,
yeah, somewhere between 12 and 15 competitors, both counties, city of Bishop, town of
Mammoth Lakes, CalTrans were included in there. So we tried to look, you know, within region
as well as out of region at what is market paying with respect to all of these different
positions across the organization. So the implementation of that class and
comp, we really are hoping addresses both of those pieces, the internal equity
and making sure that people within the organization are compensated fairly
relative to one another and the competitiveness with respect to the market
that's a whole. And so we're looking to implement that study and utilize budget
it first in that space because of what Kerry said and what we've consistently been saying.
We want to make sure that our existing employees are compensated fairly and appropriately and
that we can recruit and retain for those positions which we have on the books today.
Then moving into the budget process itself, there are these sort of three other categories
and we came up with these collectively based on the types of requests we were seeing come
in the door.
It could change year-over-year based on the types of requests that are being made by departments,
but really the first one that fundamentally we have supported and there's only a few examples of
this in the data you'll see here in a moment are these restructure requests and you know these are
not fine terms of art but it's what we labeled these things as. The restructures were generally where
we're departments were saying I want to delete one position and add another position and in some
cases that was a savings to the county, which is a no-brainer. In other cases it was a, you know,
small, diminimous cost increase, but there's not really a net change in authorized
strength. And overall, you know, it makes sense that we would support those because there's not a
huge impact to the budget, and it meets the operational need, or if it made the operational need,
made sense to the personnel, we were generally supporting those as part of this budget process.
So those two things are really, I guess, just accepted even though we don't know the exact
cost of class and comp right now, those are being assumed as being implemented as part
of the budget process as a whole.
The next was reclassifications, and really as we started to look at reclassifications, we
went back and forth, and I'll say that the reason, so reclassification would be saying,
I want to take a person who was in this position and move them to it's usually a higher level position and that's based on an operational need typically that's being made by the department saying this person is operating at an office tech and I need them to actually being administrative analyst.
In general, in past years, we've supported reclases where they made sense and we could
financially support them because the departments know the operational needs better than we
do and we can support it financially great.
The big change for us this year was because class and comp is going on and as part of the
class and comp process, basically staff throughout the organization were filling out this job
analysis tool. And in that job analysis tool, if people were, put them, quote, working out of class or sort of on a stretch assignment or otherwise indicating that there are additional duties that are being done or that, you know, are being requested of them.
Those were getting added into the JATs and there were a number of departments that didn't
put any reclasses in that we knew were interested in reclassing positions and there were others
that did put reclass requests into the budget process.
And we just ultimately got a little bit uncomfortable saying, like, well, we don't want to honor the
request that came in the door through the budget process because we don't know if this department
didn't put them in intentionally because they were going to get picked up through class
and comp. The other piece of that was that because some of the positions that people
were looking to reclass individual into were also being analyzed through class and comp,
it was unclear whether that position would end up at that classification or would be adjusted
through that class and comp process.
And so essentially what we have landed on
with respect to reclassifications
is that we would be implementing those requested changes
as part of the implementation of the class and comp
process as a whole.
Our thinking right now, and I think if I'm wrong,
or I think that this is subject to change
as we kind of move through the process,
our thinking right now just based on where we are
with union negotiations, the budget...
The process demands on our time, et cetera, is that we probably will not conclude negotiations
with ICEA and EPOA, or the main bargaining union in probation until after August 30th, when
the budget document is out the door, which means at that point in time, we could amend the
budget on the the floor in September, we don't like to do that typically. And so what we're
thinking we'll like we end up happening with both of those bargaining units is that when
we finalize negotiations and have an MOU brought to the board, that that would be the trigger
for implementing the change to authorize strength and we would bring a budget amendment
it with that potentially to address the implementation of the costs associated with
class and comp and any of the reclasses.
So we're thinking that that could be October, you know, I think it kind of depends on the
status of negotiations, but that's basically where we're kind of mentally right now with
respect to the reclassifications.
new positions are a little bit different and based on the conversation or the comments
made earlier, what we're sort of thinking right now is that we're conceptually supporting
many of the new position requests through this conversation that we'll have today.
But we think that financially we likely won't be supporting those until mid-year, or maybe
be the first of the year, sorry, not mid-year.
And that's just to give us a little bit of, a little more savings in those positions.
I mean, I guess there's not really savings there because they're not even in the system
yet or budgeted yet, but rather than bringing them on right on October 1st before we've implemented
class and comp and some of these other unknowns, it just gives us a little more runway to make
sure that we can theoretically afford those things before we add them.
And then we'll basically at mid-year be reconciling the budget associated with all of those things.
So we'll know what the actual cost of, I said, a budget amendment would be brought with
class and comp, but we could do that, or we could basically just reconcile the budget
at mid-year once we know the actual cost of implementing all of those pieces.
So that was a ton of words.
I don't know if any of that made sense.
I don't know if it made sense to the two of you.
Does anybody have questions?
So reorganization and restructure are the same.
So those are basically supported.
There's only three of those in the examples and in all of those cases I think we've supported
those restructure requests because it's basically the yes.
My question is, if anything goes sideways with the class and comp, possibly a negotiations
or anything, is that going to delay the rest of the implementation that you have in mind
for new positions?
Or like for recalces specifically?
New positions specifically.
New positions?
I think it's a fair question.
I don't really know the answer to it, I guess.
I mean, I think our hope is that things won't go sideways, first of all.
I hear you. I mean, there is some anxiety around that. I know that.
I know there's a lot of folks that have expressed concern in terms of what the MOU or what the union reactions will be to those
and what the ability to implement that MOU will be.
You know, our feeling is that the information that is there is solid and that we're hoping
that is not the linchpin in terms of implementing and getting to an agreement.
And I think, you know, how the actual negotiations go is still kind of a bit of an unknown.
I think if it seems like that's the direction that things are headed and we are seeing new
position requests hang out there and there be a legitimate business need for them, I think
we can look at taking those ahead.
I mean, ultimately, there's, you know, I think what it comes down to, again, is for when you
take care of existing employees first and then also trying to balance the budget.
and I think once we get to a budget package
that gets out the door in September,
it'll be balanced and we'll have a better idea
as we kind of move through the year
of where we're tracking.
Many of the new position requests
are not in the general fund also,
so that helps with that.
And that's why I say these are just
some conceptual ideas at this point.
It's possible that we would maybe bring forward
some new position requests as part of the implementation of class and comp as well.
So these are just kind of like rough concepts that we put out there to sort of help ensure
that we can make it all happen.
None of it's set in stone at this point.
I mean, really, I actually, I mean, I think that this is a valuable conversation for the board
to react to and departments to react to as well because, you know, this has all been sort
of evolving through the last several weeks of conversations with budget team and departments.
So are you making some assumption at all about what increased labor costs are going to be due
to the class and income from implementation and the new labor agreement?
Yes.
Okay, because I'm wondering how how how the balancing occurs if there's the substantial increase
that happens after you've submitted a balanced budget.
So one of the things that we're considering is typically, not typically, every year,
in our personnel budget.
We have some contingencies put aside specifically for MOUs or anything that might happen during
the year.
And so we're making sure that we have some funding set aside there specifically.
And remember, even those salaries and benefits are 60% of the general fund, overall, not
all salaries and benefits are general fund costs. So it will be the expectation that the non-general
fund budgets will cover their increases and we will cover the general fund piece. And it's probably
about 55% of what the increase could be. So we're including some contingencies to fund those
increases. Okay. So I guess what I'm worried about is the scenario where you have a balanced budget
then you come back in October, whatever, whenever, or mid-year. As they go, we have the implementation
of these labor agreements. So that means we have to cut $2 million elsewhere.
This is very similar to several years ago when I believe it was DSA was still out in negotiations
and we had to finish the budget. And so we set money in personal contingencies, not knowing exactly
what the final number was going to be to settle those negotiations, I think they settled
sometime in October, and then we were able to, you know, the negotiation settled in
October, the money was set in personnel contingencies, and then we had to come back to
board to move the money with a budget amendment back in, but the money was set aside, and yeah,
So there will be a, you know, it may not be, you know, it's an estimate at this point because we
don't know exactly what the number is, but we are estimating it around about number to put in there.
I think, you know, it's really, ideally, we wouldn't be in this position. We would have finished,
we would have had class and comp and we would have finished negotiations months ago and we could
just build a budget based on the melon. And I think that that's a little bit of the
challenge right now is it's a slight moving target. We've got some rough ideas of what
those costs are going to be. And we're trying to basically look at and balance that relative
to everything else that we're addressing right now. And I think that really the conversations
Today, we'll help inform and influence some of that, and that's part of the reason I made my comment earlier about the purpose and the value of mid-year also is that it may mean that
we'll just say in one scenario, maybe it's a worst-case scenario, maybe not, is that we hold back on new positions or filling vacant positions for a little bit longer to give us a little more salary savings and run away.
That's not common about not balancing the budget on the back of our current employees.
We wouldn't ideally bring in new employees through the door if we recognize in the fall
that we do have a budget gap, we need to basically be able to close that budget gap first and
then look at additional needs beyond that.
So that's why it's hard to answer Alicia's question directly, but I think we probably would
not hold a hard line on that, recognizing that there's a lot of variables in that decision
they can, I don't know if that answers that question.
And just one more point that I wanted to make too is that, you know, we are bargaining
with our employees, groups, our bargaining units, and we're also working with our board.
And we also know what our numbers are.
So, you know, there's lots of things that we can do with implementation of these things,
you know, putting them across multiple years to save the dollars or, you know, different
types of implementation.
We're not going to break the bane just to do what the class and comp says if it's going
to really affect how our budget is.
So we're thoughtful of that.
And I will just also say, I mean to everybody in this room and more broadly that, I mean,
it is important to us that we implement class and comp and that it really does benefit our
current employees.
I think Supervisor Kingsley said a lot, it's important for us to have a lean, well-paid
workforce.
And I think that that's the philosophy that we've taken into the class and comp, we're
taking into the budget.
And it is really important to me and the budget team and the negotiation team that we take
care of our current employees.
It's a little bit of a challenging thing to talk about in this environment because we're
in two active negotiations.
and so there's that component of both confidentiality
and some of the aspects of that which make it complicated.
But I've said across the negotiation table
that both bargaining teams that we care about the employees.
It's not about trying to hold people hostage
or otherwise hold things back,
but ultimately at the end of the day,
we've got to figure out how we can pay for this.
And that's the tug of war that's there.
I may be a little bit ahead,
but on the actual tables in the following slides,
there's a reference to CNC, which is class and comp,
and then also MNC, is MNC a reference to the MOU meet-and-confer.
Meet-and-confer, okay.
Yeah, and I will just say that that's another kind of interesting dynamic
that's here, you know, not to overwhelm the conversation anymore,
but there are multiple moving pieces that are being driven
by the class and comp study.
I talked about internal equity.
I talked about the job and assessment tool.
One other output that will come from this class and comp study will be job description
updates across the board, fundamentally our job descriptions are outdated and inconsistent.
And so we know that whether, I mean, it's something as simple as a title change or more complex
like, you know, minimum qualifications or job duties, all of those things will need to get
that there it is out through this whole process and again, we're probably not going to finish
that piece.
The job description piece is part of the entire bargaining process.
And so it will be iterative and incremental.
And so that's the reference around the meeting confer in some cases.
Some of that may happen outside of a bargaining or some of it may be for a unit that's not
open that we would have an impact to a job description change or a title change that would
just need to be talked through in a mean confer process.
To answer my questions, and I just have one comment maybe to tag after Alicia a little
bit.
Some of our departments may have position requests that we can't accommodate at budget, but they
have departments that perhaps only can efficiently get ahead on work in a seasonal time, for
instance, winter. So if there's a personal request in that department for winter, perhaps
October through March, waiting till mid-year, I could put that department significantly behind
on deferred maintenance and those kind of things. So I just would like that flexibility as well
and understanding everything you said, which I appreciate. So I just think it's important
to note.
And I think that I appreciate that point and I think it is valuable. I mean, I will just
say that we are really looking at a 10-1 date as a starting point for most of this anyway because
budget won't be adopted until the end of September. You know, that next payroll cycle is when a lot of
those changes would be able to go into effect. And so I do want to say that, you know, those add,
those position adds and changes that we've kind of said, let's put them out there at the end of
of the year, I didn't speak and say mid-year,
but really we're saying more January one.
I think we're not gonna take a hard line look at that.
I think we need to look at them on a case-by-case basis,
and if it makes sense.
If we can pay for it out of the non-general fund, if we're comfortable with all of those things,
we can wrap it in. So I think that that is a helpful fit of feedback.
I'll just mention too. We've spent money on this class and comp study. And I think it's important that you hear from the board that we want to implement it. We're not spending that money and then not using the data from it.
So the timing is horrible, you know, with budget and then negotiations, all coming together
with the class and comp study, but I do mean our board, I think I can speak for our board
when they say that we, as we go through this process, I think it's important for people
to know that we are committed to implementing the class and comp study so that our employees
are barely paid. I think that we have an ethical duty to do that. So it's a crapshoot.
You know, some people, it's all over the place and where what happens, but I think it's important
that we do that, so that we finish that job.
Now, how that works with the budget?
Yeah, it's tough, because we got to figure out
how to pay for it in our budget.
And hopefully the class and comp study
is we can implement it in a way that we can afford
and take care of our employees.
So I think that's the challenge.
And I just think it's important for people to know
that the board is not just sitting back and hearing from staff this this this we we are playing a role
and saying that's that's we want we want to get this done we want to get through this period
of a new budget and the class and comp study yeah
so the the next slide the class and comp
and reclass implementation I believe Nate already went through all of that so the next
as Anna jumped ahead. The next slide is a spreadsheet of the positions that have been
requested and I guess I would ask your board do you want to go through and look at each
one of these so you can ask questions so the departments can say, have input on each one
these?
Okay,
this is department requested. But the columns that are in there basically there's
sort of there's actually four different statuses and you'll see the recommendation on the right
that's from personnel and the budget team and really what I talked through earlier was the sequencing
or the implementation there of regardless of support kind of how we were seeing that that get
layered in. And if anybody doesn't have, there's more PowerPoints up front if anybody needs one.
Okay, so the first we have the assessor's department and they're requesting to delete one
appraiser position and add one administrative assessment analyst at a range 6870 or 72.
And in your cost estimates, do you just assume the highest number?
And this is coming, I mean, do you want to, do you want the departments to explain
why it's there because I'm just going through it and then if you have questions, okay.
So the next is the auditor controller and they are asking to add one administrative analyst,
reclass and reclass one of their office texts from an office tech to an
admin amelist one.
The clerk recorder they're asking to delete one clerk
recorder administrative assistant.
The coroner they have requested to increase
the salaries of the deputy coroners to with an additional $400 a month and
increase the coroners pay by $300 a month.
So
the coroner's the deputy
were increased two years ago and the request was just the, hey can you throw this in? So we need a little bit more justification and we've asked the corner to come forward multiple years in a row with some data for the board.
And so until we can get some of that and see what the case numbers are like that, it isn't supported at this time.
And that probably can't be part of the class study
can because nobody else has coroners.
Their contract employees are not actual regular employees,
so they are not part of that.
No,
she's aware.
So in the district attorney's office,
they are requesting to delete the vacant victim witness
assistance position and reclass the office clerk
that they have to a legal secretary.
Environmental Health. They're asking to delete one vacant environmental health tech and then
reclass one office tech to an environmental health technician.
Health and human services,
they are asking to reclass an APAR HHS specialist to an APAR peer support specialist,
reclass all of their HHS Specialist 2s to a single classification of HHS Specialist,
reclass all HHS Specialist 3s and 4s to Case Manager 1s and 2s,
reclass all of their office clerks to office techs,
reclass the office clerk supervisor
to an office manager and that's consistent with if the clerks go to text the office clerk supervisor would no longer make sense because they're not supervising clerks anymore.
What does that accomplish the reclassification of those?
So the office clerk classification was used when we were in multiple different offices and since consolidating those those clerks have taken on additional or have the potential, especially to take on additional duties as they're running the front office for a consolidated for the consolidated department overall.
learning multiple systems intake processes and so forth. It also aligns with the
classification for our front office technicians at the very front lobby for the
top. And is that in a weight position because we're waiting for class and
So
they are also requesting to reclass one office tech in their fiscal oversight and special operations division to an office manager.
They are asking to reclass the behavioral health social worker for psychotherapist positions to behavioral health clinician trainees and behavioral health clinicians.
They're asking to reclass one integrated case worker supervisor to a program manager.
They're asking to create a career ladder series for the employment and eligibility worker.
It's currently just a stand alone and they want to make it a one, two, three series.
And that's employment and training worker.
Sorry, thank you.
Add one administrative secretary,
reclass all of their social services aids from a range
60 to a 63, add one social worker to their APS division,
reclass the tobacco intern
from a range 42 to a range 46, and I'll add that that reclass is specifically to align
that position legally to our minimum wage, and show that we don't bump up against minimum
They're asking to delete several of their COVID positions.
They're unbudgeted all of the COVID that had COVID at the beginning of that.
They were term limited.
They are asking to delete all of those positions.
Delete one vacant A-par addictions counselor.
Delete one vacant office clerk.
Delete one vacant prevention specialist.
So in our libraries, they are asking to request it to add one librarian.
and add one seasonal librarian.
Planning is asking to reclassify one project
coordinator to administrative analyst.
Probation is asking to reclassify one
probation officer three to supervising probation officer.
Public works is
asking to add one senior engineer.
We were polling recommendations and from the
budget narratives and he didn't really explain that so we'll be asking for
more information and additionally it will be the class and comp study should hopefully
address it but if it doesn't then we can talk more about
it.
So in public works are asking to add one senior engineer, add one road superintendent, add
one LTC transportation technician, add one permit technician and reclass one gate attendant
to a solid waste maintenance worker.
Can you define an additional road superintendent?
How many are there now and what's the addition for?
Hello, um, micro-anti-plot works.
We don't have currently a position for road superintendent
that was a eliminated and previous administration
where they created a deputy.
So it'd be prevent to bring that road superintendent position back.
For what purpose?
Because right now we have the way it stops at form and there's a jump to deputy director
so we feel that we need a position in there to bring back a superintendent for the road
division.
Thank you.
Not currently supporting that senior engineer, is that because of contract or why?
So yeah, that one is it should have actually been probably a need more info as well that was a kind of hot off the presses discussion that happened yesterday and that there's active discussion around that position right now.
Ultimately we understand the business need it was a question about how the funding for that would would look and I think we're working through some clever concepts from public works right now.
and I think we'll be discussing that more in the coming weeks.
On the permit tech position, would that total cost be shared
with the City of Bishop, or would that?
That is the concept.
And I think that that one, you know, you could probably put
that dark orange color on and say need more info as well.
There's a few variables in that discussion
as a whole at the moment.
and ideally, yes, that position would be shared.
The cost of it would be shared.
We with the impending implementation of OpenGov
and streamlined permitting that should happen through that
and some of the other kind of moving parts
in the overall sort of shared division that that is.
We're continuing to look at what should the future really be
and look like for that.
At this point, we're just saying we don't support it because there's a few too many unknowns
that are there, but we do understand that there is a capacity question as a whole, and
that as that software is implemented and a few other pieces fall into place, certainly
we're open to re-evaluating and considering what's really needed there.
Let me move on.
So in the sheriff's department, they're requesting a reclass of one animal control supervisor from a range 64 to a range 70. The fund won. Frozen deputy position. To add one administrative analyst position. We're also asking to expand the reserve program by including a level one and a level two reserve position.
with additional pay for those positions
and add one animal control officer.
Because you're a tax collector's office.
I have a question back to the sheriff.
So it says support either this or on animal control
or on the administrative analyst or animal officer.
So is that mean basically the sheriff's department
has to prioritize those.
That's we do need to do some follow-up conversations with the sheriff but
yes that's what we are we are recommending at this point is to have that conversation saying we
can't support all of this so where do that where are the priorities? Because it says the same under
deputy and expansion of the reserve program.
Do you have questions for the sheriff on that or no?
I
mean, I'm assuming that if they're on here, she feels there's a need for them.
Yes.
So the reason that we were wanting to reclass the animal control supervisor,
we are actually wanting to reclass it to an animal services supervisor,
because currently Katie Bird is our animal control supervisor,
and she's performing both supervision of the shelter and of animal control.
So I believe that actually kind of creating a new position
in cutting her position and then keeping three animal control officers is really what we're
looking at. As you all know her job duties have kind of broadened over the last few years.
She's taken on more of a almost a law enforcement role with seizures and warrants.
It's really difficult for her to perform all of these tasks and supervise both the animal control
officers and the animal shelter. When it comes to the frozen deputy position last year,
when we made all the changes within our department, I unknowingly put a position instead of cutting
the title to a position. So we reduced our authorized strength by one deputy that was never my intention.
So we're asking to unfreeze that position to get back to where we were last year.
As far as the reserve program, we're currently utilizing our retarded nuisance to cover some
of our patrol also to cover bailiff duties.
Mike Ackins has brought in a level two reserve.
I don't know if you guys are familiar with that, but it's basically a new, um,
Somebody that wants to be a deputy, but doesn't really want to commit so they go to a kind of a modular academy.
When we brought her on, we noticed pay under the reserve program from, I think it was the 80s, was $16 an hour.
That's fairly minimum wage.
So we kind of wanted to tear that a little bit differently to kind of match the cost of living and the stay in age.
so that's why we're asking for these things. I think I answered everything. Do you have
any other questions regarding that? Oh yes. So right now we have very minimal support staff in
our office and that encompasses every division within our apartment. Right now I think we have
three office texts and an analyst. I've been paying the bills. So we have one of our office
texts working at a class doing analyst work. We also have the need with animal services and our
what is it? Civil. Civil. They have no support staff. So we are wanting to add an analyst
was positioning keep one of our office techs
provide support for animal services and for civil.
Well, I think it would manage grants.
So as you all know, that I added the grant
right or last year.
She's actually working really hard on that.
We've received one so far.
But I believe that this office tech could manage the grant
and the state reporting to those grants.
Welcome.
So a lot of this seems like it's
budget constrained and is say, say the expanding this reserve
program or paying for that. I mean, can you work that into your budget? In other words,
that you have now or is this, do we need to add? I mean, that's my question. Is this all,
So can it be within your budget or are we asking you need more money?
Some of our, a lot of these things that are wrong here aren't necessarily changing the budget.
They're reorganizing or re-organizing or using things different ways.
In this case, it's adding.
I believe that, well, this is going to be a work in project trying to build that program up anyways.
I think that our budget currently could sustain we only have one at this point.
So I believe, I believe now we could sustain that within our budget.
I think looking at it long term, we'd have to really look at the numbers.
Okay. I mean, I get it that we, we're trying to work with numbers.
And but then you're trying to work with what you need for your department and so hopefully we're able to find a way through that.
You guys negotiating together. I mean the board I don't think wants to get into a spot where we're directing necessarily changes but we do want to support all of the departments requests if we can.
So yeah, and we're we're still looking into other revenue sources last year with all our big changes
We found a lot of the revenue sources are self without using general fund monies
So we're continuing to do so so we're working towards that goal
Thank you, and I just want to recognize that you know the the requests from the sheriff's office came in there was a discussion during the budget process
As we're kind of working through things, you know, this was our sort of reaction
We did try to get together and have some of this discussion ahead of today and talk some of it through just schedules for what they were so this one is definitely still in the works sheriff now we're just talking this morning about sitting down so the thing is not dry on on any of this and I think the conversations are still happening.
Okay,
so Treasurer Tax Collector's Office, they're asking to reclass one office tech
to an admin analyst, administrative analyst, and reclass one management analyst to a senior
management analyst.
And then in the water department, they are asking to add one research analyst.
I do want to point out that the two positions that are
subject to consideration for reclass, we are in discussions about them actually being
new positions. And I also want to point out that in the Treasury and all of our employees
are probably 70 and recovered by the Treasury administrative fee. General Fund only pays their
share of the interest that's apportioned. So we do have a revenue source for those positions.
The reclass in my opinion is a bandaid and one of them the office tech to admin analysts
unfortunately our office techs at that time were vacant so they didn't participate in the classification
And therefore, I don't know if they would have any results.
Any questions or?
One question.
You know, when we're negotiating with you for different, no, for dollars and benefits.
I mean, we're thinking about the general fund.
You have to set aside money in the same way.
I mean, how does that affect you?
It feels like.
Well, there's a couple of things.
I think for the position request for.
Those are usually coming from a new funding or a new program that has to be implemented for the.
For the potential for increase in salaries due to negotiations.
We don't we're not necessarily privy to.
where we're added any given time but we do have fun balance that would accommodate changes.
Okay. And then also certainly it is impactful.
Right.
Taking a measured approach makes sense.
Yeah.
And then so much of your money comes in in.
Conscious from the state.
And I mean it feels like at least in the past you guys have had to try to adjust to what this.
how the state is giving you the money
and allowing you to spend it.
And so it does feel like
I always teach Maryland about constantly being reorganizing
and but that's the reality a little bit, is that true?
Yeah, it is absolutely true.
And thank you for asking that question
because it does look like we never quite know
what our stuff should look like,
but it was very much in response to,
So, you know, we have several new programs that are required to be implemented in a behavioral health, for example, we brought in a whole bunch of short term grant money during COVID.
Obviously, that was a big change in our in our workforce that we're still adjusting from. So it is almost always driven by new programming and new funding that's coming in or funding that's going away.
and and and readjusting what those positions would be doing because there's always something else coming down the pike in some cases and you and we discussed this a little bit here.
Some of this is really adjusting to, you know, the huge change of bringing eight different locations and just in Bishop for HHS together.
other and I'm sure other departments are experiencing this too and seeing what our
work does look different being in a consolidated building in Bishop and Loan Pine.
So some of that is adjusting to that and certainly hopes that the class and comp reflects
that, but because we don't have the results, felt it was important to put in the requests
from our perspective and then see how they match up.
Thanks.
Yeah, so the idea is to take a bit of a break maybe maybe we take a 10-minute break and then back we'll jump into the next section.
Well, let's come back at about 10 or about.
Come on back.
I
can't
even give my colleagues.
I just have a couple of introductory comments and then I'm going to
Turn it over to Megan. And really, those comments are aimed at first thanking the public works team and then recognizing Megan and Rebecca in the PMO team. You know, the project management office as most people know is a new thing here. And I know that there was a lot of uncertainty around how this was going to look and work and interface. And I think I think it's safe to say that we're already seeing the
value and some early success about essentially admin and the PMO team interfacing directly
with right now public works and many other departments in better understanding large projects
whether they're being carried out by an individual department or they're spanning multiple departments
and helping to reconcile, well first kind of recognize and then reconcile and bring kind
of some cross-departmental knowledge and subject matter
experience to bear as part of the budget team.
And so this is sort of the first foray
into this approach in the budget process for the PMO
and really grateful for Megan being back and being able
to step in and kind of serve in that capacity
through this process.
All right, with that, I'll jump right in to the 2425
deferred maintenance process. So Nate had asked the PMO to jump in, sit with public works,
and see what we could do to lend some transparency to the prioritization process for deferred maintenance.
It has become clear as we've sat with public works that there are projects flying in at them all
the time from all directions. Everybody's project is the most important project, and it's been fairly
chaotic. So our goal is to put really a framework around the prioritization process and build
out a prioritization, transparent prioritization criteria that you see before you today.
This is a first blush of going through existing and new deferred maintenance projects with this
prioritization criteria in mind. First, as we've heard from the board, a real goal to carry
over and finish projects from the previous year. Obviously, we often have emergent issues.
The jail wedding and jail water intrusion was an example from last year of an emergent issue.
So we need to always pay attention to funding restrictions and coming up, running up against
funding deadlines.
We have new rules and legislation coming out year over year with requirements around
ADA risk.
Right now there's a huge push for cooling and making sure that all of our buildings are
cooled to a certain degree. And so there's moving gold posts every year from risk and safety.
There's a goal to find ways of reducing the need to do constant maintenance or have high cost
items or high cost, high utilities costs, for example. So looking for projects that offer significant
cost savings or reduction in maintenance and then of course board priorities and things
that were specifically requested from the board.
So we do have different parts of funds that are available right now, L-A-T-C-F, general
funds, I think there's a little ARPA funds left, non-general funds and other funds so you'll
We'll see in the deferred maintenance list what project pot we've been pulling funding
from for new deferred maintenance projects, you'll see that we have not necessarily identified
the funding pot at this time.
We are also talking about potentially with a recognition that there are grant matches required
of 10 to 25 or even higher percentages as we start pulling down more grant funding
that is going to require a local match and local contribution in the future.
So we'd like to start thinking about setting aside a pot of money to use for
grant matches in future years. So those are kind of other other budget items to
in the back of your head as we walk through the many, many requests for projects that we have
for 24, 25. Starting on a high note, you'll see in front of you on slide 24 the 23, 24 completed
deferred maintenance projects and the public works team has been hard at work completing several projects
projects, or many projects that you'll see on this list.
You've got major projects like the design and engineering of the courthouse HVAC system,
a major work and remodel of the Bishop Senior Center, the emergency work on the jail and
the sheriff's admin building from the water intrusion, and then lots of little lifestyle projects
scattered in between new water fountains and door sweeps, etc.
And again, this is just deferred maintenance projects, the same team was running a muck answering little work orders and work calls for all the departments as well.
Megan, so is this entire list completed then?
This is the completed list, yes,
for the list of things that were completed last year, basically.
The following slides slide 25, you'll see the list of projects that were worked on last year but not completed.
So for many of those lists, for many of those projects, you'll see that there's an additional budget request for this coming year.
Some were already encumbered, but these are projects that according to the prioritization criteria,
which really prioritizes carryover projects and finishing open projects.
These are some of the priority projects for this year because they are carryover projects from previous years.
Some big ones to call your attention to or the animal shelter building.
A major remodel of progress house kitchen finishing up the jail and sheriff admin remodel and then obviously our favorite.
at the courthouse age back project.
So we will be recommending moving forward
on most of these projects
because they're carryover and meet the first criteria.
The following slides slide 26,
you'll see a list of new deferred maintenance requests.
So these are things that have come in
as we were preparing for the budget for this year.
Many of these do pass the prioritization criteria
at first blush. They are either ADA or they are a safety project. They help save maintenance
funds or they meet one of the other criteria.
And then there are some at the bottom you'll see in
red that are not prioritized and not recommended to move forward this year. So from public works and
the prioritization criteria screen these do not pass muster, but many, many do.
Is that in the current building? Not the one currently being built. Okay,
Sheriff Di, thank you.
Are there any other questions on the on the deferred maintenance
prioritization criteria? Everything that's on there right now are things that could move forward
for the prioritization criteria. It does not mean they are funded. It does mean that they
will be evaluated for funding by the budget team.
So I'm curious about the jail laundry facility.
Why we wouldn't want to put,
why we wouldn't want to put that on the list.
Because it wasn't the plan to purchase
laundering equipment so that the guests could generate income.
So wouldn't that need plumbing and electrical?
We did put it into our budget and it was funded by the CCP to purchase the equipment to move forward with doing laundry services for the county with our inmate incarcerated person to work crews.
That was halted because our plumbing system would not sustain a commercial washer.
So I feel like this project would pay for itself once it's completed.
So you have the funding to purchase the equipment, but you can't because we're not funding the plumbing redo.
I wouldn't say necessarily it's not funding the plumbing redo.
My understanding is there is a lot of work that needs to be done on the plumbing and
electrical for the jail in order to make this reality, and it's not off the table for
the future, but we're talking about a major multi-year project that if we want other projects
to get done, that one is going to be a major time suck.
In addition, I think there's a lot of outstanding questions around the concept and that not
that we disagree with the concept or it's a bad concept, but for example, transport
of laundered items up and down the county is another example of outstanding questions
that haven't been worked out yet.
So, it's not to say it won't move forward, there is just still outstanding issues to be worked
through between the Sheriff, Admin, and Public Works
capacity. So is there a limit, a time limit on when you'll be able to
purchase that equipment with those funds?
We have the the funds to
purchase it now. We've been holding off on that
based on the plumbing issue. So we're ready to move forward whenever the plumbing is
repaired.
So I hope that was going to be my question. There's no
So we're not going to have to pay that money back.
There's no time limit on that funding.
No, so the funding is criminal justice re-alignment.
And so we get an annual allocation each year.
And so we're just trying to spend some of that money.
There's a large fund balance.
So those funds are ours and they're not going anywhere for now.
So, but those funds are included in the fund balance though.
Or they held set.
They're in an interest.
Yeah, okay, we'll clarify that.
So basically, they're there until we get around to it.
Yeah, and I just want to reiterate, we support the concept of this.
I mean, we have issues with laundering all through departments.
Any, you know, within our public works department within Ag and mosquito.
There are a lot of need for this, and we do agree that there likely would be a cost savings.
But I think as Megan said, accurately, not only is the infrastructure aspect of this.
It's needing to get worked through and implemented, but we need to build a people, a human system
around it as well.
We've got to figure out how that is going to work, and so it is conceptually supported.
We just need to work through some of the rest of the pieces of it, and it doesn't mean
that it's off the table.
And definitely, we just felt like given everything else that was going on right now, we probably
weren't going to get all the way through that this year anyway.
and so we're just keeping it on the list and deferring it for a year.
So realistically we could see this in action next year then?
I don't want to commit to that given all of the other pieces that are here
but I think we will continue to look at all of those kind of preconditions
and other, I mean there's basically projects that need to lead up to this project as well
and so the extent that we can start to solve some of those other questions
I would definitely like to see this project go through, so I would like, I don't want to see it removed from the list in any means and pushed and pushed and pushed until it just disappears.
Yeah, and I'll reiterate, we're not removing any projects from the list anymore. That's one of the other big changes with respect to embedding these types of requests within the PMO as we sort of have this living system.
of concepts and you know this is one of those that does make good sense and we just need to
continue to balance it with capacity within public works and all the other things that are out there.
One other question I had was to clarify what remote control bad readers and what is that?
What is it for?
Why is it?
High priority. And what will it accomplish?
Yeah, the, the, the, the, the, the, this is the Bishop Consolidate Office Building has 26 different badger readers inside the building. They're each manually programmed individually. So if we need to add or remove a person because we hired a person or because we, a person is left to employ the county, we need to go to these doors one by one, 26 and add or remove the person. The upgrade is to have
remotely controlled bad readers which can be controlled from single PC so that we can make
these changes without having to walk around. The building, the second advantage is they
are battery operated and the only way we know if a battery is low is if there's a report
to us that there's beeping from the thing. With the remotely controlled ones we will get
a proactive notification from the bad reader, batteries low please replace it so we'll be
able to stay on top of that.
If they're controlled by a single PC, who has that PC?
There would be two PCs, one in Independence and one in Bishop.
So we have redundancy in terms of locations
and in terms of people.
The system is able to be replicated.
So let's say the PC is damaged or fails to start one day,
we're able to, the database is outside of that PC.
You see, so we're able to load that database on a different PC.
And what is the, is that a secure system?
It is.
And it's the, in fact, the same one that is being used that the airport and it's been
approved by the TSA for, for that level of security.
Thank you.
More questions about the.
I want to, I want to just add one other point really quick, which going back one slide
to the recommended projects for carryover, you'll know that all of the projects on the list
with the exception of six are active and at some different state.
Some of those have an encumbrance associated with them and some of them are being re-budgeted
or additional funds are being added.
And you know, in terms of, and I'm not saying that we're here, but just in terms of budget
priorities for us, we would, if we could
not fund all of the new project requests coming forward in this year, we would start with
these carryover projects and the ones that are active at least. And then in terms of other
new projects that have popped up, you know, if there's one that rises above one of the others
that has not been started from a previous year, you know, we would look at that basically as a priority.
So, that is sort of the lens that Megan was speaking to at the front end was finish what
started and then basically take on new work into the budget process in the
work you softly.
One second Linda, I'll just say this is the most clear display
of our projects that we've had and it's appreciated that we may not agree with
every, you know, where everything is or how everything is, is, you know, happening. I mean,
obviously we all look, especially us, look to see, you know, we want to make sure our
constituents are being served. And, but this at least gives us the opportunity to look at it
and say, okay, this is what we're working on. And I appreciate that. I think this is way
work clearer than I've we've had before and I really appreciate it.
There's
some here that I want to argue about but I'll argue with you later. I actually have one
more question just for clarity. I think you touched on this Megan. $100,000 for indoor
heat illness prevention? What is that? So that is there is new legislation as of this year that I
might get the numbers wrong. I wish Erin was here to correct me, but I believe that we can't have
anyone working in a building that is more than 85 degrees. So we need to be keeping our there's a lot
of buildings that we have that don't have adequate HVAC systems. So indoor heat illness prevention program
is a first attempt at starting to make our temperature control in all of our
facilities that have employees meet these new legislative departments. Does
that include workshops and warehousing and everything? But $100,000 is not
going to get us all the way there. So we're we're beginning to and you said that's new legislation.
You happen to know what legislation that is. I'll talk to my head. Did you send that to me please?
I'll talk to Aaron about. Oh, is Aaron's on? Aaron can speak to it then much more eloquently than I.
Hi,
everybody, Aaron Humbert, risk manager, yes, there's a new Cal OSHA regulation that
passed and came into practice about a week ago, actually.
And so what we did is over the, during the heat wave, I did a study of all our facilities,
Um, everywhere that we have, uh, employees working indoors. I did a study, uh, measuring the temperature indoors where they're working and identified the workplaces where, uh, we have employees that are working where those locations are, uh, above the threshold indicated in those, uh, above the threshold.
indicated in the new legislature rigs and that 100 grand that is being requested is to help us resolve those few locations and those are, those are principally shops and you're correct.
I'm
just going to tell the thank you.
Oh, yeah.
Trenus says thank you.
The I just was going to note just for general interest that that applies to business as well.
And I'm getting complaints from business owners, particularly resort operators on public lands because there was a corresponding federal executive order from the president requiring outdoor workspaces.
So you have campground concessionaires, guides, what not, having to figure out how to implement
the same thing.
So I understand it's a big undertaking that we'll have to go active, but we'll start on
it.
I'll also add that is the extension of this, you know, we are looking at all of our facilities
for heating and cooling, recognizing that we've got warming centers and cooling centers.
This year in particular in the summer, we recognize that a couple of those cooling centers
don't have backup power to actually operate the cooling center when power goes out.
And so we are taking a comprehensive look at that aspect of this as well.
Some of those luckily are the same facilities, meaning we have staff in them that we need
to check this indoor heat-owns box on, but they also serve that other function.
but this is it is one of those identified priorities especially in you know
this communities without any other option.
Linda did you have a question in
somebody get Linda Mike? I wanted to ask a question about the
screen okay I had a question about the cottonwood killings I was out there I don't
a year or two ago and I kind of floating out there on the edge of the lake via who is responsible
for those and this looks like a I think a $10,000 item is there a non-profit volunteer group
that might actually do the cleanup, so it doesn't get stuck on the deferred maintenance list for
a number of years when it's like probably a project that could be done in a couple days,
for example. I don't know. So it's just more a question and I have a personal experience with seeing
it and it's a historical structure. My recollection is it's a goby. There is some kind
of a roof over it to kind of help slow down ravages of time and whose and whose ballpark
is this item? Thank you. So it's my, Mike, do you want to speak to that?
Well, I'll attempt to, yeah, a while back when I first started here, it was a project
that was conceived with no money and all volunteers. Friends of the Museum were
going to volunteer, a portion of it, a coastal volunteer, a portion of it, engineering
volunteer, a portion of it. So we were able to get it constructed, and of course,
First, unprecedented winds came and took it down.
The news avoided hitting the kiln so blew the debris well off and throughout the land
there, which is, I think, is mostly DWP property, yes.
So yeah, we've been wanting to clean it up, and so we were trying to work something out
with L.A.
And then the floods came and we got put on the back burner.
I agree with you.
I went out to the other day is like, yeah, we've got to get this cleaned up.
We just have a figured out exactly how to pay for this and who's going to do solid waste
because we can do some participation, maybe road, but that's where we need the funding
to remove the debris and then have to visit somebody how it's going to get rebuilt to
answer
a question.
Well, I'll just want to mention, you know, this is one of, this is kind of the result of really
good intentions and unintended consequences all coming together at the same time.
So it took us a number of years to figure out how to get some money and some funding
and then people to do this and got the structure done, it was really well-intended and then
it got destroyed.
So I hope we can get it cleaned up but there are some lessons learned.
in doing things like this, at least it is for me, is to really be thoughtful and maybe
more methodical about how we're going to engage to do a good project like that.
It was sort of, I think, not sure the engineering was really as thorough as it should have been,
But we got a structure up over the over them and then this happens so anyways
I you know, I I'll just say that I think I hope we can figure out a way to get it cleaned up
And if there's a volunteer group that wants to clean it up. Maybe we can
Get with them and and have them do it. I don't know if the is the friends in the museum still
I don't think they're in that in that space to do cleanup that kind of thing
They might be they might be willing to help pay for it
or something like that, although, you know, they pay, they help pay to put the thing up, so I don't
know, they want to spend them, so they can clean it up or not. But, at any rate, it is, it, it,
it, there's, there definitely is some lessons learned. I know, I think I was a pain to, probably,
to the, to, to engineering in trying to get the thing done. And then, you know, now I need to be
get paid to get it cleaned up, but anyway.
I think this really speaks to everybody's got these pet projects that are really, really
important to them.
And we tried to land on some prioritization criteria.
This project did not meet that prioritization criteria.
I don't know that we have the prioritization criteria perfect.
Maybe there is something about being an eye sore or around an artifact or something that
needs to be added to that.
But it's somewhere at some point we need to land somewhere so that not every project has to move forward immediately.
And this is where we landed for this year.
And that being said, if it's a board priority, it can be a priority.
Are we done with this portion of the presentation?
I just can't not make one more comment.
I want to beat the jail laundry to death.
Because we have in the green that we're going to do, we've allotted $60,000 for jail landscaping.
But we're denying a $30,000 for electrical employment that has a lot of benefit to it.
So, in case I wasn't clear, I want to say this is a priority for me.
I understand it may not get done this year, but it does need to move forward.
and if we can spend money on the...
Landscaping? We can do plumbing. I can answer that a little bit here. So there was a new legislation that came out this year. I don't know the assembly bill off the top of my head. They basically required any business that used, um,
to put a little bit of water to water their landscape,
they needed to stop, which it's kind of twofold too.
One of the reasons why we had the water intrusion
in the admin center was because of the sprinkler system,
as well as the weather.
So we have, we have conformed to the new legislation.
We're no longer watering the grass, we're going to a dry escape.
So that's why we're requesting the $60,000 for that.
but I do have a solution maybe possibly for the counts.
We do have an inmate work crew that can probably go out
and help with that just to make everybody happy.
And then maybe we can look at the plumbing and bartering here.
I'm definitely hearing the prioritization of the plumbing.
I don't know that that 30,000 is for the plumbing,
or if it's just for the equipment, or what,
we'd have to, I've got to dig into that number a little bit.
But it seems to me that new plumbing and new electrical might run a little higher than
that if we were to actually look at it.
Fortunately, it's not so much the water, it's the sewage, it's the discharge.
So I also just want to say that one of the other pieces of logic with respect to prioritizing
the landscaping, there were a couple of them.
One was the money that was allocated last year to finalize or sorry to address the water
intrusion issue, we anticipated it costing more than it actually did.
And so we were able to utilize some of the savings from that to carry out and complete
other projects that had been on the list for the jail and admin building at the sheriff's
department for years. And so the second piece of logic that was there was rather than moving
on to another facility, we thought it'd be logical to try to complete just about everything
we possibly could at that one facility so that it was done, we could move on and say we're
good. We don't, we'll put this back on the CIP and a facility's maintenance program, but
the big pieces that need to be done there have been addressed, and we basically got that
facility up. So this other project, I do agree, it has value and it's important and we're not losing
track of it. But that was the rationale and the landscaping, kind of just knitting the thing tight
together in this chair for an reason. There was another demand that was on top of that.
Okay, what's next?
All right. This is the fun one.
So we've also had a lot of interest in looking at how we can
and beautify and improve our parks and campgrounds.
We've got a new parks manager in place since last year,
and there's a lot of energy around parks
and campgrounds right now and trying to see what we have,
see what it would take to improve them for the public.
So, you'll see on the slide before you slide 27,
and the 2425 department requested projects for parks.
There's a lot of other things that have been requested
for parks, but this is really the project element
that people would see if you were going to go
to a park and or a campground in New York County.
What the department requested for the parks
and campgrounds is really kind of on par
with what it has been in previous years.
that is we are being frugal. We are repairing things that break. We are fixing up things that
exist and we are doing what we can to keep them functional but maybe not necessarily as beautiful
or pristine, as some would want. So, on slide 27, you'll see what was requested by the
department to kind of continue the status quo at the parks and campgrounds. A small tree
trimming contract to take care of some widow makers, some new fire rings, repairing existing
wouldn't picnic tables repairing some bridges that are out of repair and doing a little bit of repair
on the gazebo's at Millpond and Mendenhall Park. At the request of Admin and some board members,
the park department has put together kind of an upgrades list looking at some of those similar
projects kind of reasonable projects, but if we were to do an upgraded version of what the
status quo would be what would we be looking at, one thing that came up was upgrading to concrete
picnic tables. Instead of spending $7,000 a year fixing some portion of our wooden picnic
tables that get chopped up every year, we could start the process of moving to concrete which is
basically impervious. People can't move them, people can't chop them up, fire wood or throw them in
the lake or do one of the other mystifying things that people want to do with picnic tables.
We could up that tree-trimming contract to take care of some trees at both Spain-Hour
and Baker Creek, up to $35,000 and then a recommendation to kind of keep a free-trimming
contract every year for the future so that we could get a handle on the tree's situation.
There is talk of replacing our existing bridges at Tenamaha Independence Creek and Baker Creek with aluminum bridges that take no maintenance and just stand by themselves and you just buy them and wouldn't need annual repairs.
There is a $20,000 option to upgrade the gazebos at Millpond and Mendenhall Park by doing
some more significant repairs, doing a deep pressure washing, sanding them down, repainting
them, and repairing all the picnic tables that was recommended by our staff as being something
that could really make the parks glow and be something that the public would see really
obviously. Megan was on the gazebo's, has there been any conversations about actually replacing them
with materials that don't require maintenance and use, you know, because there's a lot of different
materials now, pressurized wood. What's that one that they use for decks? Yeah, the tracks, you know,
something similar that wouldn't require has that conversation or that
costing been done. Not in the month that I've been back but you guys want to
talk to that a little bit? We're aware that wood is not the best products we are
looking at. What products are out there as you mentioned there's the
tracks there's different types we will be looking at what is available cost and
maintenance is a big thing so we don't have pet yours maintenance so we will be talking about what materials that can incorporate.
I think we're on the same track a lot of what we have been talking about is ways that we could reduce the maintenance requirement so that our staff are free to do additional beautification.
I just know one of the conversations around the California jobs first funding is revitalization of those areas.
So if we have those numbers ready, we might be able to plug that in.
Thank you.
There is a potential to add a second vault toilet for Diaz Lake,
which really could use more toilets and save up to $10,000 on shipping by sending with our current order.
I think the current vault toilet is not planning on coming.
They're not planning on shipping till December.
So there is potentially a little more time that we could add a second toilet onto that.
If we wanted to, the parks department has requested two of these, I find out relatively low cost, only $45,000 of moors.
These Ventrac moors that I know they've been, the parks department has been trying them out with some testers and things are going well, liking it.
And adding some additional tools, I guess a socket and wrench that disappeared from
Millpond about four years ago hasn't been replaced yet, and trying to buy the park's
department some additional tools that are much needed to do this maintenance, do some
building repairs, steel door, sheet metals to protect wooden walls that are being damaged,
lumber lighting, there's the option to not just do a $1,000 hand rail for ADA.
on the loan pine gazebo but then to connect it with actual ADA sidewalks for 25,000 and then I thought was a cool idea and outdoor shower at Diaz Lake, cheap and easy for only $2,000.
So that's your upgrade wish list.
The next slide.
I would respectfully request that we put the tools not in the wish list but in the regular budget.
And I mean, it's a general budget discussion for, you know, we've heard it for the building and safety crew and, you know, it seems like all of our shops should have the tools that they need and it seems like a pretty small investment.
Thank you for that.
And I would just make a comment about this list.
I mean, obviously there's probably an order at which things can happen
and it can't all happen at once.
But in terms of the wish list, especially with some of the smaller items,
but also with the Ventrac Moors.
I mean, Megan, you mentioned earlier, you said it really well.
Things that are costing us more to maintain than they are just to replace.
And I think that's an issue here in parks.
and between our parks trust fund and I did a quick add up this is what 300,000 or something
and I think we have a lot of that in our parks trust fund already. What do we have in our
parks trust fund?
240. I would I don't know how you want to do it budget-wise but I would I would also
respectfully request that we move this from our wish list to let's get it done as is appropriate
time wise and with staff and crew and to accomplish because I think I just I'm gonna go out there and
say that our parks have been ignored a bit and it's time to really take some effort and some love
towards our parks and so if there's any way I could encourage some prioritization of those items
from wishlist to let's do it.
I believe when that funding was first set aside it was specifically
set aside for improvements, but if your board is open to improvements, equipment, we can transfer the money in for, you know, whatever you want to, I think when it was originally set aside, there was a specific projects that you guys wanted to see, but nobody there was no clear direction on what those projects were going to be, and so why the money still sitting in the trust.
is what you know why it's still there?
Well, I would defer to the department as well there,
but I do think that at this point,
we have maintenance issues that have become greater
than improvements or we need improvements too,
but we have maintenance issues that are desperate.
We saw all the park kids or all the school kids
from big coin in here in May and, you know,
they're getting splinters and they're kidding.
There's a lot of issues.
So I think we're all open to transferring,
using the money and as long as you're a board supportive of it. That's why you
know this is a great discussion so if equipment is on you know list and you
guys are happy to fund that with that trust and I guess I would just say
equipment is part of it but when I look at the wish list we have some clear safety
issues with the bridges and I would maybe throw out two other things for
consideration we're talking about making you said it really well we have an
ADA gazebo, but no path to the, so we have the same thing in
in Mendon Hall now, where we have the ADA accessible
restrooms, but the path to them, which was where you could
drive in, has now been blocked off because at least that
the school had went back to DWP. So there's no access to
actually get to the ADA restrooms, and that's a problem. If you
want to go careening across the grass and the old playground
stuff, I guess maybe, but it's probably not great. And then
Then the other thing I would add is, I saw it somewhere in here that's, oh, okay, the
the vault toilets, I saw it somewhere in here, basically the Honeywagon, that, okay, yeah,
so Diaz, like, no, I guess I was thinking to send else, but there's somewhere on here
I saw where we had a need, our employees are running to Diaz, like, to pump RVs, I'm
not quite sure how that's working.
But what has been noted in this wish list
is that we don't have an RV dump station
between Lone Pine and Bishop.
And I can tell you where our viewers and visitors
are dumping.
They're going from Tinamaha to Boost,
all these different campgrounds pulling out on our roads
and dumping.
So I've got a real issue here.
And I know that I think I'd seen it in the wish list
where if we can where do they see this it's on the slide 29 major project option yeah there you go
yeah, and basically
Our staff is accepting calls to run down to Diaz to pump, but if we could somehow put a dump
station in at Diaz, so employees weren't having to run down there, and then have the employees
available and maybe advertise it a little bit, I get calls all the time from, well, even
from North County, where do we dump, where do there's nowhere to dump and somebody's dumped
around Valley Road or so or Pine Creek Road or Baker Creek Road. It's sorry to bring that up but
it's a fact.
Yep and that so that does bring us to the next slide which is kind of the big big
projects. Oh sorry. Well I'll just tag on to the dump station. I think some places are doing there's
there's dump stations that you have to pay and and that they're not total loss you know once you get
it in so upfront the money and then and I think people are willing to pay a little bit if there
is one. And this goes in Lombine, you know, there's no dump station for telecreate campground,
portageo campground, Lombine campground with portal campground. There's a ton of campgrounds that there's,
You know there is no dump station for and I don't know if they're allowing it at Boulder Creek
They might be they're charging for it, but I'm not even sure on that anyway
I think it's 25 bucks a double there when we're respectfully requesting things
I'm going to respectfully request that we throw away the the picnic tables behind the courthouse
And buy new ones that are that are actually nice and and that you don't get splinters on from those either
So just
as long as we're talking about picnic tables.
You guys are really dreamin' this year.
I like it.
A bit of a pet peeve.
I mean, it's embarrassing.
We go meet with L-A-G-W-P commissioners
and go have lunch on the picnic tables
that you can't sit on parts of them.
I mean, they're anyway.
Respectfully, yeah.
Well, yeah.
And as long as we're talking about dump stations,
I do try to encourage private sector,
but it's almost like the landfills.
If you get the rates too high,
people just aren't going to. So it's one of those situations where there is a
private, there is some private sector options but they're just trying to
cover their costs and I think we need to supply dump stations. So noted yeah
there are there are a lot of nice to have on the major project options list. I'm
definitely hearing that a dump station is a priority. I would agree with that.
No
questions, concerns or any more discussion about I haven't really walked through the major
project options slide.
You can see on there these are these are big dollar big ticket items, things that would
be beautiful, wonderful to have, $1.2 million in beautifying mill pond.
I think all of us would love to see that but these are things to save for.
So this is kind of once we get our ducks in a row with our upgrades wish list and our concrete
picnic tables and our day-to-day together these are things we can shoot for.
I think you're right on track track with that. Let's take care of our critical maintenance
and upgrade issues and then then we need to start figuring out how to prioritize our
our major project dreams. But I would think that yeah it's up to the the borders of
I guess, but at some point, as we start to prioritize these, these would be a good use of LACTF funds.
And yeah, I think they would because these would be citizen facing improvements where citizens could see the benefits of those funds that would improve the facilities they use.
So I think that would be a discussion or workshop for as we go along, but yeah, I like how you've done this.
Yeah, so I think that the upgrade wish list seems totally reasonable and doable to me,
and if we have money in the trust fund to do that, that makes sense.
And I agree that I think the LATC F is the money that we have talked for a long time,
that a third of that money would be for public facing improvements and I've been advocating for a
while for more sports fields and improve parks and you know we've been talking about it for a
very long time with the State of the Parks study that we did and you know we've had the list and I
think we've had the prioritization for a while and you add up all of the numbers in the major project
looks up for the variables because we don't know what those are. But you know, that is completely
within the amount of money that we have and the LATCF. So I think these are priorities that
we should make now when we look at both the lighting project and the ball field improvements project
at Millpond. The last three years we've had impacted sports field usage for youth sports definitely,
But also for adult sports, you know, it's been growing and that's a good thing and that's what we want to support and so I would advocate that as much capacity as we have within both the GMO and within the parks department that that we should be looking on moving forward.
This year with these as many of these projects as we can.
So
I agree with that statement that Supervisor Griffith just made.
I've been advocating since I was elected or more sports fields are
youth.
If we don't invest in our youth, then who are we investing in in our young adults?
We need to invest in them.
Our sports fields need help.
along with our parks. Our parks need a lot of help. They need work. If we can use our LATCF money to get these projects done, we can use our trust to get these maintenance projects done, then we need to do it.
The 10-year soccer team last year was from Lompine, the one that the vision.
So it's, no, I'm just saying, soccer is now done for the whole county in Bishop on
the sports field.
So there was like 886 kids that played soccer in Bishop last year.
So it's it's it's a needed it's a needed investment. So I think we need to look at that very carefully and move forward.
So appreciate those comments and I sort of want to react with a question, well a thought and then a question and then get just a little more understanding of whether there's.
general support. And I think that there's one of the things that we've talked about consistently
throughout the budget process within the PMO with public works is that I think there's
two fundamental considerations with any one of these projects. The first is funding and
the second is capacity. And I think we are in a very lucky position with respect to LATCF
that we probably can fund a lot of things, but we don't necessarily have an endless amount
of capacity out there to get things done. So we have been kind of going back and forth.
I mean you saw that with respect to the deferred maintenance list and other special projects.
And I think the same sort of lens and thought process is appropriate with regard to
the parks investments fully agree. Parks have been overlooked for years and we're in a position
where I think we can move some of these initiatives forward. I do believe that maintenance should
and come first before new efforts, especially when we, as an organization, public works specifically, are responsible for carrying out that maintenance and what level of capacity exists if we can't contract that workout should be taken into account.
I think that's a very appropriate first sort of lens, if you will.
I think any ADA or risk issues should be a very appropriate next lens in terms of replacing playground equipment.
I mean, that's a forward leaning effort that also checks the other box of, you know,
like we were just discussing with Mendenhall, so that makes great sense.
I think health and safety components like the dump station.
You know, I think that that helps us prioritize some of the, I guess,
more backward looking things that are out there.
So I think that I'm seeing nodding and support generally around that level of logic,
which we can use in coordination with public works to help prioritize some of these things.
So I'm going to kind of pivot and ask a couple of other questions associated.
So one is in, I think we're going to lean on the trust to the extent that it is appropriate
to do so for some of this stuff.
We're just talking about the potential use of other funding like geothermal money that is
not touching LITCF, and I think to the extent that we can do that, we would do so to try
to get more projects into the queue.
But I think I'm hearing support to draw on LATC up
where appropriate to fund some of those sort of
needed improvements that kind of clear those bars.
And I just want to see if there's alignment around that
for not even looking at the major project investments,
but to kind of get us caught up.
Is that...
I guess I'll just say yeah,
I think you framed it really well.
I think the critical maintenance, as Megan put,
when she, one of the lenses is things
that are costing us more to maintain now
than if we just buy and replace new,
like the mowers and the tractor and things like that.
When you guys are spending half a day,
just trying to get it fixed, to get it running,
those kinds of things.
I think those are appropriate uses of whatever.
But I do think, and I fully agree with what
supervisors have said with regards to the major project options, I just think that you're
you're framing it correctly when you're saying there's those critical ADA and maintenance
things that need to go first and then some thought into how where do we have project partners
on these major project options. We may have project partners in some of these areas and you mentioned
other potential funding sources like geothermal but I think that just requires a bit of thought.
But fully, fully in support, but just a bit of thought with a prioritization on those
critical playground things, safety things, assessing the bathrooms things, a dump station,
those kinds of things.
So, love all these projects on here, just others are more critical, I think, at the very
in some moment if capacity is the issue.
So thank you for that comment because that was sort of the next branch of the question
that I was going to ask is that I do believe we have some catch-up work to do and maybe
before we look at a $1.2 million investment, for example, at NILPON, we should look at some
of these other catch-up things assuming the capacity doesn't exist to do it all this year
right now, but I do think that the first one on that list, the Bishop Park Lighting Project,
is a request that came to us from the city of Bishop in a couple of different passes, where we do
have a partnership there. There is a significant investment going into that, and they have basically
asked us if we would be in partnership for a small portion of that project, where it actually doesn't
require capacity, it just requires a contribution of funds. That's something that I think could
be brought or executed this year. But I think there needs to be some buy-in from your board about
actually bringing money to bear in that one.
Thank you for bringing that to light because
that was going to be my next question is we have a partner there that we could just
agree with to bring field six forward and just fund their they're going to do all the work.
so that doesn't bear anything on our staff to do and I agree with your statement that our maintenance needs to and our forward projects need to get done first before our prod these prod major projects to put any more burden on our staff.
The playground equipment would I think would come next because that is a safety issue to the children that play on that equipment.
So
I
don't disagree with anything that's been said so far, but as I am always ever cautious when we're spending one time funds.
I would ask that we not make a decision on this today, but that staff would bring back
a fully developed, I
guess, prioritization, but also in contrast with the strategic plan
that we have worked so hard because there's a lot of one time funding on that strategic
plan and before and I'm not saying that parks are not important I'm not saying
that they're not in need they are but to supervisor roger's point we do
Have partners. I think we need to exhaust every other avenue of funding for anything before we go to those, because LATCF is truly one time funding and when it's gone, it is gone. So, you know, and that was the point of that strategic plan and the point of laying that over these budget discussions. So I would ask that that be brought back to us as a fully developed item before we come back.
commit the money?
Yeah, and I appreciate that comment.
And to be 100% clear, that's exactly what today was for was
to throw everything on the table,
have some basic discussion, get some ideas and feedback,
which I think you've done a great job of providing us
some of the lens is for prioritization.
And then as we build the budget,
that is essentially what we would be doing
is bringing back a recommendation based on what we heard,
based on what we hear from public works
in terms of capacity being able to actually execute things, some of the other ideas that
were thrown out today by the budget team including one that was just kind of whispered in my ear
about maybe a park's capital improvement fund and actually moving from that trust to something
that is more forward leaning. So we will, I think with a lot of the comments made today, be able to
shape that a little more carefully and thoughtfully and bring back some recommendations to you that
will basically be in the form of the CIO recommended budget.
I was going to say similar is that you're hearing from the board an interest in parks and
I think we've done a number of years we've talked about this and I do think, you know,
we don't, doesn't have to be, let's just start lobbing off some of these if we can.
I think that's, and come back to us, I'll just mention one other thing, I don't know where
the DSLate grant, the CalTrans grant, it isn't displayed anywhere, but it is, there's, I
don't know, a million and a million half or something out there to do that, and I hope
we, that's a funded project, I hope we keep it going, and then I'll just, one other thing
that sometimes falls through here is we do have a park out in Southeast County in Chishon,
that, you know, is rough at best, and it would be nice to think about maybe some improvements there as we think about all of these improvements.
I'm not saying necessarily any one thing, but don't forget.
Yeah,
I think rustic is the term for tocopa.
I'll be a little more forward leaning on this just in that like we identified parks as a
need for both deferred maintenance and improvements a decade ago and we have you know repeatedly put fun balance when we had access fun balance we have dedicated some of that to parks.
We went through the extended state of the park's planning process to identify what the
needs are and the potentials are, and I've heard and I think other supervisors have heard
over and over again about the need for these sorts of improvements, and we said that a big
chunk of the LATCF is one time funds that can be used towards forward facing benefits to
the public and parks are a great way for that. So I agree that obviously we need to go through
a fully fleshed out process with this, but I would like to see benefits this year that we could
show up to the public and say here is something nice.
Daniel, get busy. You need to get on out there.
I don't know why you're sitting here.
I think this is, it's very, it's helpful conversation and just hearing that there's
sort of alignment around a handful of these things. I do really, you know, I want to acknowledge
Daniel and public works team as a whole for helping not only take, we had a number of sort of forward
leaning initiatives that came in through the strategic planning process that were right spots
that multiple people latched on to and I think is, you know, public works has sort of gotten
a little more capacity and looked at this. I think the lists that were produced by them
helped sort of rationalize it a little more broadly. And I think, you know, we all recognize that
there is a need there. And I just want to, you know, recognize Supervisor Orals comments as well.
I mean, there was a number of references to parks and community infrastructure as a whole
and strategic plan.
It is one of many other verticals that are there.
And so we are not turning a blind eye to any of that and also recognizing that parks
is the one thing that kind of all supervisors said we should put some effort toward.
There's an internal recognition of that as well.
And so it kind of got a little more attention this year and it's not meaning that other things aren't going to get attention as well, but.
I think that was sort of how we arrived at this conversation specifically.
Yeah, I agree with everything it's been said and thank you for that and I agree with Supervisor oral and yeah, we all want to prioritize parks.
I think we all want to see, especially those one time funds go to benefit our citizens as much as possible.
But I do think there's caution and keeping those maintenance things that have been identified
as five priority funds now, but the wish list items, which I think we all support, are
there other partners in Scott's mentioned the city, of course, that's a good one, but other
resources of funding, you know, LWCF, you know, built some of Millpond and Bishop Park and I believe there's a longer term lease on Bishop City Park. So perhaps there's some funding opportunities there as well to help kind of enhance what we have with LACTF.
But anyway, the one thing I did want to say, I think I just heard was I think there's a need of a few years back where established was it a capital improvement or a deferred or a depreciation funding for solid waste.
for equipment. And I think that I just hear that. I think we need to do something similar, whether it's for equipment or what not for, for parks, maybe other public works.
Yeah, everywhere roads. Maybe there's already that. But I mean, the idea that equipment needs to be replaced or upgraded when it wears out and having a capital improvement or depreciation fund that we put some money into makes some sense.
So have that out there too, and our thoughts.
Thank you, everyone.
And I do want to call out our public works team,
who have spent a lot of time and a lot of hair pulling,
coming up with these lists and giving the background
and where we are on all the projects.
So it's been a huge lift for them on top of everything else.
Thank you, guys.
Nate, do you want to close this out?
Or what do we have here next?
Yeah, I mean, I think that, really, this is good sort of inclusive conversation.
I don't know if Amy or Denelle have anything that they want to add, but
yeah, that's a
great point.
It's not sure if there's points, concerns, comments from any of the other department heads
that have not spoken today around anything before we start to wrap it up.
Sorry, going back to the deferred maintenance list.
I appreciate you you've already said this Nate, but part of what we've really come to realize in the past couple of months with some power outages and some disasters that we've responded to is that our cooling centers or need for cooling and heating is not is broad.
All of our facilities need attention and Statham tends to be the one where at least in the last couple of years, most of our.
Disasters have been, but I just want to put a plug in particular really is a high priority as well because of the heat and then.
and then, and then needs that.
Faith and does not have a backup generator, is that correct?
There are backup generators in most of our locations
that are used as either polling centers
or for our senior services.
But my understanding is for the most part
we've used specific grant funding.
So for the senior services aspect,
we're really concerned about keeping the refrigerators
and presers going.
for that. We don't necessarily have capacity to run the air conditioner or swamp coolers in
the case of Tacopa and so those HVAC upgrades that we're talking about. I just want to mention
that Tacopa is also a high priority for us so we'll continue to work with administration and
public works around how that looks going forward. And I know that Chris Cox looks like he's about to
say something, but he has been doing work on this very issue for those facilities.
So we are actively discussing that.
And I will say backing out from the specific, more broadly, one of the things that I've
been talking to public works about, and I think we'll kind of move more down the road on a
little bit.
This next year is a much broader look at our facilities as a whole.
we've, you know, recently had conversations about some of our old, I don't want to say abandoned,
but they feel a little bit abandoned, sometimes county facilities like South Street.
We need to have a comprehensive capital facilities, if not improvement maintenance plan,
and be able to understand what is really needed where, and be able to prioritize that effectively,
not just in terms of putting money toward on a year-over-year basis, but, you know,
of having also some forward leaning thought board as well.
And so those conversations are starting,
we certainly have a fair bit of work to do,
but hopefully by this time next year,
we'll be able to do something much like we did this year
for the projects and the parks
and bring back something that looks a little more thoughtful
and comprehensive there too.
So I don't know if there's anything more from the two of you.
I guess I'll just sort of wrap by saying,
I think that this has helped us, at least me, in terms of here board priorities, here
thought and rationale from department heads around physicians and hopefully this will
feed into our thinking, it will feed into our thinking and hopefully it will allow us
to bring something to all of you at the end of the month through the published CAO recommended
budget and obviously that's kind of the next bite at the Apple if you will and
we'll start the conversations formally on the 10th of September around any
tweaks or adjustments or other concerns that you all would like to see in
that.
Okay, if there's nothing else, what would
during today's meeting. Thanks, everybody, for coming.
Thank you. It's been a real...