It ain't a place I'd like to be in, yeah, uh, moving down a crowded avenue Doing anything we'd like to do There's always lots of things that we can see We can't be anyone we'd like to be All those happy people we could meet just do this On a Sunday afternoon Really Couldn't get away too soon No, no, no, no We'll keep on spending sunny days ORCHESTRA PLAYS ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ORCHESTRA PLAYS ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. I think we'll be ready to call the meeting to get to order the September 1st 2015 General Government and Social Services Committee. I appreciate everybody being here today. um first agenda item on is the approval of the july 7th committee summary i'll entertain a motion for approval please all right motion made by council member scutchfield seconded by council member acres is there any discussion to the motion there being no discussion all in favor please say aye aye any opposed thank you that motion passes the first agenda item is uh ordinance Ordinance 271-2009, the Oath of Office for Boards, Agencies, and Commissions. The first presentation today is a continuation from last month, and the item of discussion is Ordinance 271-2009, which details requirements of the Oath of Office for Boards, Agencies, and Commissions. I believe we have further discussion today, led by Deputy Council Clerk Steve Prock. Thank you for being here. Good afternoon, everyone. Yeah, I'm just here to give a brief recap on the ordinance 271-2009. So it was first passed on December 8, 2009, requiring all board members, board and commission members to take an oath of office. And the oath is administered by the council clerk's office or by oath by affidavit. The ordinance states that appointees have to take the oath before taking office. The oath has to be completed within 30 days after the confirmation of appointment, and the oath by affidavit must be submitted to the council clerk's office within 14 days after completion. before may 2015 the forms were sent from the council clerk's office to the appointees with mixed results now we actually include the oath by affidavit in the boards and commission packet that come from the mayor's office and that's actually worked a lot better some numbers of the 71 boards and commissions we have 629 current members as of august 24th 129 outstanding with the ex officio or non-voting members removed and And of the 53 appointments since June 18th, only nine oath forms are outstanding. So we do seem to be getting a better response and returns from sending the oath by affidavit with the boards and commission packet. So the recommendations is to amend the oath language, to have the affidavit returned within 60 days of council confirmation, and to strike the language regarding the council clerk administration of the oath. And I am happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Is there any questions from the council? Council Member Evans. I'll start. I guess my first question is, are you asking us to do something? What are you asking us for? What's the purpose? How did this come to be, I guess, on the agenda? and what are you asking us to do, I guess, really? Yes, ma'am. Well, we, I guess, are asking to just amend the oath to make it a little easier to get all boards and commission members to sign the oath by affidavit. Okay. Okay. And I guess my two cents, I'm just curious. It seems like we're narrowing down the option because, I mean, some people like pomp and circumstance. And I guess I know there was an issue if every board or commission member had to get the oath from the council clerk, that would cause a problem. I guess my suggestion would be to make it more inclusive to the individuals who can provide the oath, as well as keeping the affidavit in as well as an option for those people who aren't concerned about it. because there are several people who can give the oath, and that could be the person's option. But I think it might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, just saying we're not going to do the oath anymore, because some people might appreciate having to take that oath. So I guess I would move to include language that would be inclusive. include other officers, individuals who are authorized to give the oath instead of taking out the council clerk. We can leave the council clerk out, but I would move to make it more inclusive including those authorized to give the oath of office in general. yeah council member Evans is that in a form of a motion yes so is there a second okay councilmember James Brown second of the motion is there discussion on the motion Yes. Yes. Okay. Council Member Akers, do you want to speak to the motion? Okay. Now I will. Thank you, Chair. So I guess, Steve, to Council Member Evans' point, does your recommendations, would someone still be allowed to have the oath administered by Council, by your office? By your office? I think we're checking with law right now. And do you have a copy of the affidavit that is what that would look like? Yes, ma'am. I just asked if his recommendations would still include the council clerk could administer the oath. I mean, does it allow for either anyone to administer it? I mean, that's what I thought it meant. Currently, the ordinance is set to where someone can either submit the affidavit or have it administered by the council clerk. And I think Council Member Evans is requesting us to expand it, or her motion is to expand it, to include others being able to administer that oath. You can do that if you so choose. Because we don't have to have an oath, we would say they would be limited to those who are allowed to give the oath that you all take, which would be those folks would be a judge, a county judge executive, a notary republic, clerk of the court, or justice of the peace. Those are the individuals who are allowed to give the oath that you all take. So those would be the same people that I would suggest would be those included to give the oath if we're expanding it. But, of course, the request today was to take it all completely out from it being administered at all and it just being submitted by the affidavit. I appreciate that recommendation, and I think that that's the most efficient as well. I think trying to track down someone to actually administer the oath is going to be more cumbersome and actually delay people being sworn in. So I would not support the motion. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Councilmember Fred Brown. As I understand it, the new ordinance is basically, it says, there's only one way for appointment of members shall complete an oath of office by affidavit, unless exempted by law. Does that, to do it by affidavit, is that just a written statement? Is that what you're referring to? Yes. Can that be emailed, or is it where you're at in the technology area? Oh, okay. I've got it in front of me here, I think. Oath by affidavit? Okay, so it is written, and it would have to be submitted in, and it couldn't be emailed or anything. Okay, that's all I need. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Evans. Thank you, Councilmember Akers, for providing that. Because the affidavit already has to be notarized, so that person is in front of the notary already. I mean, I'd just leave it for the option for someone to have it. I mean, if they're going to still have to go to a notary, they can take the oath if they want to or not. I mean, it just seemed like you're shutting the door on something that's very ceremonial. I mean, given the fact that we have an oath that state officers take that we can't change because it's outdated. I mean, we can't take dueling out. It just kind of seemed like it's going against, I guess, the tradition. And maybe that's just where I'm wrapped in. But I guess I just didn't see the harm in making it more expansive for those that wanted to still have that ceremonial aspect of their service. Sure, and I want to ask for clarification. If with the change of removing it, having to be administered by the clerk of the Irvin County Council, is the affidavit still going to require a notary? Yes. It will? Okay, all right, because I just needed to know that for clarification purposes, because I was trying to remember that. Councilmember Bledsoe. Thank you, Chair. So is our, I mean, are you a notary? notary isn't the council clerk a notary yes so couldn't she also do this be the notary on on the actual affidavit yep right and that's that's what we do a lot of times is uh people will come in and with their uh affidavit forms filled out just not notarized and then anyone in the office can can notarize it for them right there okay well then that clears that up for me thank you Councilmember Akers and so I just wanted to I think that with the affidavit even if you took it to a judge to any of the other people that you mentioned or the clerk they could still give the oath and sign the affidavit I mean if you wanted that ceremonial piece you could still get that through the affidavit correct this recommendation would not eliminate that ceremony? I don't want to speak out of turn, but it's not, I don't know that every judge is necessarily a notary. So the affidavit, when you have the signed one, if I'm not mistaken, it is basically who's swearing to uphold what that oath is saying. And that's the reason you sign it in front of a notary so they can say that this is the person who was in front of them. If you want to, yes, if you wanted to expand it and someone wanted to be in front of a judge, raise their right hand and they administer it, then we would then have to have documentation that that judge actually performed. You know, there would be other steps that we would have to get in order for that to happen. Did I answer your question? But they could still have the clerk do it and the clerk could notarize it. Yes. So, okay. Thank you. And I think that just for clarifications with my familiarization with this, is that was one of the problems is if it is always going to fall back on a council clerk or the deputy council clerks to have to be the ones to actually give the oath, then there's three of them, and that really is difficult when you've got $670 to acquire over the course of a year. But that's just my two cents worth. The motion on the floor is by Council Member Evans and seconded by Council Member James Brown. Is there any further discussion on the motion to amend? And the motion is to amend the draft ordinance to add back in the language to have other officers. Am I stating this correct, Council Member Evans, to have other officers that can administer the oath? And did you want to add back in the clerk as well? Well, the original motion was anyone authorized to administer the oath. I can amend my motion to include notaries since it already has to be notarized and just make it exclusive to notaries. If that would be, you know, the original motion is anyone authorized to administer the oath. Okay. and i look at the law department to see if there's um i mean is that clear in the language it it is that i think you're saying just to make it say just notaries outside of the count that well now i think we have a couple of different options the original motion was to include All authorized. All authorized. But understanding that it still has to be notarized, whether it's affidavit or a verbal oath, I could limit that to notaries because that makes it easy for anyone. It's something that someone has to go through anyway. so maybe just have have the language um amended to take an oath of office administered by a notary notary public i'm just trying to get the language down pat so we can all understand the motion i would be conducive to that amendment all righty council member james brown there's that your intention of seconding on the motion thank you chair the way i understood the motion as she made it is that she was allowing anybody authorized to give the oath and notaries to also give the oath of office and with the understanding that all oaths have to be accompanied by the affidavit or assigned notary correct Yeah, so that's fine. All right. All right. So if there's no further discussion on the motion to amend, then I will call for a vote on Council Member Evans' motion. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Okay. Can we utilize the system? All in favor, vote electronically, and all opposed, vote electronically. All right, that motion failed, passed to amend. So is there another motion to move forward with the changes as requested about extending the amount of time for completion and submittal with the clerk not being the one to administer the oath of office? so council member bledsoe made a motion seconded by council member gibbs is there any discussion on the motion council member acres okay council member henson can you clarify the motion exactly what we're is it it is not is it what they have proposed okay yeah okay thank you all right is there any further discussion on the motion all right all in favor say aye aye any opposed thank you all right i appreciate the presentation today and uh we will um get that draft ordinance and it'll be reported out in a couple couple four weeks two to four weeks council member fred brown before we leave this particular topic i think it has to do with the boards we were passed we received a entire list of board for the urban county government is this current what's what's the date on this because i noticed a couple for instance one of on the Board of Adjustments. I think we completed that one, didn't we, Jamie? Every time we send you that, it's going to be outdated two minutes after I send it to you. Well, this looks like two months. Yeah, I don't know when you got that one, so I'm sure it's not. We just got it. Okay, well, it's probably not up to date anyway. Well, I just noticed in the total there was 155 appointments had not been made, but I think that number is certainly not right. Yeah, I'll just give you a little context. We were doing really well through last year, and then as the mayor's second term began, lots of terms expired, lots of new vacancies occurred. I mean, we have seven new council members, so we had seven vacancies created by all the council members, turnovers. So it's just been quite hectic catching up. Is there any way, as a council member, maybe some of the others would like, Is there any way that we could help in that? Because I know there is some in the past. There's been you would like to have representation from every district, if you could, on some of the boards. That's right. In fact, there are certain boards and commissions that require district-level representation from citizen members. Yeah, where we could have a little bit of input or at least give you some names. Absolutely. If there's anything there regarding me and my district, you know, send me an email or appreciate it, then I can follow up, and maybe we get the appointments that you're still lacking. Yep. We'll continue to do that from time to time. Okay. Thank you. And, Council Member Fred Brown, that actually, that item was actually the issue of the vacancies and memberships was actually added by Council Member Scutchfield as an item on our agenda. So we will further discuss that. It's not on today's agenda, but we will discuss it. So just so, yes. Council Member Maloney. I think you answered what I was going to ask because before, when I was on the council, we used to have an update every three months from either the vice mayor working with the mayor to give the list to all the council members, what boards were coming around so we could help make sure we stay in compliance with these board members. So I think that's probably what we were trying to work on when the next time. But, Fred, I agree with you. I think before we used to always got the list every three months when it was getting close to somebody's term. And so I think it would be a big help for you guys that the council can give you. That's what a lot of us get calls every day wanting to be on boards, and we just don't know where to direct it. By giving us the list of boards that are going to be available, that will help you all. Instead of you all getting all these letters for wanting to be on a board but they don't have a clue, at least it helps the council to tell you what boards are going to be available. Thank you. Thanks. And I believe we were thinking about putting that agenda item on for October so we can talk about that at the end of the meeting. So next on our agenda is the verbal update from Councilmember Evans regarding the subcommittee work on the review of the ethics ordinance. Councilmember Evans, please. Thank you, Chair. It'll be brief. Yes, we just recently met last week, the subcommittee did, and we are progressing. I think we kind of got off to a rough start, But we are addressing the original issues that were presented by former Councilmember Ford and then that you picked up as well, Chair. And we are recommending an additional relationship be built in relationship category, be included in the Ethics Act, which will affect the financial disclosure reporting and the nepotism laws. We've done a lot of research with various cities, comparing, seeing what their ethics act, if one existed, first of all, and then how they did appointments, I mean, down to misconduct, all the issues that we'd been charged to look at, and basically found that there's no consistency. So there is not one way to do this. And we also looked at the state statutes as well to see if we wanted to go beyond what the state currently does. And I believe in some aspects we have agreed to do that, and we are progressing with those issues as well. We did ask the Ethics Commission to provide their input regarding organizations that are represented and different categories of demographics of people that they would like to be included in the Ethics Act as membership is concerned. And they did provide us with a memo that we are reviewing and considering. So that is forging on. And let's see. we've again made some progress and we're working with the law department with different definitions that that we have that need to be tweaked and i think we our last meeting was very productive and we are forging along and hopefully we'll have a report out by the end of the year which was the original goal so i thank you all who do serve on that subcommittee um it's not it's not an easy task and you know they're really difficult subjects in in different uh difficult answers that you know we have to decide on our questions so um yeah i think we're moving along and expect to have a report by the end of the year great with recommendations all right thank you Thanks for the update. Are there any questions on the update? No? All right. We'll move on to the next agenda item, the extended social resources process, the final presentation on today's agenda. And I want to recognize Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Chair. The ESR program has been talked about a lot since the budget. And, you know, I was new to that process, as were a number of my colleagues. So the budget process and how it was done this year was a learning experience for me, as well as a lot of other people. And so after it was all said and done, Commissioner Ford and I talked quite a bit about what we can do to continue to look at the process and make sure we are doing the best we can. And so we have, Commissioner and I have talked a lot this summer about options and ideas, and even as recently on the weekends trying to figure out how do we help make this the best process, the most transparent and the most impactful possible. So Commissioner Ford has some great ideas of kind of background review and then some ideas for moving forward. So I'll turn it over to you, Commissioner. Thank you, Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you to the chair and thank you to the committee members. This is still yet a new process to our government. The Department of Social Services is very appreciative of the support that we've received from the administration and the council as this program continues to progress and move along. As we stand right now in the fiscal year 2016 budget, we appropriated just over $3 million to provide funding for local nonprofit and social service agencies over many different categories that you'll hear in our presentation. What we hope to do today is twofold. We hope to apprise you a little bit about how this process has evolved beginning 2011 and 2012 to the present, and then more particularly focus on the activities over the last 12 months, which lead us to where we are now. We're going to conclude with some recommendations in regards to how we feel we should proceed on forward, and we'll definitely welcome any questions or comments and suggestions that the committee may have. We're very fortunate that in years past, Craig Benz, when he was in the commissioner's office, was a great resource to staffing the administrative aspects of the ESR program. And when he moved on to the council office, the commissioner's office was fortunate to bring on Teresa Maynard, our administrative officer, who is going to lead the PowerPoint presentation. Her experience in our division of central purchasing, I believe, has been a great resource to this process. So Teresa will come forward now and we'll look forward to any questions that you guys may have. Good afternoon. I'll make sure I'm doing this right. So what we wanted to start with today is a quick overview of the complete process because the process as it stands now, as it being an application grant process, has only been in existence since fiscal year 13. So before that, up until fiscal year 12, through fiscal year 12, agencies did not apply to the Department of Social Services for these funds. It was considered a budget item. They received a packet from budgeting, just like any other what then were called outside agency or partner agencies did. It includes LexArts, the Lyric Theater, the Human Rights Commission. all the social service agencies were treated in the budget the same way those agencies are still treated. So starting in FY13, the council wanted to formalize the process more, make it a more competitive, more open process that it just wasn't the historically traditional agencies that were funded in the budget. So that's how the whole grant application process began. So starting in FY13, instead of just a list of agencies were sent a budget request packet, we started the application process. We based the application on that budget request packet with the narrative in the budget pages and had an eye towards at that time what was being done by the department and the University of Kentucky, where they were currently in the process of compiling the barriers to self-sufficiency needs assessment. assessment, I'm sorry. So once that was done, we realized that had to be a big part of what this grant application was about. So that's how the application evolved into what it is today. And I was going to kind of go through year by year and let you all know how we've changed the process every year since the first applications in 2013, fiscal year 2013. And of course, the resolution for all the process changes for a fiscal year have to be done basically a year and a half beforehand, before the process starts. So in 2012, council approved a resolution for the application and scoring rubric and schedule for the FY14 grant process. And the big change from FY13 to FY14 was that there would be no funding caps put on either applications or dollar amounts. So we go through fiscal year 14 and then in fiscal year 15 for that process in 2013, council again approved a revised application scoring rubric and schedule and added a few more rules to the process, like allowing for a week review of corrections for applications, that there be a penalty if applications were laid, and bonus points for programs who were asking for grant funds that align with the findings for the needs assessment that I spoke of earlier. So that's where the first time the bonus points came in. So we get through, and this time last year, I was here right after I started in this position, and we talked about what's actually going to be on the next slide, which was a much more comprehensive reworking of the system. We added a whole lot of new parameters to it. So starting with what is now the current year that we're in for the grants, we had these eight items approved in the process, and of course the biggest ones were the targeting of the 1% of the general fund revenues for the ESR funding, but that also includes a set aside of 25% of whatever that 1% figure is goes directly to emergency shelter. And that application is actually different from the rest of the ESR applications, and that's run by Charlie out of his office. And we had a total of four agencies apply and were funded for the emergency shelter funds this year. The rest of the changes for this year, some of it's common sense, like we didn't want to fund the same program for both our pots of money for Partners for Youth and ESR. the council did let us set up a biannual cycle for ESR funding. Most grants are at least two years if not three to five years. Another change in this current grant cycle was rather than having all of the awards decided on and vetted by our funding work group before the mayor's proposed budget address we just put a placeholder in there so we'd have more time to review the applications, to work on the scoring, and to have a good vetting of the scoring. For the first time, we required a letter of intent prior to the application. That way we had a chance. There was a committee of department employees and some of our advisory board who looked at all the letters of intent so we could see if a program was actually going to fit into our parameters for the program. If not, we gave them suggestions of where else say it was better for a Partners for Youth application. That way we wouldn't waste their time or the city's resources on an application that just didn't fit the parameters and we couldn't fund. For the first time this year, we allowed collaborative applications where different agencies could actually work together and split an award. We did this to spur innovation, to hopefully eliminate some duplication of services where we could, and just try to see if we could fill some needs that we weren't filling by single agencies doing things if they grouped together and try to work towards a bigger problem. The last thing that was approved by Council, that when we did have our recommendations for the ESR awards, we took them to the budget link there in the beginning of May. and that was held with our office and the funding work group who made the final recommendations on the awards. The one item that we suggested last year that did not pass committee or council approval was putting caps on either dollar funds asked for or number of applications an agency could submit applications for multiple programs, how many they could put. So this next slide is just a quick recap of the schedule. To kick off the process, we always have a mandatory meeting, and I'll show you on the next slide how many people attended that. In mid-December, the letter of intent were due. We had the application deadline of February 20th, which got pushed back because of snow for a whole week. Then we also lost another week in the scoring due to the fire and the other snow. So it was an interesting spring. When the review committees met, that was the most really important part of the process because it followed having the committees read and review every application. We had 38 members of the review committee, and they were broken up into eight groups, and each group read from eight to ten applications. Each of the members of the scoring committee signed a conflict of interest form. They all had, most of them, about 85% of them had done this in previous years. So there was mostly a short learning curve with the committee. Most of them were experienced at reading the applications. We always welcome new people on the committee, and we did have quite a few. The committee is made up of community volunteers. We have a lot of people from UK staff, from the College of Social Work, students, graduate students. We have just community volunteers who've heard about it and want to be involved. And going back to FY13, they started out with an initial list of junior league volunteers. So we try to get a good cross-section of the community who look at these applications. Once the individuals manually score the applications, we then have a series of eight meetings which the agencies come in. They have ten minutes to talk about their application, to talk about the program, not necessarily their agency, but the program they want to have funded and have their scorers ask them questions. So it's all done very subjectively. Usually the groups are put together in order of the applications, how they're received. The people who were assigned to different committees, it was done basically by availability. You know, if you were available Tuesday at 8, that's the group you got in. So we tried to do it as objectively as possible. I asked scorers if they had a conflict to let me know at first, and sometimes once the groups were set and the applications went out for review, they would let me know, oh, I can't score this one. I said, well, just put it aside and you don't score them. All the scores were done on an average basis. So it did not hurt an agency if someone recused themselves from scoring their particular application. on the scoring. Also, there's a question on there about financial health of the agency, and that was completed by the Division of Budgeting. They looked at all the information that's available on the agency on good giving to gauge their particular health, and all of our scores were double-checked by the Department of Finance, so I didn't transpose anything or get anything wrong. After the scores were all put in order, the funding workgroup met and looked at what we tried to come up with the best possible, fairest, awarding percentage-wise of the funds we had to award the most we could to the most agencies. And once they met, again, we took it to our council link and they approved the recommendation of the funding group. Once that happened, the budget was approved by Council, and we issued PSAs in July for FY16. On the awards for FY16, we had 51 letters of intent and 22 collaborative. We only singled out four for programs that wouldn't fit our particular program. We received a total of 70 applications from 52 agencies, and 18 of those were for collaboratives. We had a total of 34 PSAs this year for a total of 49 programs to 45 nonprofits. And then we also, in case you were interested, we put the lowest awards and highest awards and requests just for your information. So in this year's awards, we broke it down for you into the six, seven priority areas. Again, emergency shelter is automatically 25%. And you can see how much more requests we had than actual funds to give away. We had almost $7 million in requests and $3 million. So, besides emergency shelter, the biggest requests and awards were in mental health and substance abuse. Going forward, we've kind of divided things up into three phases. for the first phase. We want to take some time and look at what we're doing now and figure out how we can do it better. We realize on some of the scoring, you know, we can all be adjusted. The applications may need to be adjusted. How we look at the categories, the categories themselves need to be adjusted. And we're going to need a little time to do that. We hope to be able to have a good handle, wonderful handle, excellent handle on things by March to be able to report back to this committee. And you can see some of the ideas we've already got under possible revisions. And then hopefully a little earlier than this next year in either July after the budget's adopted or August or September we'll have new guidelines for you guys to approve so we can get started in September of next year instead of waiting until November. That way we can hopefully get the agencies together, have our new process out there, get the grants all back by December so we have more time, especially before the budget cycle, to do good evaluation of the application, make sure we're doing the best we can possibly do with the funds we've got available. And then again, you know, hopefully have everything up and ready to slide into the budget process and the budget link process a little earlier than we did this year and be ready to go with PSAs in June. And that's it. Got any questions? That's either for me or for the commissioner. Thank you, Ms. Maynard. That's a lot of stuff, I know. I'm sorry. That's okay. No, that's all right. I will open the floor to the questions of the council, please. Oh, Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Chair. Commissioner, board, you may be able to answer these. On the slide on page 31, I think it may be the first, second, second, or third slide. Talks about the program guidelines. Yes. Yes, sir. The biannual cycle for ESR funding obviously got a lot of discussion with the previous council. Were you in the eight or were you in the six? I was in the eight, I believe. Okay. If I recall, I was in the eight. There was a lot of discussion on that, Council Member Brown. And as you can see, of the nine recommendations, it perhaps was the closest. There was a lot of discussion for and against. There was a lot of discussion for the continuity of the programs that take time in social services to evolve and demonstrate impact. But then there was also, I guess, the opposite position in regards to how it ties into the budget process and maybe committing future councils. And then also, if you're not funded, I guess one of the arguments that we heard, that if you're not funded in that biennial cycle, it leaves a schedule for you to wait for the opportunity. So if you're working on both sides of the street, I noticed that you're recommending reestablishing annuals. Is that correct? That is one of the items that we are open to considering. That's one of the items that we want to evaluate over the next six months during our Phase I internal assessment in the Department of Social Services. We wouldn't have to make that decision yet because you've already got the two-year cycle. And that will have to go in place because that's the way you set it up with contracts. That's correct. And Council Member Brown, just for clarity, where we are now is we are operating under a two-year cycle for both fiscal year 16 and fiscal year 17. So as of right now, we are not scheduled to have another application period this fall as we have in years past. Primarily, it will just be a continuation. Most of the grants that were awarded this year, they have an equal amount that they've requested for year two, which is fiscal year 17. So that's correct. Okay, but we can change the program guidelines going forward. I'm not crazy about eight, six votes. You know, it just doesn't seem like everything's gelled. I'd like a little bit more consensus there. And I think we ought to go back to the annual whenever we get a chance to maybe change the program guidelines. I would support annual applications. Council Member Brown, I appreciate your discussion of this and your position on this. I do recognize, because again, I was a member of council when this vote was taken. I do recognize that because of that close vote, it's worth reexamining when we look at the guidelines going forward. And one other item on page, the next page, I believe, that might have been 31. the review committees met. I'm a little concerned about the review process there. I understand, I think we got some information or feedback that you had, how many people did you have score in these applications? We had about 38 citizen volunteer members. So you did not have a particular person looking at all the applications for comparison purpose. So you had different groups looking at different applications. Is that correct? That's correct. And I think that's a little bit skewed when you have that type of representation. And I know there's time elements here and the ability to get people involved, but there again, we used to do all this in-house prior to this, and I don't have any real problems with having a good review committee, But I think you ought to consider or look at it real close to having every committee member look at every application so that each application really is on equal footing per person that's going to score it. Because I think that would make a difference. I don't know if you looked at that or have any ideas on it or not. Yes, sir. Council Member Brown. Yes, we've thought about that. There has been some mention in regards to that, even though we had over close to 70 applications, so there's a great volume, and these applications are pretty detailed. So from a department standpoint, we have Teresa, who is our administrative officer, and we're going to bring on an intern to help in this process going forward. But as you can imagine, it's very administrative and burdensome. So to have the support of the scoring committee was very helpful to our department, but the points that you raise are valid. One of the things we heard is there's great diversity in regards to the agencies that come forward requesting funding and the programs. And so one of the things, one of the recommendations that we talked about, if you could go back there, is to redefine funding priorities. And just to make it plain, how do we subcategorize and prioritize funding areas that would allow us to compete apples and apples and oranges and oranges? To the members of the scoring committee that serve, we're very appreciative, but I can imagine how hard that is to read one application that's in basic human needs, and then the very next application you pick up is in mental health and human services, I mean mental health and substance abuse. So one of the things we may do if we consider keeping, and there's a value for the inclusion of having those committee members, having a committee that's fully focused on human needs, so every application they evaluate is based on human needs and across the board. And in closing, Council Member Brown and committee members, I do plan to more incorporate the expertise of leadership in the Department of Social Services. We have four division directors and three program administrators that know our community. They know many of these agencies that are applying, and they can really help us evaluate in the evaluation process as well. Very good. I think those possible revisions that you're looking into, I think they were worthwhile, and I commend you all. It's a good report and gives us the information, or certainly myself, that we need and move forward. Thank you so much. Thank you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Teresa, for the presentation and Commissioner Ford. I just, Council Member Brown touched base on, you know, it's like, can we give additional points or do something for, you know, like I think basic human needs. All of these agencies are extremely important, but basic human needs need to be met. So I think you answered the question I had about how could we determine, you know, and I can remember a specific circumstance where, you know, yes, our youth need activities. Drug abuse and substance abuse is extremely important. But yet, if our children are not eating, for instance, but I look forward to hearing how you're going to work through that so that, and I guess you'll bring that back to committee and do a presentation with a. Yes, Council Member Henson, and thank you for your support. You can go back to the slide. I'm going to ask Teresa to help me with the slides here. This slide here, these are the seven priority areas. And one of the things that we did in the last revision was this council, there was an issue. The council gave guidance to the department that no matter what, at the end of the day, we want to be assured that funding for emergency shelter is provided because that is a vital need. And so we even demonstrated that by carving out 25%. So there is a precedent set by funding. Now, one of the things we probably want to do in regards to better identifying and classifying the priority areas is we may go down to two or three additional priority areas. We need to clearly define those for the benefit of the council, the administration, and those agencies that want to apply. But we may also want to establish ranges, not necessarily percentage. I'm just talking kind of loosely here because over the next six months, with your help and others, we'll figure a definitive path. But we may want to provide ranges, whereas of the remaining money, there's $3 million, almost double than what we had five years ago. That X amount goes to human needs and X amount goes to youth development. I think that would be helpful to the agencies knowing to apply. That would better help them temper, engage the level of their ask. And it also hopefully will give you guys, the policymakers, confidence that we are going to focus certain resources on certain areas. What you see here, admittedly, is really a reflection of volume in relative to volume out. it's not that we projected going in or prioritized that we were going to spend 35% of the funding on mental health and substance abuse. It just so happens that with no caps on the applications coming in, that's how the funding went out, just for example. And thank you very much. And I look forward to hearing the plan moving forward. And I also know that the homeless prevention intervention allotted money for mental health purposes as well. So, you know, I would like to see these percentages, I guess, more equitable. But we'll wait and see. I mean, I think we're on the right page. Also, just one other small question. I'm running out of time. Yes, ma'am. The mandatory meeting, has there been any issue with an agency not being able to attend that had submitted an application? Actually, this fall we did have one agency who did not attend, and they were not allowed by the commissioner to submit a letter of intent or apply, because it was clearly noted and they knew about the meeting. They didn't come. So I guess I was just wondering if that were a problem, if you could have, like, two possible dates or something like that. We can certainly look at that. We also did – let me back up on that. Since this was the first year we allowed collaboratives and we didn't really explain that or the agencies didn't really know that much about it until the mandatory meeting, we did allow on the collaborative applications for not the lead agencies but some of the partners. If they hadn't been at that meeting, if they had a nonprofit who wasn't at the meeting that they wanted to partner with the collaborative, we did allow one of those per collaboration. As long as it was one representative. We tried to be sensible about that. Okay. Thank you very much. Councilmember Akers. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Commissioner and Teresa, for this. I think it's super helpful to go back to the beginning and see where we've come and the progress that we have made, despite, I think, some of the changes we need to continue to make. So about the changes, I know that I think lots of us want to maybe see some revisions. What are your plans for a committee or subcommittee to look at this, and how soon can that get started? I know as busy as I am, I still feel like I wanted to help in that if I could. Do you have any idea, Commissioner, on when you might put that team together? Yes, we will begin that work this fall. We'll begin that work this fall. I recognize that six months will go, as you guys do, six months will go by very fast, and it will be a new calendar year, and we'll be right back before this committee. But we hope to be as inclusive as we possibly can. And we haven't defined the membership of that team, but we're going to work closely with the administration, the mayor's office, the council. We'd be remiss if we did not include some of the leadership in our nonprofit and social service agencies to kind of get their feedback, the members that served on that committee. So we're going to be inclusive and welcoming to those that want to support us in that effort. Thank you. I'm glad to see that it's sooner than later, too, in this two-year budget cycle. I was part of the eight to six. I was on the eight side a year ago or whenever we voted for that. And that was coming from social service background of most federal funds are in a two-year cycle, and that seemed to make sense at the time. Now that I've seen it in action here and locally, I think that I would vote on the other side now. So live and learn, I guess. But that's one thing that I think that we definitely should take up in that committee. I agree, too, that we should consider the cap. Capping the number of applications or funds allocated per agency gets heavy. If you look at the allocations of some of the larger organizations, while they do provide a lot of different services and great work, I don't think that we should be single-handedly funding two organizations or three in those large amounts. Council Member Akers and Chair, if I can, that is going to be a recommendation that we are going to consider closely in bringing back to you guys because the reality is, and you guys heard me mention this in the spring, globally our government perhaps is doing more than it's been able to do in quite a while in regards to this funding, our housing and homelessness prevention. we're doing, and this funding was $1.75 million when the administration came in four years ago, and now we're at $3 million, 1% of, there's still $7 million in requests. And the title of the program is Extended Social Resource. No application can, a program by guideline can request more than 20% of their budget. that's different things for different folks depending on, you know, the size of your budget as an agency. So we're going to have to find ways that we want to be as supportive as we can of our nonprofits, realizing that we can't meet all of their needs via the tax dollar here at City Hall at the Government Center. But we want to be an extension of what they're doing. And hopefully a consistent partnership via funding would allow them to find other ways to expand their programs and bring further innovations to their programs. But to make it plain, I don't think $6.8 million versus $3 million that we can fund expansion and innovation without having limitations. And I know that you all attempted to do that by limiting, capping it at 20%, no more than 20% of your total budget. But for some organizations whose budgets are $30 million to $40 million or more, it's kind of limitless. And then about the judging, the panel that scores the applications, Teresa, in your experience with RFP processes, we have to sign conflict of interest statements, confidentiality statements. Are there conflict of interest statements signed by each of the scorers? Yes, they are. To make sure that they haven't worked for that organization or aren't on the board or donor or that sort of thing? Yes. They are sent out with their packet of applications, both by email and hard copies. When they receive their application to score, they're also asked to sign that non-conflict of interest statement and bring it to the oral presentation meetings. we did have four or five cases where people either told me up front or I knew, you know, oh, I know they've worked with them so they can't be on this particular group. And then sometimes I don't know until they get the actual applications, and then I just ask them to refuse themselves from scoring that particular application. Great. I was really pleased to hear you mention that before, and that's what made me think of those conflict of interest statements for the RFP process. And lastly, about the ranking of the priority areas, I know the council was involved in this as well a couple years ago. And while I agree with the notion, I guess, of these being our priority areas, I do think that they need to be ranked and that we need to somehow allocate either percentages or a ranking for applications, scoring them higher if they provide emergency shelter or basic human needs. If we look at the percentages we gave this budget year, 34% and 16%, two other categories were more than basic human needs. And I think that that was a fault in the process somewhere. I think it's a glaring example of kind of where we fell short. And if you also look in your packet, I kind of put a chart of the last five years in there so you all could see where the money went and all those priorities in previous years, too. So you can kind of look for trends. Sure. But, yeah, we definitely want to redefine and have definite definitions of our priority areas. And also in the past, on the application, all the agencies were allowed to self-identify, and they didn't have to pick one. They could divide up in between. Sure, because some of them are. Yeah, so if we reduce the number of priority areas, we're hoping and have clear definitions for them and say you can only apply in one category. You have to pick your category for this application. You can't be both positive youth and public health. Right. It may be both, but you've got to pick an area. And public health, I've mentioned this before, that I think I don't know that that's really the role of the city government to be involved in. We also have tax dollars. We just voted on funding public health in the community. So I think that that is one that we should look at and reconsider in the future. Yeah, that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Maloney. Thank you. Chris, the question I have for you is, if we do this every two years, I'm going to tell you what I like about it. Was the money that you all this year was just for the one year, or did you all put it next year when you come in, two years from now, you're going to have it for two years, the pot's going to be a lot bigger in two years. Does that understand? Or did you all make the pot big this year and then we're going to keep it. No, sir. It's the expectation that it's going to remain flat. Fiscal year 16 is $3 million. Fiscal year 17 is going to be projected to be $3 million as well. And that was the understanding of the agencies when they applied for funding. It's going to be $3 million. So it's the same as it was. And the reason why I like this, guys, is I've worked, I've done nonprofit work, and I work for Kentucky Housing. They do this every two years. We got a lot of programs to duplicate each other. And when you have just a small amount of money once a year, you come in here and everybody competes for it, and then you're going to have this room full of people. This is the first year we didn't have a room full of people. I've got to commend you. I've stepped through here a lot of these for over the years. We've done all kinds of things. And this year would probably be maybe a little bit better. You can do some things on. But I was really impressed that we didn't have the complaints like we usually do. And what I like about it is you get to two years, you start getting these nonprofits out there and try to work together as one because money's not there anymore, guys. And if we continue to do this once a year and just give a little here, a little here, a little, it doesn't go very far. When you start giving this kind of pot of money for two years, it really has an impact to the community. And if you start going back to the one year, I have serious concerns about it. And I've seen what Kentucky Housing does every two years. All these big places do these every two years because your programs really take a while to do this. And to do it in one year, it's just they live dollar to dollar. This way here, we get nonprofits working together, which we got to because there's no money out there. And they can't keep living on us. We've got everybody come together. And before we decide to do this one year again, I don't want to sit here and have about 25 people out here that didn't get no money. Now, this year, we didn't have that problem. We had a few, and we're not going to make everybody happy. But I like the idea the programs are going to work a heck of a lot better. It's going to have an impact. We're here to help the low-income people. I'm not here to help these non-profits try to pay their salaries which they have to go out and raise money and do grants and that's what I'm afraid when we get these one year people in here they're living dollar to dollar to pay their salary to help the low income people and this way here I think we've done better than I've ever seen it and I hope we can continue on this and I know there's going to be an improvement it's the first year you've done this so I think it's better for this council better for the community and I just hope we continue to go that route. So I support what you all have done and keep up the good work. Thank you, Council Member. Thank you, Council Member Maloney. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair. A couple of my questions that have already been answered. Thank you for the presentation, Mr. Risa. So when the 1% of the budget was decided on, how did you come up with that number? What made you decide to go with 1%? If I recall, when I was a member of council, it was Council Member Myers, I believe. Yeah, Council Member Myers really led the charge in regards to increasing the level of funding. and I think it also had to do with a demonstration of commitment. I don't want to speak for him, but a demonstration of commitment from the council that of a $300 million general fund that we want to set aside consistency, 1% of that general fund, that number this year, 3.03, that represents 1% of actual revenues recognized by the 2014 CAFR. So those are monies that came in that year. So I think that's the history of Council Member Brown. Okay. And I guess what my concern with that is, and I guess you have to start somewhere, but as our city grows, the needs are going to grow. So during the review process of the process, I think that might be something that you want to look at and maybe put into place a way to grow those funds that match the needs of the city going forward. because, you know, I don't think if you don't address that issue at the time, then it's, you know, that's a concern that's going to come up going forward. The 25% for emergency shelters, was that established because, I guess, before when they was doing it as line items before the process came about, was that the biggest social need as far as applications at the time? And I'm going to try to, I know that one thing, I know that there are many council members, I think seven or eight that I've counted that were not on council when we started this process just last year. And again, council member, I was there. What I remember from recollection is that we went through this process, and we have here, this is a good slide to reference as I answer your question, council member Brown. Every year, we started with fiscal year 13, and that was the first application. But every year thereafter, we revised the process. And all of those were on a one-year basis. So Commissioner Mills and Craig and that staff, they worked very, very hard to make changes in a short period of time. It was generally when council was on summer break coming back into the fall. And so there were kind of tweaks. This time we're going to be able to comprehensively really evaluate what we're going to do this time. But as I remember, it was one of those years that there was a shortage of funding. It was something in regards to emergency shelter not being funded. And the department went just by the process and the rankings and all those things. But council opined, and I was a member of the council that opined, a process is good process. We understand that. We don't object to process. but surely we're going to set aside funding to make sure that the most basic needs are met, emergency shelter being one of those. And so that's how the set-aside for emergency shelter came to be. And it then also helped that the Commission on Homelessness had just completed its work, and one of its recommendations was the office that Charlie leads now. And so we had capable staff, And we're confident that Charlie's office could also manage that 25% set aside for emergency shelter wealth. Okay. So I guess moving forward, it might be best practice to take a look at the applications, the total amount of applications that came in for the money requested and maybe make those adjustments based on those. In the review process, I think, you know, whatever we can do to improve that is as transparent as possible, But at the same time, I guess you have to keep some constraints to make sure that conflicts don't arise as far as who's reviewing the applications. But I think making it as transparent as possible is going to help us moving forward. And I like what you stated earlier about being focused and being more intentional about the application review process, is putting apples with apples and oranges and oranges. I think that's also going to help the process. The caps in the allotments for different priority categories kind of concerns me a little bit. I think it's good to put caps, and I think it's good to kind of have an idea of the allotments that you want to apply towards different priorities. But I'd hate for you to take away your flexibility in awarding the monies, putting caps and allotments locked in place. So I guess just keep that in mind moving forward is you don't want to take your flexibility away as far as awarding those funds by putting caps and allotment requirements on those monies. I will, and if I can just reply to Council Member Brown, we'll take that into consideration. I think in regards to we're going to have to find a way to better manage the volume of requests. And I think we will have to honestly and fairly convey that to our agencies. Because from experience, and Council Member Maloney mentioned his experience, and there are others who have worked in nonprofits. What we observed in the review of the applications this year is that without a cap, you can kind of see the expansion of the program. You can kind of see the increase of the requests coming from agencies. and we just basically don't have that level of funding to support those increases. So it's going to be a balance to confine and constrain the inflation on the increase that we can't fund. But we also don't want to take away the impact that the agencies will be able to provide the services. So we'll look at both sides of it. All right. Thanks. I'll recognize Vice Mayor Kaye. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to speak, though I'm not a member of the committee. First, thank you, both of you, for the presentation. Very helpful. And for those of us who have been around since 2012, we're clearly making progress. We were not in a good spot. and council and the commissioner, then commissioner, chose to address the issue and I think have made a lot of progress in shaping this up. It's still not perfect, but it's a whole lot better than it was. So I think we're moving in the right direction. I have a couple of concerns, I guess. The first one really has to do with the timeline itself. I don't want to squeeze the work of the ad hoc committee that you'll put together, but I believe there are substantive issues that the council is going to want to deliberate at length on. And I think if you could get back to this council before March, maybe February, I don't know, just kind of aim a little earlier so we don't get in the situation where we're stuck on some issues and then we're in a time crunch. It seems to me we've got the luxury of time. I would hate to see it burned up before things come back to this committee and the full council. So if you would take that into your considerations, I'd appreciate that. Do you want to comment? Yes, sir, Vice Mayor. We gladly will take that into consideration. And we will acknowledge each of those possible revisions that we're recommending are major items, each in and of themselves. And I think that's exactly what you're referring to, that based upon how we as a government decides to address one issue, will definitely have an impact in regards to going down to addressing the other issue. So we can perhaps come back sooner. Yes, and I don't want to predict the future necessarily, but my guess is that on a few of these really tough policy questions, the council is not going to be of one mind. We had an 8-6 split. I frankly can't remember which side of that I was on. But it was, you know, I mean, people were trying to figure it out and make the best decision, and it was a close vote. So having said that, I also want to add a little complexity. It seems to me that when we started all of this work, one of the policy decisions that this council made was to not fund ongoing services, but only to fund those things that were new slash creative. I think we ought to look at that again. I think it's right on the edge of being the same kind of consideration as basic services. There may be some things that this council says, we're not looking for new, innovative. This just needs to be provided, and we need to be supportive of that. Or we need to do both, and we need to figure out something about how we do that. And it may be, I mean, I think this is an important conversation. There may be at the end of it we say, no, we want to stay where we are. But I believe that some of the difficulty that we've gotten into every single year has been because agencies have tried to figure out what the new creative thing is. And what they really need is, you know, here's an ongoing service. It's not going away. We need some support for that. So I would like to add that to the mix. And then finally, there's going to be plenty of time to talk about the specific issues, but I think the question of putting caps on, I've argued against that in the past. I'm not unalterably opposed, but my short statement of position on that is we ought to fund the best things we can fund. And if it's a big agency, I know they have advantages, but they have advantages in providing services. So I'm kind of on the no-cap side. On the allocation of percentage by category, I'm hoping that we can look at that both in terms of the history you've provided and the need and make some determination. I think that would be very important. Again, that kind of sends a statement to the applicants. And then finally, the one-year, two-year, as I said, I don't exactly remember which side of that I was on, but I've become convinced that the two-year cycle makes more sense for the agencies themselves, that applying every year is a drain on their personnel resources that we don't need to ask them to go through. it gives us the luxury of doing what we're doing now, which is looking at the process, seeing if it needs to be tweaked, and not being under the gun to fix it by X amount of time. So anyway, but thank you for all this work, and I really look forward to kind of continuing to make this a better process. Thank you, Chair. Councilmember Evans. Thank you, Chair. I'll try and be brief. I guess I'm curious to know if you see or how close we are to having a process that we can stick with. Because I just foresee this happening even if we send it to two years. It's still going to be, well, we want to tweak this, we want to tweak that. I mean, and is that something that we as council have to decide that this is the process we're going to have? Is it up to you? Because this could go on forever and ever, and agencies would still be trying to create, you know, abide by whatever application, you know, is the flavor of the weed kind of thing. I think you raise a great point, Council Member. I think that we still have a new process. You know, urban county government is 40 years old, but this grant process is just only four years old. And it really took Teresa and I reviewing, because the years began for me, as you guys can imagine, they began to run together in regards to fiscal year 12, 13, 14. And so we're only in the fourth year of a true application process, so things are evolving. And one of the things Council Member Bledsoe mentioned when we were talking during the budget time is that we're close. We're getting closer. We're going to continue to refine. We're not where we want the process to be yet, but we're getting closer. As Council Member Maloney mentioned, I do recognize that even though there were some agencies that came forward, the level and the volume of the criticism and dissent was quite lower than what it was in years past. And so that's kind of evidence that we're kind of moving forward. Even the level of dissent and appeal that we had, I contend, is helpful. You know, we've met with many of the agencies that contacted you guys as council members, and some of the things that they brought forward, the apples-to-apples comparison is an example of one that came from that review and that dissent process. I will say, though, that it's a new process. is also new to the department because five years ago what would happen is the budget requests would come from budgeting and we would be charged with monitoring those funds that were provided to the agencies. Now we're having a much from a policy standpoint and an administrative standpoint, we're having a more hands-on approach we hope on behalf of the administration and the council to identify the needs, how best to meet those needs and how to build out this grant application process. I think we're heading in the right direction. Okay. Thank you. I guess for my two cents, what it's worth. I would say at some point we are going to have to pick what our priorities as a council are because we can't solve the world's problems. We're not going to, unfortunately, end hunger unless we decided to put all the resources we have into those issues that we really do believe are the highest. So I want us to make sure we are thinking about that because we can't fund everybody. And I do think at some point we are going to have to decide what really is necessary, what we really need to address as a city that we can. And then, yeah, I think we need to look at what programs, agencies, however it's decided. We need to look at results and result-oriented because that's what I think the purpose of having this grant is and even having the whole department. What are we fixing? I mean, are we just giving money to give money and it does help put a slight dent in it? I mean, what really are we trying to do? Are we trying to fix a problem? Are we trying to really at least reduce it significantly? And what are those programs or those agencies that can really put or reduce the concerns that we're having? So I guess that would be my thoughts going forward is to consider result-oriented programs or agencies because otherwise we are just not really addressing the problem. I guess that's how I would see it. So results is what I'm concerned with. And Chair, if I can, thank you, Council Member Evans, for that. Two quick points that I think hopefully that will add some assurance to the council is that I agree that we should engage the council, working with the administration and our department as a team to identify the areas that we want to focus on. In an ideal world, we're always perhaps going to have some agencies, you're going to have that with a competitive grant process, and that's also another dynamic that I think our agencies are adjusting to, the competitive nature from local government in regards to this pool of funds. But what we hope to do on behalf of the council and your constituents is that at the end of the day, when we come with future grant, with future recommendations, you guys can look at the recommendations. We can look at the recommendations, and we can say human needs, check. We can look at other areas, and we can say check, irregardless or irrespective of the service provider that is actually providing those. We just, from a policy standpoint, want to be able to address that. I think it's also important to note that I know the Department of Finance, they had some interns this summer, and they were kind enough to ask their interns to look at other benchmark cities to see what some of those other cities are doing. Some are doing, many are doing less than what we're doing with this program. A few are doing similar or more. But we should support this program, and I'm thankful for what you guys are doing for this program. but it's an extension of the core mission of the Department of Social Services from our four divisions and our three community-based programs. And the work that we support with the funding is just that. It's a supplement. It's an extension with local resources to these agencies that they provide these services via their service fees or other financial contributions they can bring in towards their mission. so it's easy to feel that we're not doing all that we can but I contend that we're doing much more than we've been able to do in years past thank you Councilmember Bledsoe sure I'm just going to sum up a little bit here first more than anything else want to say thank you Commissioner Ford Teresa at the administration has been so willing in the very beginning to sit down and have the conversations about how can we improve, be very realistic about some of the conflicts. You know, we've had those discussions all summer. We kind of hoped to bring maybe a little more formal presentation about some next steps, but we had the same conversation you did. How do we maintain innovation and new programming while also making sure our basic services are still being met, the needs of our city are still being met? And that's a delicate discussion and one that we should absolutely have. And the more we talked, the more we realized we had a little bit more to do on some of that. At the same time, I'm really appreciative of your willingness to have it. So thank you for the update. I hope that, you know, by February we do have a little more concrete answers, if you will. So thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, Chair. And I don't know if it's normal or not, But I wanted to ask if there was anybody else that wanted to comment. I'm not trying to put this guy in on the phone. I know she came down here to listen to this information, and I didn't know if she wanted to have any input or not. So no? I didn't know if you wanted to, you know. Good afternoon. So I don't know all of you, but I'm Marian Gwynn, and I'm the CEO of God's Pantry Food Bank. I also sit on the advisory board for the Department of Social Services, and I feel like I am able to take off my God's Pantry Food Bank hat and think broadly about good work in this community. So first off, I want to say I think the introduction of this process four years ago was a wonderful idea. It has allowed the city to partner with many agencies that it would have never partnered with before. I think that it is a good process, and I always, with my staff, I have this saying, you know, don't let perfect get in the way of great. You know, as you continue to strive for perfection, don't keep it from doing good work as you try to figure out what perfection looks like. and I think that's where we are with this. So there are opportunities for improvement, and I think certainly personally I'm happy to help in this process, however I am deemed to be of help. I appreciate you all for your thought and consideration, but we as an agency did have concerns, and I know other agencies did as well, And I think seeking the most fair way to review applications consistently is a great idea. I also am really supportive of the council setting some parameters or priorities, because otherwise, you know, in the way the process is now, it appears as if the council has priorities in areas that it may or may not have set as priorities. So anyway, thank you. Thanks. I figured since you came, took the time to come down here, you know. All right. On to the, so I guess what we'll do is we'll keep this on the agenda until March for a further presentation. I'd prefer to keep in committing until we're ready to make a more formal presentation about next steps. Okay. Thank you. That's good. All right. Thank you all for your presentation today. Thank you. All right, committee members. And finally, we'll go on to our referred items list. and I believe Commissioner no not Commissioner Council Member Scotchfield do we have an update on the aquatics program design and do you think we could have that for October I think our plan is to do it in October I believe we can we're doing town halls and I'll go ahead and do a plug right now there's a town hall tonight and a town hall on Thursday night I believe tonight is Imani Baptist, and on Thursday it's at Clay's Mill. So I encourage everybody to come out and give your input at those. I think we can, because I mean, I think everything on the committee agenda for, except for me, for October. I think we should be able to at least give a report out. Great. Awesome. And I will also defer to you about the Parks Foundation. Same thing? All right. All right. The review of ethics ordinance will remain on the agenda, and we'll maybe have another update in November. Is that on Council Member Evans? The Bluegrass International Chair Center, I mean, I think maybe we will be able to have. If we don't have one in October, we could shoot for November. I don't want to overload the agenda. We just had the grand opening of that on Friday, which was outstanding. and so is there a motion to remove the ordinance item number five from the agenda all right I think it was councilmember acres made a motion and or okay councilmember Bledsoe made a motion the councilmember acres seconded is there any discussion on any discussion on the motion there being no discussion all in favor say aye any opposed all right and then item number six the extended social resources we'll keep that on until march we'll schedule that then and on item seven the boards agencies and commissions for the membership and vacancies maybe we could see whether we do that in october or november depending on the length of the presentations from the aquatics and the parks. Councilmember Scutchfield, how do you feel about that? October's well? All right. Awesome. Okie dokie. All right. Is there any other items for discussion or anything? Otherwise, is there a motion to adjourn? Second. All right. Councilmember Scutchfield, second by Councilmember Evans. Thanks. All in favor. here. Thank you.