Audit and Finance Committee Meeting Transcript – 12/11/2017 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 12/11/2017 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 12/11/2017 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [9:37:06 AM] >> Tovo: I believe our chair is on the way but we're going to get started. The first is approve the minutes from November 15. Motion and second. Any feedback? Unanimous on the dais with chair troxclair off the dais. >> [Inaudible] >> Tovo: Do we have any citizens signed up to speak with us today? None. Okay, great, so we will move on then to approval of audit and finance committee dates for 2018. City auditor, would you like to walk us through this? >> Sure. Last time we discussed these but we had lost a quorum so we were unable to vote on them. I believe the consensus of the people that were here were January 24, March -- may 23, June 27, not having July or August meeting, if we need that we can work on a special call as we get closer to that time. September 26, October 24, November 28, and then not having a December meeting given how late the November meeting is. >> Tovo: All right. Is there a motion to approve these? Councilmember pool. Mayor Adler seconds. All in favor? That the unanimous on the dais with chair troxclair off the dais. So we have -- I guess we may as well start -- city auditor, should we stick on the order listed on the agenda or are there any we should take up quickly? >> We can. I don't know the length of a couple of the items. Item 7 may be a quicker item. >> Tovo: Why don't we knock out item 7. So that is the city [9:39:07 AM] attorney's quarterly report regarding enforcement of lobbist regulations. We all have distributed on the dais a memo on that. Welcome. >> Good morning. Lynn Carter with the city attorney's office. This is our second quarterly report under the amended lobbying ordinance. No action is needed on your part. The first of two pages of this report is information provided by the city clerk's office, relates to the quarterly report recording, payment of late fees and numbers of registrations. The second table details the information the code requires the city attorney report. Recently received 19 citizen complaints against attorneys or persons who are employees of law firms who have declined to report client compensation. And the city attorney's office will be providing a memo to council with -- and probably address that issue in executive session. >> Tovo: Thank you very much, Ms. Carter. I'm glad you brought that up. I did wonder about that. Are there other questions for Ms. Carter about this report? >> No. >> Tovo: Let's see. I don't believe we're scheduled to adopt it or anything like that. Thanks for being here. >> I've heard the investment policy is also a fairly short -- >> Tovo: Is that number 8? We have a process on revisions to the lobbyists. Does it make sense to knock that one out? And then we'll take financial policy. [9:41:12 AM] >> This is 8. >> Tovo: Yes, process update on revisions of the city code relating to anti-lobbying. Welcome. >> Good morning, members of the committee, mayor. James Scarborough, purchasing office. I have with me deputy procurement officer SHAWN willlet and we are providing a very brief update and overview of the efforts to date and the efforts going forward with regard to revising the city's anti- lobbying ordinance. So with this update, we will talk briefly about the revision efforts to date just to get the conversation oriented to all the activities that have occurred thus far. Also a current status where we're at with the revisions. And then go over again at the high level the remaining milestones and dates associated with this revision. And then recap and entertain any questions. Again, going forward with the ordinance, we're taking a very purpose. And very corporate view of the anti-lobbying ordinance as it applies to the vast majority of the city's procurements, we wanted to make sure that the committee had a chance and had expectations for the activities going forward so there were no surprises in subsequent visits. So the anti-lobbying ordinance revisions to date, in April of this year council lifted the anti- lobbying ordinance for waste management solicitations and at the same time established a work group to look into areas of concern associated with those solicitations. One of those identified was [9:43:15 AM] the anti-lobbying ordinance and how it was applied. In July of 2007 the waste management policy work group made recommendations. Among those recommendations were revisions to the anti-lobbying ordinance. In September earlier this fall staff presented a revised version of the anti-lobbying ordinance to council. Council referred the revised version of the Alo to the ethics review committee. In November the ethics review committee came back with some additional revisions, recommendations or revisions to the anti-lobbying ordinance. At the same time staff requested additional time to gather more vendor input and to incorporate any further revisions to the Alo. So that's where we are to date, very high level, as you have been participating in this discussion just to orient the conversation going forward. Currently I'm going to pass the discussion over to deputy procurement officer SHAWN willet and talk about what we're working on with the Alo and what we're going to do going forward. >> Good morning. As you know right now we're obviously at this moment communicating the remaining process regarding revising the Alo so you will know the direction. We're currently working on a version 2 of the Alo including some of the feedback we received specifically from the ethics review commission. As of right now the Alo is remaining lifted for all solicitation for waste management and that will be effective through April of 2018. Our plans going forward are by the end of this month we plan to release the version 2 to the public and everyone. We will also be including a companion document and in this document we're going to identif elements that we intend to include in the subsequent administrative rules so that those will be [9:45:15 AM] posted as well. And we also include a feedback form where we're going to ask for specific targeted comments on some of the major elements of the revised Alo. This will be, again, available by the end of this month and so we're hoping in January we'll have spent the month of January receiving feedback on v2 including the elements on this feedback form that will include -- that's in January of -- >> 2018. So not a year, my apologies. >> By February this will allow us to come back to the audit and finance committee and present the v2 which we have posted online including the rule elements as well as the feedback. At that particular time we will be seeking your input on where we're at including how we should move forward. Therefore, by March of 2018 we will be coming -- we will be working on creating a version 3, which that version will incorporate your feedback that we received in February and that will -- including your feedback on not only the Alo revisions but the rule elements and we'll be seeking your approval for a final version 3 which then we hope to take to council in April of 2018. >> So like we said, very brief update and overview of what we've done to date and what we intend to work ongoing forward. So develop the current version and the rule elements with feedback form, then proceed to release these documents to the vendor community and develop a final version with the committee's input and then proceed to get the committee's recommendation to then bring that final [9:47:15 AM] revised version of the Alo back to council. Hopefully with the most amount of review, the most opportunity for feedback and meeting as many expectations with a revised ordinance as possible. With that we welcome any questions or comments you would like to make regarding the process and what we're doing going forward. >> Members, any questions? >> Pool: I just wanted to ask the panel what you think about the deadline, April 18, considering the size of the effort. Are you all okay with that? Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I would like to see the process wrapped up. That seems ambitious, but necessary. >> [Inaudible]. >> That's okay. >> Yeah, April of '18. Discussion on the dais last was that we wanted -- there was an effort to put a modified Alo in place, as you'll remember, and some of us pushed pretty hard of that in support of continuing with this process. So I just kind of wanted -- since we know for sure it's an April of '18 days, I think we were thinking end of March or so. It's okay with me. But I wanted to kind of punctuate it a little bit since that was a conversation we had from the dais. What I don't want this to become is the special events [inaudible] -- >> Moving that direction. >> Pool: So I just want to flag that as well. That you can get us I guess a report back? >> We actually intend to [9:49:18 AM] come back twice more. So we'll come back with the version 2, so that will be based on the feedback that we receive to date, as well as the comments on version 2. We debated whether to bring back a version 2, get your feedback on it and then go back out to the vendor community and then receive their feedback. You would likely want to know what the vendor community was saying about the version before you made your observations so we thought best to take the feedback we received thus far, which has been a substantial amount, and make certain changes and then receive the vendor community feedback on it and then bring both the version 2 and the feedback to you. That would be the next visit to the committee. Then we would take your feedback and make a third and hopefully final version and present that back to you and with your recommendation, then we would proceed back to council. So we're anticipating two more visits to the committee before we would proceed to council in April. >> Troxclair: Okay. Councilmember pool. >> Pool: And that is separate from the rules. That process would initiate after we finalize the ordinance changes. Is that right? >> That is correct. >> Pool: Okay. >> But there were some discussions with regard to the content of those rules, and I think that by identifying the types of contents that we would intend to put in these rules, maybe not get into actually what the verbiage would be, but to at least identify the topics that we intend to address in the rules I think would help to alleviate some of the concerns associated with what may or may not be in the rules. We would just tell you we intend to put the following things in the rules. And if those were missing certain elements that you would like to see in the rules, we can add or remove those or what have you, but without going into the actual verbiage of the rules themselves again because they would be participatory [9:51:20 AM] what the actual rules would have. >> Troxclair: Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Troxclair: We will move on to item number 6, presentation of the city of Austin fiscal year 2017-2018 investment policy. Hello. >> Good morning. My name is art Alfaro, city treasurer. With me is Belinda weaver, over investments. Today we are seeking a recommendation of approval of the investment policy to the city council. Should you take that action, our next step would be to bring the policy to the entire council at its meeting on February 1st of 2018. I will now turn it over to Belinda to go over the rest of the presentation. >> Good morning. The public funds investment act, otherwise referred to as pfia false under chapter 226 of the Texas government code and it's explicit in requirements it places on municipalities as relates to investment of public funds. It's worth noting that the city is currently and continues to be in compliance with pfia. This slide with several requirements. We are here today to satisfy the first one which I've underlined, require city council adopt written investment policies annually. The current policy was approved on October 6, 2016. There are changes to this year's proposed investment policy. These changes encompass pfia legislative changes from the 2017 session along with some minor revisions. The legislative changes, there were three that we incorporated into our investment policy. Those include revisions to the money market mutual funds requirements, broker dealer certifications and training requirements. In addition to the legislative changes just mentioned, we also made [9:53:22 AM] modifications to collateralization, training and education, the investment committee and the appendixes. Although there are a number of changes within the policy, we are only highlighting what in our opinion are the two more substantive changes. The first change is in regards to collateralization. We have consolidated the section and have now included the federal home loan bank letter of credit as depository collateral. And with this new addition of collateral, the city hopes it will allow for a for diverse financial city banking and investment needs. The second notable change is regarding the broker dealer certification and this was due to a 2017 legislative change. Previously pfi required all business organizations and what they meant by business organizations were local government investment pools, broker/dealers, investment management firms. They required that they signed a certification that stated that the business had implemented reasonable procedures and controls to preclude prudent investment activities. So the 2000 modification actually defined what business organizations were know and they've limited it to local government investment pools and contracted investment management firms. Therefore now broker/dealers are no longer required to provide the certification. And although we are no longer requiring that certification, we will still be providing the investment policy to all of our broker delivery dealers annually and will require they acknowledge receipt and review of the investment policy before any business is Travis county. In addition, we are still requiring local government investment pools sign the certification according to pfia that is still required. It's worth mentioning that the city of Austin receive the certificate of distinction from the [9:55:23 AM] government treasurer's organization of Texas for our investment policy. And that concludes our prepared marks. >> Troxclair: Thank you. Members, any questions? Yes, councilmember pool. >> Pool: I want to talk about broker/dealer. I'm a trustee for the employee retirement system and that board, those trustees, the position there is that we would not employ a broker delivery dealer. Can you define broker/dealer? >> I would say they are intermediary for purchasing securities. They work for investment management firms. We have primary broker broker/dealers so they are under much more scrutiny, those banking institutions. Then we have regional broker/dealers that are more local. When we are purchasing securities to U.S. Agencies or treasuries, we go through the broker/dealer actually purchased the security and settle it with our safety first. >> Pool: Maybe I'm thinking about a different position, but the broker/dealer we use, is he or she selling funds that belong to the firm that he or she works for? >> No. >> Pool: So there's no financial benefit other than just your standard work -- >> Exactly. >> Pool: -- Maybe commissions, but the investment firm itself is not -- it doesn't have its own portfolio that way. >> No. >> Pool: And I bring this up because I want to be really careful with the changes afoot at the federal level. I think we will see a lot of entrenchment in financial markets and that alarms me. To the best of our abilities, I think Williamson creek need to have really high -- we need to have really high scrutiny [9:57:24 AM] to help us with trade and make the most cautious and careful decisions to make sure their efforts are sterling. >> Most definitely. >> Exactly. >> And our investment committee does approval our broker/dealer list annually. >> Councilmember pool, another distinction between the Tuesday and the three pension -- city of Austin and three pension funds, the three pension funds hire money managers, the ones that can execute trades. We do not have trading licenses swe have to go through a broker delivery dealer to cute -- broker/dealer. If we were employingings -- like the pension funds, that's where we assume the asset managers aren't using broker delivery dealers like we would. >> Pool: Right. Okay. It might be an interesting conversation with Mr. Canally to talk about a money manager, that conversation, so I can understand how the city, which is different obviously from a pension fund, but how a municipality manages and in vests its funds and how it's different from the pensions. You don't have to do it now. But we could meet and talk about it. >> Certainly. And I think just as some context, what our treasury office does every day is invest in the city's investment pool, and it is a very conservative investment strategy. This question comes up every time when we come to the full council, do we invest in the stock market. We do not. There are no equity investments of the city's cash. It is in typically government agencies and the local government investment pool. We have a policy in place about the duration of our -- duration of our assets I think is 365 days. So basically we have short money because we have funds coming in every day from traffic tickets, from library fines, from property taxes, and we have payments [9:59:25 AM] going out every day. Belinda's job is manage that every day. To the point and give her a credit, our idea - - or goal every day is to ensure that we have very little in our bank account so that we are investing, if we can squeeze a little interest in a tough environment, and we do that, our average bank is -- >> Under 200,000. >> On a billion dollar investment pool. They are every day trading through that and making sure that we can -- we are adhering not only to our financial policy in the pfia, but also ensuring that our funds are safe. >> Pool: One other question that I think might come up when you present this to council, it definitely came up about investments at coers, investing our money in the bank that we use. I think we use Wells Fargo or chase. >> Current is J.P. Morgan chase interand so there were issues about that and why couldn't we use local banks. And I understand the reasoning for that, but that may not be generally understood. Could you explain? >> Certainly, and we -- I believe we were just back in front of council in the spring, this past fringe on our five-year contract for our depository services. We went through an rfp process where we opened it up to any institution. There are, given the pfia rules, there are major democratization issues that -- collateralization that only certain banks can make. As we highlighted during that time period we have made good in roads into working more closely with local -- local banks through some of our loan on promise that we have. We did it through our stimulus program, we worked with velocity as well as broker/dealers on investments that are [10:01:26 AM] occurring daily. We always look for opportunities to do that and will continue to do so. >> Pool: Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Troxclair: Members, any other questions? Do you need a motion from us? >> Yes, a recommendation of approval to council. >> Troxclair: Okay. Councilmember pool makes that motion. Is there a second? Mayor seconds. All those in favor? It passes unanimously. >> Thanks. You all have a good day. >> Troxclair: Auditor, there is there a preference for which audit is taken up first? Item 4, neighborhood centers audit that looked at whether neighborhood centers were effectively meeting the needs of low and moderate income residents. >> Camera was the lead auditor and cam ran -- Cameron will be presenting. >> I'll be presenting the findings of the audit. Austin public neighborhood services divisions operates six neighborhood centers that provide a variety of services to low and moderate income residents. Services provided -- oops. Basic social services such as food assistance and free transportation passes, preventive health services such as cholesterol and high blood pressure screenings, and case management services in the form of rent and utility assistance. Neighborhood centers offer food distribution and preventive health services at three outreach locations. Neighborhood centers provide services through three different models. The first is a single building dedicated to neighborhood center staff, which is used at blackland neighborhood center. The second is a shared building that contains neighborhood center staff [10:03:26 AM] and third-party service providers, which is used at rosewood Zaragosa neighborhood center. The third is a community center model that houses neighborhood center staff in a facility along with the city recreation center, a branch of the Austin public library and aic elementary school. This is used at St. John's community center. We had one finding in this audit. Residents who visit neighborhood centers are satisfied with services received, however, due to a number of complaints neighborhood centers may not be providing services to all residents who need them. The map on this slide shows median household income by block grant for Travis county. The areas in yellow represent areas of the city that may be he will services. The gray areas represent a one-mile walking distance around each center. Through an analysis of this data, we found that while neighborhood centers are accessible via public transportation, they may not all be located in areas of the city where low and moderate income residents live. Specifically less than 5% of low and moderate income households live within walking distance of a neighborhood center. You can also see on the map that the one-mile areas around rosewood Zaragosa, blackland and east Austin neighborhoods overlap which results in 2600 residents living within walking distance of two or more centers. St. John's community center and montopolis neighborhood center are located in areas of the city with high concentration of low-to-moderate income residents. However, the montopolis is only open one day a week due to remodel set to be completed in 2019. Austin public health has taken two steps to address this issue of accessibility by establishing mobile outreach sites for food distribution and preventive health services and identifying locations for new neighborhood centers. [10:05:27 AM] Neighborhood centers receive approximately $3 million of funding from the city's general fund, the federal community services block grant and a state grant for local public health services. Management indicated neighborhood service delivery has been negatively impacted by negative funding. Current funding for rent and utility payment assistance is not enough to meet current resident needs. Additionally, neighborhood center staff currently oversee 17 food distribution events at nine different locations each month. They have been unable to expand to new locations due to limited staff. Finally, technology improvements such as online application have been deferred due to lack of available funding. Next year csbg funding is expected to decrease. Austin public health has a coordinated departmentwide effort to promote their programs, but neighborhood centers have not developed a Normal outreach plan to increase awareness of their services. Currently outreach is done by neighborhood center staff during their day to day duties and a project team comprised of neighborhood center staff is working to connect with other departments and third-party service providers. Staff express concerns staff over -- however, efforts can be made to spread the word about service that can support increase demand such as other basically social services. Through peer city research we identified strategies that neighborhood centers could explore to make it easier for residents to being a estancia. Estancia. Escarpment services and to bring services to where people live. Fort Worth's neighborhood services division operates nine csbg funded neighborhood centers. These centers are dealing with similar accessibility issues that Austin is facing. Fort Worth has implemented changes to their service model. For example, they are pursuing semi permanent office space for case managers at third-party [10:07:29 AM] provider locations. We made two recommendations based on our finding. We recommended that the Austin public health director identify and implement strategies to improve accessibility into high need areas and develop an in implement an outreach plan to increase awareness of neighborhood service centers. Management agreed with our recommendations. That concludes our presentation and we are happy to take any questions. >> Troxclair: Members, any questions on this audit? Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: There was a conversation about the neighborhood centers that evolved around looking at other service providers or governmental entities in 2 city, the schools -- in the city, the schools, central health, to look and see whether or not combined the facilities could share space, share function and operate either more efficiently or with greater reach. Did you look at that aspect of this? >> I I this we did see some -- I think we did see some shared space in the neighborhood centers where that was happening, and then that was part of the thought behind the recommendation to look further into those partnerships and what -- what space could be shared or what other collaboration could happen. >> Mayor Adler: So that was part of the first recommendation was -- >> Yes. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Troxclair: Councilmember pool. >> Pool: Was a recommendation made to move the centers that no longer have the number of residents who need their services further east, for example, [10:09:30 AM] or south, southeast, in order to locate them where maybe the areas of disadvantage or low-income, where the resources are scarce would be really helpful? Could we push those centers into those communities where they are needed. >> I think Austin public health may be better able to speak to that, but certainly as part of that recommendation I think there needs to be analysis and there may already be analysis underway regarding which centers kind of are currently provides the service that needs to be provided and what expansion can happen. >> Pool: I think this is kind of a signal about gentrification and displacement, frankly. >> Absolutely. >> Pool: It's pretty clear that's why some of these centers are no longer being patronized by the communities they were put there to care for and to support. I would like to see what partnering and the joint work that we may be doing with the school district, I think the mayor mentioned the school district, to see if there's a way, especially with the fresh food distribution, if we might be able to get some posters up and flyers out and maybe even have a food stand in the front area of a school, on the school grounds maybe once a month or something like that. If aid and the sustainable food center and public health could maybe collaborate and take the food to where the children are. Just a thought. Does staff maybe want to speak to that? And you already may be planning something along these lines. >> Good morning. Stephanie Hayden, I want Christmas director Austin public health. -- Interim director. There are a few satellite sights that we have that [10:11:30 AM] have been included in the report. And as we're looking at this, we're going to need to take a full comprehensive look at the locations of the neighborhood centers as well as overlay that data where Travis county centers are as well. So for us we really need to look at a more comprehensive look and include the data as well as have conversations with the community because we feel like it's going to be important to include their impact in this conversation. I think the other significant piece to this also is that there are several city of Austin housing authority sites that are -- one is like right across the street from east Austin neighborhood center, bar Z has one right down the street. There is an elderly complex across the street from rosewood Zaragosa. For us as we're looking at it, we really want to look at this through a very comprehensive lens. And then the other thing we also have to consider is is that due to limited number of staff, there may be areas that we may have to stop providing services and other areas as your suggestion was made, that re will need to look at, but we will have to be a very comprehensive process where we're including all those elements. >> Pool: And you brought up Travis county and that would also be a good regional partner to work with. >> Absolutely, yes, ma'am. >> Pool: The last question I have goes to the data, the deferred technology improvements. When we sit on the dais and make decisions about the budget, technology gets extra scrutiny, maybe, and then cuts. So maybe when you guys come to us for fiscal 19 funding or maybe in the midyear we [10:13:32 AM] may do a midyear budget adjustment, if you could bring us specific information that ties the needed technology improvements that have been deferred to the work on the ground so that these programs -- if that is interfering with the program delivery or education and awareness for the community, then I would want to look at that and factor that into my decisions on funding for technology improvements. >> Okay. Thank you. Absolutely. >> Troxclair: Mayor pro tem tovo. >> Tovo: I have a couple questions for both the auditor and for public health. So I think what this data is showing is that there are areas -- I mean it seems to me the conclusion is that we don't have neighborhood centers in areas with the highest concentrations of low and moderate income residents. Not necessarily that they are not needed where they are. And I don't see, and I may have just missed it, data that shows -- shows income levels for people who are living around our existing centers. I think while it is true, the conversation or at least maybe my first glance at this suggested to me that maybe in areas where they are there is no longer -- the assertion is there is no longer need and that's not the assertion, it's just we have areas where there is high need where we don't currently have a center. >> And I think that's maybe part one of our finding, but we do have the concern that we have three centers where there is a need -- >> Tovo: But they overlap. >> There are three of them. There may be better dispersement there. >> Tovo: I get that. And I wanted to mention the overlap too. And so I yes, sir I'm too wondering just as you go forward, Ms. Hayden, with your comprehensive analysis, I think that makes a lot of sense. I would also be interested [10:15:33 AM] in knowing how -- what our general plan is with making sure the neighborhood centers are working in concert with the concept of navigation centers. You know, to what extent -- and I guess that's a question for right now too, to what extent are our existing neighborhood centers serving as navigation centers currently. Are they doing coordinated housing assessment and are we kind of looking at the neighborhood centers in terms of the overall plan. Throughout the city. >> We have a crisis team that's led by a supervisor with three, four -- three social workers, and she is a working supervisor. They are plugged into coordinated assessment. They primarily work when we have responses like Harvey, but the rest of their time is spent helping folks to avoid homelessness and also connect them to housing. So they are part of the existing continuum where they are keeping people housed and maybe marginally housed, as well as connecting folks to housing and services. So they are providing case management to them as well. >> Tovo: Through our neighborhood centers. >> Through our neighborhood centers. >> Tovo: Through all of them. >> Strategically located by rosewood Zaragosa and the rest of the centers with the exception of montopolis has a social work their is working there providing case management services, yes. >> Tovo: And that person can also do coordinated assessment? >> What they do is they coordinate with echo in order to conduct the coordinated assessment. So they are able to plug the client into -- and then our folks have the his, the homeless management information systems license so they are able to access the system and go into the system as well. So we're definitely a part [10:17:34 AM] of the continuum and helping to decrease the number of homeless people in our community. >> Tovo: Thank you. And then I had a smaller question, if I can figure out where I wrote it. So let's see. In the summary that we received, it talked about $100,000 has been allocated to rent and utility assistance over the last three years, but management stated that this amount will decrease by more than 60,000 due to decreased grant funding and increased personnel costs. So I wondered of that 100,000, how much of that was going to rent and utility assistance versus -- are personnel costs coming out of that 100,000 currently and if so how much? >> One more time. This is MARIA Allen, manager for the neighborhood centers, the neighborhood services unit. And all of the 100,000 is going towards the contract for rent and utility assistance. That's the csbg assistance that we have. We do have a small portion of that that goes to facilitating the actual transfer of the funding. We have a small subcontract through Easter seals that are a fiscal agent. They actually process the payments for you. And so they do take a small percentage of that 100,000. But the remainder goes direct to financial stones assistance. The grant, primarily as we have talked about funds person fell, and that's why as we have increasing personnel costs, the amount we have to go towards direct financial assistance is decreased. >> Tovo: So, I'm sorry, I'm having trouble matching those up. If Easter seals is taking a piece for the fiscal management of that, is that the cost that's going up in terms of personnel or are [10:19:36 AM] personnel costs going up and that's going to have to eat into the grant as well? Which is currently not being funded through the grant. >> Right. Our personnel costs are really the majority of folks that provide the services at the centers. So those are our community workers, those are our social workers. We have an administrative assistant that's hired out of that grant, and then also too the center managers. So those are the personnel costs that are going up that affect the grant. And as those costs go up, we have less to be able to direct towards direct financial assistance because we are required by csbg to set aside a portion of that grant for direct financial assistance. But I'm not sure if I'm answering your question. >> Tovo: I think so. Sounds like of that 100,000, some of it goes to fiscal management, some of it goes to personnel costs to administer the program -- >> No, actually none of the subcontract goes towards any of the personnel costs to administer the program. That's done through the neighborhood centers and the general fund staff. >> Tovo: Then why would that -- is it more accurate to say that the amount is going to decrease due to decreased grant funding, not personnel costs. Because the personnel costs while going up are not currently being funded out of the grant and won't be in the future either? >> No, it's actually both. So csbg funds 16 of the 35 positions at the neighborhood centers. So it actually really is primarily an administrative support grant and so we use it to fund much of the actual program staff that deliver the services at the neighborhood centers. So as our personnel costs go up within the grant itself, that does affect then the amount that we're able to set aside for direct client assistance. We also did receive a decrease or projected decrease from csbg so it [10:21:39 AM] affects what we have to set aside for rent utility assistance. >> Tovo: So is that 100,000 going in some part to personnel? >> No. >> No. >> Tovo: I'm confused buoy this bullet because it sounds like we have a pot of money of 100,000 that's going down -- >> The total grant is $1,148,202 for this year. So the majority of that grant then goes toward funding those personnel. So as our personnel costs then go up due to market studies and/or the regular increases that staff receive, we have then less funding to attribute to the direct client assistance. >> Tovo: Okay. All of that makes complete sense. I think that's throwing me off is the wording of this bullet. >> I think basically we realized that as well after creating the highlights document so you will see in the presentation we kind of refocused that. I think what we were trying to note is certainly for rent and utility assistance, the available funding to provide that service, which is already I think the 100,000, if everybody took the maximum, we could serve about 50 people, that number is going down significantly. It's not -- but I think -- and it took me a while to understand this, it's a pool of money that's used to fund all of the services. So there was a market study implementation and then cost of living increases and all of those effect the [inaudible] Of the larger bucket. So then what's left for rent and utility assistance is smaller. I think it's our language in the highlights. >> Tovo: Thanks. That helps. One last question. Sorry, I said that was going to be a quick question but it wasn't. So we -- we are funding some partners through our -- to help with rental assistance through some of our contracts. Is that a more cost efficient way to deliver that service? Would that help cut down on [10:23:41 AM] our personnel costs if we just took our csbg money for rental assistance and did it not through the neighborhood centers but through -- but through some of our partner organizations? Or are we just hitting different people than those organizations are able to connect with? >> So ultimately -- besides the fact this was a requirement of the grant to ensure that you use a certain amount of your total funding to go toward rental assistance, we are using these dollars to help with our self-sufficiency clients, which is a requirement of the state as well. And this allows us to transition folks out of poverty. And it's the best practice model because it's a one-stop shop and we're able to use that at one setting. So the clients don't have to travel outside of the center to do multiple things in order to receive the financial assistance. And so that's the first reason, first couple of reasons why it's set up like that because it does help with that transitioning people out of poverty and it's a direct access to clients that is right there one-stop shop. As far as would it be more inexpensive to shift that over, I mean there's always an administrative cost when you move into a contract and you are contracting out services. So I mean it's like apples and Oranges, so to speak. So it's not so much that it would be less expensive, but, you know, it would be just set up differently. >> Tovo: Thanks. And I appreciate that while people are there it's best for them to be connected to those services and support services at the center. I'm just thinking about the decreases -- you know, the really substantial decreases in funding and wondering if that might be an option to [10:25:42 AM] consider. Perhaps our partner organizations might want to locate -- you know, might want to have a staff member locate there a a day a week or something like that. Anyway, thanks. >> Troxclair: Mayor, did you have another question? Okay. Your light is on. I wanted to ask about the -- the funding for the neighborhood centers as a whole. Do we-when we're budgeting every year, is the money that is spent on the programs that the neighborhood centers administer through a line item that goes to neighborhood centers or through the broader program? For example, the neighborhood centers, looks like they are doing rental -- they have a rental assistance program. Is that the same rental assistance program that the city as a whole has or is it separate? And budgeted separately? >> So contracts -- I want to try and make sure I'm understanding your question in order to answer it. So the social service contracts are set up in a separate fund that's exclusively for social service contracts. So that's where the contracts are sitting. The grant dollars that we receive as well for csbg are set up in another fund. And then the dollars that come to the neighborhood centers are set up in their own fund as well. So it's kind of set up in a smaller bucket. So you have the larger 100 million-dollar health and human services budget, but it all funnels down into the various programs. >> Troxclair: I guess what I'm trying to understand so one of the recommendations is the programs need more funding. Is that neighborhood center programs or is that other [10:27:43 AM] programs within the health and human services? I mean if somebody calls -- I'm trying to understand if there's -- I don't want to say duplicative because I don't know if they are, but the rental assistance program, I know the city when we increased the homestead exemption a few years ago, we increased the amount of money that went to the rental assistance program. Is that the same rental assistance program we're talking about in this audit or a separate pot of money? >> It's a separate pot of money. That's where the social services are sitting with the rental assistance. So it's a separate pot of money. I will say that also the clients at the neighborhood centers, because it is a finite amount of dollars, they are able to access the dollars that are in the social services funding as well, and then we partner with the county. So therefore, you know, if you look at it from the lens of a -- from a micro lens individual, if an individual presents with a significant utility bill, then that case manager will basically look for several entities to be able to cover that utility bill in order to keep that individual housed and not have utilities turned off. So that's just an example of how a case manager would be able to use several resources to assist one client. >> Troxclair: But that's separate from the cap program, for example. Administered by Austin energy. >> Yeah, the cap program is different. Our staff do connect clients to the cap program and work with them on getting enrolled. But even with the cap program, if your utility bill falls behind and you are not able to pay for it, then these dollars -- an individual will be able to access these dollars just to pay for your utility bill. Those are two different things. The cap gives you a [10:29:44 AM] reduction and this can pay a past due >> It bill for you. >> It's confusing as a councilmember where the dollars should go to provide the most -- the people who are in need, the best benefit of the people who need it and also as an individual when we say that one of the problems that people don't know about what services are available or provided, it seems like there's kind of lots of different -- there's not one streamlined path, I guess, within the city to get the resources they need. I don't know the, like it seems like you would maybe call Austin energy -- call the city, then Austin energy and then the neighborhood center. It seems like a lot of places to go to get a full understanding of what programs you might be able to apply for. That's not something that's going to be addressed here. But it would be helpful to the extent that there are resources or audits or directions or some -- something going forward in the future and budgeting costs for us to understand what the best places to allocate those dollars are seeming to serve the same population of people in need, that would be really helpful. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thanks. Council member alter? >> Alter: Thank you. >> Thank you for joining us. >> Alter: I had the opportunity to talk to the auditor beforehand so I apologize if you covereded this in your presentation. I have two questions. One -- with respect to mobility of the services, obviously that's a potential direction that the audit is suggesting and you're probably thinking about that yourselves. What are some of the best practices or models that you're looking at or have you gotten that far? Because I know there are several nonprofits in town who are also facing the reality that the poverty is spreading out and [10:31:46 AM] it's in new locations and their brick and mortar buildings are not where they need to be to cover the knees in our community. A, what models you're looking at, B, how the city might collaborate with the nonprofits to provide those kinds of mobile services more effectively. >> So currently, we currently have three that reach sites that are -- I mean, they're pretty much, you know, where we've moved those sites out to provide the food service delivery. In those areas where there's really not a lot of other services. And that collaboration is with the capital area food bank. And so that has proven to be a very successful outreach effort that we currently provide to this -- to the Austin as well as the Travis county community. So I think as we look at things, looking at models like that, we could replicate models like that where we are collaborating either for the, you know, for the location, you know, for example, Santa Barbara is one of the locations. So we are collaborating, you know, for the location sites to actually have it or the dove springs recreation center is another place where we have our mobile food pantry that's collaborating with the food bank. So just looking at those things and looking at how we can potentially shift things around or as I stated early, we have a finite number of staff, there would have to be things that we would no longer be able to do and then I think the larger thing is that our grant funds are good until the 22nd of December. We are right now working off of -- of leftover dollars from this fiscal year, which will [10:33:46 AM] take us into February as we wait to hear from the president's budget. So we really have to, you know, really look at it from a financial perspective and just make sure that we're not overcommitting ourselves due to -- you know, we have a lot of instability with our federal funding. >> Alter: So you anticipated my second question which is about the federal funding and our contingency plans. Can you elaborate more on that as you talk about the budget. This is something I was concerned with and I hoped we would able to put some reserve funds away for this which when he did not do. So I would like to hear more about the contingencies that you have in place. >> At this point, there are 16 employees that will be potentially affected by this grant if we don't receive grant funding. Now, it's all apart of the civil service and so basically we would work with our corporate hr to look for placements for those individuals. But due to the fact that it is such a significant amount of individuals, we would be very challenged in order to keep the staff and to keep the centers open. It would be a huge challenge. >> I don't know if you're the representative from the city manager's office or if -- but I wanted to, you know, be reassured that we are continuing to plan for some of this federal funding that may disappear. I'm sure it's not just the neighborhood centers. But I am very concerned about what happens if we all of a sudden are not able to provide these services. I know that, you know, the audit is saying we have many more people that we're already meeting. But as the mayor pro tem pointed [10:35:48 AM] out, the people who are using them now need those services. So I would just like to make sure that this is on the radar and we have some steps in place that we're looking at as a backstop, both from the employees and for the services to be delivered. >> Assistant city manager, interim. I think those are all good points. We're taking notes about looking at alternative sites and current sites that we may be able to partner with the internal partners but our nonprofit partners so there may be a way do cost sharing instead of using city facilities but looking at how we locate and jointly be offering services. The other is the overview doing overlay of map of city and aid county and city properties to see if we're duplicaive in those areas or offers in other areas and how we coordinate better with the navigation centers. That will help in some area, the money part of it. The other part of it is far as staff is ---Ed, its's on our radar. As a matter of fact, during budget preparation this year, Stephanie and I were closely working and watching the federal budget to make sure there would not be a situation where there would be a city employee grant funded that there would be without a job to the point that we were holding vacancies so we could look at transitioning if there was reduction in the federal government. But all of those things will be looked at as well holistically as we move forward into the next budget year which we started through financial forecasting. But I think part of this is truly, as Stephanie said, looking at comprehensive approach and mapping a all of these sites and looking at gaps in services but also where we can better partner and even possibly reduce costs from a facilities standpoint so we can make sure that the money goes into the services directly. Thank you. [10:37:49 AM] >> Just to add -- we are -- you know, the overall -- all federal funding, not just here, you know, it's a discussion that we talked about in the fall. I think it's something that we are working with the government relationships folks to track all of the government funding whether it's the public safety grants or public housing grants to make sure that that is -- we know what the playing field is. And as the budget -- as the administration's budget gets done to see where it all falls out and it's something that will be a key area for us to focus on as we move through our annual budgeting process starting here early in the year. >> Tovo: Okay, thank you. Any other questions? All right, thank you very much. We appreciate it. >> Can we get acceptance of that. >> Tovo: Oh, yeah. I always forget that. Is there a motion to accept the audit? Councilmember Poole makes that motion and mayor pro tem tovo seconds. All in favor, please raise your hand. The audit is accepted unanimously. The last -- well, the next to last item on our agenda is item number 5. The second audit in the homelessness assistance audit series that looked at the coordination of homelessness assistance efforts. >> Andrea Keegan managed this audit, Andrew will be presenting this morning. Just as a reminder last month, we presented to you about homelessness city policies and ordinances that affect homelessness. So mere we looked at coordination within the city. >> Good morning. >> Good morning. Andrew Keegan, assistant city auditor. As Cory mentioned, this audit looked at how the city [10:39:50 AM] coordinates the homelessness assistance efforts. As background, Austin has more people experiencing homelessness per capita than other large Texas cities, be uh less than other large cities in the united States. This is from the 2016 point in time count data. There are a number of city departments that are involved in homelessness assistance. We identified at least 20. And these efforts generally fall into three categories. Efforts may be directly related to serving the homeless population. For instance, managing a contract related to shelters. Some departments have efforts that indirectly serve the homeless population. You heard about the neighborhood centers which harbors services to lo-income residents, some may be experiencing homelessness. Some departments, they're impacted by the issue of homelessness, for instance, the water quality in creeks and waterways around homeless camps. What we found is that the city does not have a position to coordinate these homelessness assistance efforts. Other cities have recently established an entity within the city to coordinate their efforts and many have developed strategic plans to this effect. The city does coordinate some efforts but these are either limited in scope or lack resources but the city does not have the strategic plan. Some of the efforts under way is the outreach street team or host. These efforts are primarily pub lib safety focussed and focussed downtown. And then the city manager recently created a homelessness team, however, the city employees who serve on this team are doing so in addition to their regular job duties. Some of the effects of the lack of coordination are potential inefficiencies like multiple departments that manage contracts for homelessness assistance. There's also some issues with coordinating efforts, for instance, we learned that Austin [10:41:51 AM] resource recovery has a program to flush alleyways around town, particularly around the arch. It was only recently pointed out to them and the question is where does that water end up going? And it turns out the water which contains debris and trash and other materials was being washed into water creek. So they're now working to recapture that water. There are also maybe missed opportunities, for instance, if the city has data on people that may become, that may be at risk of becoming homeless, that data could be used to find services for them to prevent them from coming -- prevent them from experiencing homelessness in the first place. As a result of these, we made one recommendation. We recommend that the city manager designate a position within the city whose primary responsibility would be to coordinate homelessness assistance efforts. Part of the duties of this would be to develop a strategic plan and coordinate department efforts. City manager has agreed with this recommendation and I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: I think it's great for us to coordinate. So many things are happening in so many different places. So I think the message that there needs to be greater coordination and coming up with the strategic plan so we're not doing a lot of things as one offs but integrated I think is great. The question I have on this is similar to the question I had on the workforce analysis that we heard at the last audit in finance committee, which had the same kind of thing. Where we had different departments in the city or different programs being funded. A feeling that we neededed to have greater coordination, which I think is a really good thing. In both of these two instances, both workforce and in the homelessness, there's also a [10:43:52 AM] fairly robust look at that that's happening outside of the city, with respect to this echo is doing a coordinating effort and several of us including the mayor pro tem and myself are part of conversations going back a year where echo is trying to come up with a larger strategic plan which the mayor pro tem is asked to have a conversation on in council in February. >> First thing in February. >> Mayor Adler: First thing in February, which I think will be very useful. And I know that -- I think all of the service providers or nearly all are interesting people to gather on the strategic plan and looking at the same kind of efficiency questions. And the workforce -- the workforce development also coming back to Austin for a briefing on. For whatever we're doing, I want to do in conjunction with that that we're not trying to reinvent wheels or profit by -- it could be that. If we need to have somebody in the city, it could be that the systems and institutions are set up that we don't need somebody in the city. I don't know if can you looked at that yet to see if you have compared having it in the city versus continuing with the process already happening. I don't know how much of that strategic plan that the provider community has put forward has already been looked at. And I don't -- I just don't know how those things mesh together and if we're really going to be truly efficient and cost effective and really spend resources, then both of these cases, it wouldn't -- both of those things would be fully integrated. I guess that's my question. >> So absolutely agree there are entities outside of the city taking the lead on certain areas and doing a great job. You mentioned echo. It's one. [10:45:53 AM] The cities that we looked at, they'd all established -- this is recent in the last year or two, cities internal to the city as well as having the partnerships with the external entities. And I think part of the issue is the ability to direct city staff. So I think any position obviously would have to coordinate and it wouldn't be effective if they didn't coordinate with the third party groups. But the ability to direct city staff was kind of our main focus there. So the strategic plan for the community is great and necessary, but also one that directs that's the ability to direct city staff to perform tasks, I think, is needed as well. >> And that -- you'll see in our report that we do acknowledge the work that echo has done. The -- the draft report when actions to end homelessness. And I think that's something that certainly is also aware of and as the person tasked within the city coming up with a purge would be bringing that in >> Mayor Adler: And maybe something that's important. We don't want to encourage the city having a strategic plan and the city operating a strategic plan and echo also have a strategic plan and echo is off providing a strategic plan, even if they're talking to each other, in a perfect world, there's one strategic plan. And I don't know if we get to one strategic plan by saying that the city is going to now take point on developing the strategic plan on homelessness, or if the city is a participant in echo coming up, working with the -- coming up with the community plan that has to come back to council. As I understand that ultimately, somebody has to direct staff and outside groups can't direct staff. But I guess it's pursuant to what strategic plan is somebody [10:47:53 AM] in this city directing people? I mean we just have to make sure that we don't have two of those. And I don't know how in both of these instances, both have homelessness and in who recollect force, how we make sure that there's just one community planned. I refer to the mayor pro tem for an idea. >> Mayor pro tem tovo. >> Tovo: I completely agree with the the mayor's comments and I want seems to me that one option might be that we did with the United Way plan that was presenteded to the council years ago now. But I believe that the council actually endorsed it as the plan for early childhood in this community and it seems to me appropriate to do the same for the plan that echo has put together. So that's one reason why we did schedule it for February. We talked a about it in the budget process and I know it was distributed to all of the councilmembers but actually that might be an option of having the council consider it in a briefing as we will be doing in February and then endorsing ate tz city's plan. You know, that whuz put together by echo, but as you referenced where different community stakeholders, the providers in that network, it was endorsed by the community of care, the membership council of echo and it's very much in line with where we want to go with the city. That's an option that I would support. I agree with the assertion we don't have somebody in the city coordinating these efforts, but it's my understanding that we had a position along those lines at one point and then I can give you this. It all comes from the brain of Ann Howard so I'm not channeling my own knowledge of this. I'll credit her for reminding me about that. But I think that's a question of whether we need a staff member to do that or whether the existing system of city managers and that accountability is getting it going knowing we have a coordinating body in the city of Austin. [10:49:54 AM] That's fulfilling that role nicely in a time of squares resources, getting back to the conversation we just had about taking some of the money from the grant for rental assistance and having to put it toward personnel. If we up don't need personnel, then I'm not sure -- I would just raise that as a question. And you know, I wanted to say someone thing about the host team, not only because bill Bryce of downtown Austin alliance is here. But you know, there were discussions happening at the city about a team of that sort and then we were waiting for the effort to happen from the city and bill Bryce of the downtown Austin alliance convened that group and one of the reasons we have this team is our partner or community organization actually got the right people in the room and we had such significant support from the police department and from the city partners that that was able to move forward. That's a great example of how -- how the effort can be convened and organized beautifully from the partners in the community. So -- anyway, thanks for the work. And -- we'll just -- we'll move forward. That's something when he need to think about whether or not a coordinated position in the city is the best way to go about this. But I think we should take some kind of formal action on a strategic plan but I want the base to be the echo plan that's taken so much work and time and resources and is really a solid plan that has a lot of support for those who work every day from individuals experiencing homelessness. >> A little more comment. I need to leave. >> Go ahead. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. I agree with what mayor pro tem said too. We need to vet it to make sure that our professional staff thinks that that is the right approach. And to the degree that it's not, we should work to make it better with echo. If it's appropriate for that strategic plan, we handle inside the city of Austin and that's what the stakeholders think so, great, let's do it that way. [10:51:55 AM] And if not, let's do tid other way. In other words I'm not presupposing any solution other than to say we should have everybody together. Just a better general approach. And I would also ask that we have the same kind of briefing I think we may have already scheduled it, if not, we should on workforce development. But its's the same question. I don't know whether it should be that plan or in the city, who should coordinate it. I just know that having work happening in the city and happening in the community on both of these issues doesn't feel right. So I would have both of those briefings come in because it would be similar kinds of conversations. They might end up in two entirely different places but both of those would be really good conversations to have. >> If I could just real quickly say -- I think we're in agreement with that. I don't think we want to add a position if we don't absolutely have to. I think what we're doing currently is to look at all intentities, internally, which you have a list of and then externally that are offering services. The plan that echo has is a good plan and many of those are things are things that we're continuing to work with echo on and are supporting. I think what we're trying to uncover is the amount of money the city is spending on homelessness efforts close to the tune of around $30 million. We're trying to give you the same information we're doing in workforce development which is here's where we're spending it, here's where it's going, here is how it's allocated. Here are the people served, here are the nonprofits involved, and then provide council with an opportunity then to make decisions based on that information. The echo plan is a great plan. I reviewed it again this weekend. There are a lot of programs -- a lot of things that that are forward that we're involved in. [10:53:57 AM] From a city staff, there's no coordinated efforts when we sat at the table and partners looked at each other and go, oh, you're doing that. We want to map that out and for our friends in the nonprofit world that Anne has done so well with a lot of them but the faith community as well to show who's doing what and where. And then say here's sort of the plan and working with Anne and others, here's sort of where the gaps are. And here's how much money is being spent. And there you go. If it doesn't -- if we don't need a position, although I will say I've been working on this trying to -- it's been a labor of love because I feel very strong about what Ann and others are doing. But I have someone I pulled to help me and I don't know if we'll need a fulltime position but we do concur a fulltime position just to have someone coordinating, I had no idea the depth of watershed protection and what they were dealing with when it came to homelessness. So it's all those kinds of things. >> Tovo: I want to clarify. It may be that it's exactly the right thing to have a person to coordinate again. My main interest is in making sure we're not reinventing wheels and duplicating services and we're not drafting a plan from the bottom up if we can start with another plan that's already been involved in the same people who would be participating. But it is -- you know, and just because the creek came up, that also involved the work of public works because it was also true that in that very same -- at least one of those very same alleys, there were potholes that needed to be fixed because we were cleaning it and protecting it, the water was staying in some of those potholes. So there are multiple departments that need to be involved in a more coordinated effort is great and welcome. Just one clarification on the recommendation. We did not recommend creating a position necessarily and certainly the city manager can decide that's what needs to [10:55:59 AM] happen as kind of discussed here and assess that and figure out what's necessary. I think what we recommended is somebody be designated with primary responsibility for this because it seems like a big job and it's currently being done by people who don't necessarily have the capacity without going above and beyond for that kind of level of effort. >> Council member pool. >> Pool: Thanks for doing the audits. It's interesting. I look forward to the next in the series. I want to thank interim assistant city manager Hensley for grabbing hold of the behemoth and finding out what the city has been doing. If a resident asks me how much money is the city spending on homelessness, I can't answer that questionn't and I don't know where the moneys are being spent. I mean, I kind of know generally. But I don't know comprehensively. And for us to be able to partner effectively within the community, we have to know that. And so thank you for -- I think this is the first time that that comprehensive gathering and accumulation of all of our efforts has been done and I really appreciate you just grabbing ahold of that and moving forth with that. To that end, based on what the mayor and the mayor pro tem were saying about having the coordinated effort with the partners in the community and the strategic plan adoption, mayor pro tem, are you thinking that if we were to adopt a strategic plan, it would have a base -- I think I heard you say -- a base of what the echo strategic plan is. But it would also incorporate elements that the city would be working on. Is that correct? >> I think that's a discussion that we should probably have at that work session echlt it seemed to me to make sense. I think the mayor -- I think the mayor made a very -- a point I very much agree with. Of course we want the professional staff to vet it or add to it or make different suggestions so maybe the plan we move forward with is a little [10:58:01 AM] different. But it's probably hard to imagine it's going to be wildly different. I mostly want to make sure that we're not, as the mayor said, developing two different strategic plans, one for the community of stakeholders that are doing the work. And asking the same stakeholders to participate in the effort that sort of begins at the base. >> I agree -- >> I don't know what the final product looks like. What when he did with -- I think what he said was the United Way is going to endorse it or whether we make a joint effort. >> Okay. >> And that sounds great. I do think that the elements need to be incorporated in some way. And so I look forward to the conversation later on. But, again, thank you. This is super helpful. Especially in the context of the conversations we had last fall with regard to homelessness, one of the things that made me nervous about jumping onboard to allocate millions of dollars for homelessness is I didn't know where it was going to be spent and how much are we spending in the city coffers and we did have the money to spend, where would the resources go? I couldn't find anybody who could tell me. I think before we move forward on big conversations about money for homelessness, we really will have to get all of these pieces of information in place and they're interlocking and form a strong foundation and I think we can take up the conversations one more time and maybe have more consensus on the dias on what that you would who look like. >> Thank you. I would say the budget requests were really in line with the echo recommendations in terms of how to allocate money across the spectrum of homelessness and it relates to some of our items on Thursday. Councilmember alter. >> Alter: Thank you, I appreciate assistant city manager Hensley's clarifications. I agree with a lot of what [11:00:01 AM] councilmember pool said. If we are, in fact, spending $30 million on homelessness, we need to know more about that, even if it's just so that we can interface better with the echo plan. I do want to point out, though, that it's not just workforce development where we have this issue. We also don't have a community plan, per se, fully on housing but we do have a strategic blueprint and we have the same issue in housing where on one hand I'm not sure we know everything that we're spending, I don't know the fee waivers, that was something we found a couple of meetings ago. And we also have issues on how we are approaching the nonprofits across housing, workforce, across homelessness, and across cultural arts. And we need better processes in place for working and coordinating with our nonprofits. The nonprofit world is changing and how donors and how nonprofits approach their their work is changing and the city needs to be able to change in tandem with that and some of our old procedures may not be working in order for us to have the biggest bang for our buck and get the most efficiencies out of our dollars to solve some of the challenges we face in the can community. >> Mayor pro tem. >> When I listed the task, it's really mapping our current services and things and then looking at leveraging those maps -- the mapping to show who's doing what. And the big one is to councilmember alter's point, and that is the thing that you saw in the workforce development and that is the city developing better metrics for our contracts with our partners in the community so that we're achieving the things that you want through the plan. If it's the echo plan that's adopted, that's fine. But we have better metrics so that we know what we're actually going towards to achieve and that we're meeting those goals. [11:02:02 AM] And then just assessing those costs and benefits associated with it. Then working with our stakeholders to better expand the technology opportunities so that we all have access to information so we know how many people we're serving, who we're serving, where we're serving, to what capacity and those kinds of things. It really lines up nicely I think expanding on what the city is doing and not trying to take away or reinvent the wheel with the echo plan or any other plan. It's really trying to complement and we're eel be working with all of the stakeholders to make sure that the goal here is not to duplicate. That's the goal. Not to duplicate services. >> Thank you so much. That concludes our questions and comments on that audit. So I will ask for a motion to accept it. I don't see anybody signed up to speak. I just wanted to make sure, thanks. Mayor pro tem tovo moves acceptance and council member pool seconds. All in favor. The audit is accepted. That brings us to the end of our meeting with the exception of discussion of future items. Are there any future agenda items that anybody would like to bring up or discuss? Okay. Great. Then we will adjourn this meeting of the audit & finance committee at 11:03. Thank you.