City Council Special Called Meeting Transcript – 05/28/2020 Title: City of Austin Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 5/28/2020 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 5/28/2020 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. (Due to audio technical difficulties the first 3 minutes of transcribing were lost.) [1:50:46 PM] >> City Manager Spencer Cronk speaking: In much detail. We wanted to provide additional guidance from discussions, and make sure there was enough time for discussion here. Again, there was never going to be enough resources to fill the needs of our community. And as we move forward, we're going to need as much flexibility around these funds as possible. And so keep an eye towards that as you hear this presentation. But those will be the common themes around needing that flexibility, because we don't know what we don't know. As the situation rapidly evolves we're going to need to ensure that we have that room to maneuver some of these funding sources in the future depending on how our community responds to this pandemic. With that, I'll turn it to our deputy chief financial officer. >> Thank you, city manager. Good afternoon, mayor, mayor pro tem, and council members, deputy chief financial officer. I do want to say again that we -- I emailed this presentation and the proposed [1:51:52 PM] framework to you yesterday. You've had it for 24 hours. We apologize for not getting it to you sooner, but we're working as fast as we can on this important subject. We're making changes to this presentation right up until 1:00 today. I understand the time constraints. I'll try to be brief in my comments and ask all of the speakers behind me to likewise err on the side of brevity. Let me share my screen so we can have the presentation up. Is everyone able to see that? >> Mayor Adler: Not yet. >> There it is. >> All right. >> Mayor Adler: It's coming on. >> The agenda today, how we reorganized our spending framework. There's confusion about how we presented it previously. We got a lot of great feedback at the court session. [1:52:52 PM] We also got feedback from our covid-19 fiscal health cabinet. We tried to reorganize it based upon that feedback. It's a reorganization. We are not changing the priority from which you saw on may 19th. We're trying to present information that makes it more clear what dollars are going into each of the buckets. I will spend one slide to talk about the portion of the framework for the emergency response spending and then we will turn it over to Stephanie to walk us through the public health and medical portion of the framework. And the economic recovery is a broad basket category. There's going to be several speakers that are going to help move us through that. We'll try to get to your comments and discussions. But I think some of your questions may be things we can answer just by getting through this presentation. In regard to the reorganization, to reiterate, changes how we organize the framework but we're [1:53:53 PM] not changing our funding priorities. Again, I sent that spreadsheet to you that lays that out in more detail. I can bring that up as well if it helps facilitate your conversation. But essentially, the bottom four bullets summarize the changes we have made to the framework. First, we split the funding for council's named initiatives into their program components. So for example, the R.I.S.E. Program, which council approved for $15 million, had funding related to economic support, food assistance, as well as rental assistance. If you look at the framework now, you will see the R.I.S.E. Program reflected in those buckets. We added a column for funding notes to make it easier for you to identify which of these different program areas have funding from the R.I.S.E. Program, from clear, etc. So that was one rearrangement of the framework. [1:54:54 PM] Hopefully that makes it easier for you to see what staff's recommended priorities are. Second we talked about this last time, we weren't in a position last time we presented the framework, we didn't have enough information to put a dollar amount out for the Austin conservation corps. We've now included $2 million in the framework for workforce development programs, specifically the Austin conservation corps. We think that will be a combination of existing department budgets and perhaps some funding from the coronavirus relief fund as well. But there is a lot of funding throughout the city's budget, and there's a lot of interest from departments to participate in this program and this approach to delivering city services. Next, we reclassified -- it is moving it around -- some of these categories overlap. But we took 2.3 million that had been in the testing category on the may 19th framework. We put that into the protection [1:55:54 PM] of vulnerable populations category because it was testing specific to nursing homes. And so we heard that there was an interest in seeing the dollars we're spending to protect vulnerable populations all in one place, so we moved that 2.3 million. It's not a change in the purpose of the priorities, just in how we're categorizing it to reflect the amount of money in that area. Finally, we had some questions last time about our thought process behind the contingency funds. Our contingency amount -- that amount we're recommending that we hold back for uncertainties -- is about 12%. But really our thinking on that contingency was we felt it was primarily needed to address public health and medical needs if there's a resurgence in the number of cases, if hospitals are overwhelmed. There's so much uncertainty. That's one of the really important areas that we need to be reserving some funds to [1:56:55 PM] address should it come. And the second area that we're recommending some contingency foris in the American area of emergency response, because there's a lot of uncertainty in regards to how department operations are changing and additional funds that may be needed to help offset department operating expenses and to fund critical emergency response programs. So, I'm going to just move on real quick then. That emergency response category -- this is kind of our shortest category. There's really only three program buckets. Overall, $105.5 million. A quick reminder that we're talking about $270 million in total of funding as the city's response, the funding we have to respond to the covid-19 crisis. And we're looking at that around emergency response, medical and public health needs, and economic support for our [1:57:57 PM] businesses and individuals who are suffering as a result of the economic consequences of covid-19. The sources of funding are FEMA dollars and federal moneys that are coming to us through the C.A.R.E.S. Act, as well as the city's reserves and some portion of our existing operating budget. So kind of the sources and broad uses of funding, but in that emergency response category, 105.5 million. 30 million is the estimated amount that would be a FEMA reimbursement related to our direct emergency management. Think about this as the emergency operations center, overtime hours that are being worked by various staff throughout the city in our effort to combat the spread of the disease. That's what the emergency management category is. And we do envision that being largely reimbursed through FEMA. The next bullet, $68 million, is to offset department operating [1:58:59 PM] expenses that are substantially dedicated to covid-19. We would anticipate a lot of this being in our emergency medical services, fire department and public health departments. But they have substantially changed how they're operating and the programs they're delivering to serve the community. And these expenses are eligible for reimbursement through the coronavirus relief fund. And then finally, $7.5 million we're recommending to add to reserves for unknowns and uncertainties. That's what we're recommending for a contingency amount in this category. I'm going to quickly transition it over to Stephanie Hayden and ask her if she could walk us through the medical and public health summary. >> Thank you, Ed. We have what the department has done, we've put together a plan that will carry us from the [1:59:59 PM] month of may through the end of December. And this page has our high-level overview. Based on all the areas where we need specific staffing, case investigation, contact tracing, public information, language access, testing, shelter services, and contract management, just to name a few we are collaborating with the human resources department just to determine if there are other temporary staff across the city that may be able to transition into these roles as well as determining if there are other city staff that can transition into this role. We want to make sure that we get staff that will be able to be reassigned until the end of the year, as we have done the planning for the end of the [2:00:59 PM] year. The next bucket has commodities and contractuals. As you can see, that's where most of our testing is happening, but it's also where our shelters and quarantine facilities are. And so about three- fourths of the recommendation is focused on our epidemiology response, our testing, our sheltering, and support for vulnerable populations. And as Ed spoke to earlier, the 25 million for public health contingency basically would overlay. And so Ed, if you can move to the next slide. So, as you can see we've put together the budget recommendations by expenditure category. So if you look at the expenditure category, this is what we planned through the end of the year. In the event we have the surges that, according to the modeling that we've seen a couple of different ones, we can surge up [2:02:02 PM] in the months of june/july. But we can also prepare for the winter months as we move into flu season. And so we would add the additional funding across these categories to ensure that we are able to scale up our operations and it be a seamless process. Next slide, Ed. So this provides you a breakdown from the previous slide and gives you the information for each of the buckets. So, one of the things that we did plan for, just in case we may need them. Currently we have four protective lodging facilities. And it has to provide, you know, kind of the spectrum of everything you need to be in those spaces. And so we have budgeted, in the event that we need to add [2:03:03 PM] another one, to have five that will take us through the end of the year. It's important for us to budget for behavioral health services at those lodges, because we know that our vulnerable population will need those supportive services. And as you can see, we've put our budget in for testing. And so you see we've asked for 80,000 test kits, which includes our lab process. And I know some of you may have seen the plan that we submitted last week, that we provided to your offices. But it was a federal requirement. So we provided it to the federal -- health and human services, as well as we sent a copy of it to the state, the Texas department of state health services. Now, within that plan, we have planned out that we would start to increase our level of [2:04:04 PM] testing. So in July, you can see we would be at 60,000 tests. I know you're thinking, you put 80,000 test kits on here. We are anticipating we've already put an order in to the state to receive 2,000 tests per week, test kits per week. We are also anticipating that more partners will come online. As most of you have known, there are five CVS locations providing these services. We are anticipating that there are going to be more powers that partners that are going to come into this space. The other thing, we are moving to do more mobile testing. We've done a small level of mobile testing. We are in conversations with a vendor that will be able to provide some mobile testing for us. And so we are going to do a similar model of how we do for [2:05:07 PM] HIV testing where we take testing to the community and be able to do testing in zip codes when we see that there is a high number of individuals that are positive in those neighborhoods. We've had requests from faith-based institutions that would like for us to do some testing there as well. So we are going to refine that plan and develop that and roll that out as well. So we are really looking at how we can reach the most vulnerable populations in this space and provide that service. And as you can see, Ed mentioned this in his highlights, some of the $3 million for the nursing homes. But we also don't want to lose sight of the planning and research that we will be working with UT on these two studies. Next slide. This provides an overview of the [2:06:09 PM] vulnerable populations, our medical equipment, our ppe, and other areas that we feel are important. So, for example, we know it's going to be important for us to bring on some temporary contract management staff. With all of these contracts that we have, with the R.I.S.E. And any other contracts that may come available, we're going to have to have staff to be able to keep up with the process of getting the money out to the vendors and working very closely with them. In addition to that, we are going to put together targeted media. And we are looking at our materials and we've included money for translation and interpretation. But we also have been using portable toilets and hand-washing stations for our [2:07:11 PM] homeless community. And that concludes my slides. Thank you, Ed. >> All right. I think we're going to have Veronica is going to tee up this next area, economic support. >> Good afternoon, council, Veronica, chief economic recovery officer for the city. I will transition us into the discussion of economic support. As Ed has mentioned, it is a broad discussion on how we're approaching support. And so the next series of slides will be presented to you by directors Rosie, Stephanie, and Zenobia. The work that we've done has been under the advisement of our chief equity officer, Brian, as well as funco and Ed himself. I wanted to state before we get started, we started this process by having the priority to fight the pandemic. In doing that we consulted Austin public health first and [2:08:13 PM] foremost. Stephanie has walked us through how we suggest we allocate or recommend that we allocate these funds towards fighting the pandemic. Once that was discussed we started looking at the additional priorities. Knowing that we don't have all the funds we need to address all the need, and knowing that the need is great in our community, we worked together as a team to propose a plan that recommends use of these funds in a way towards economic support. It's doing it from both the individual perspective as well as the organizational perspective, whether that organization is a business or a nonprofit, or another type of entity. We also, as we put our recommendations together, based it on data. Looking at the data we have available with the programs that we are working on right now, new programs in this space. And that is done across the board and across our departments, both housing and economic development. So, before we turn it over to [2:09:13 PM] the directors to go into the details of each of these bullets -- you see a slide with multiple bullets -- I've asked John, our consultant in the matter of economic recovery, to talk a little bit about the lay of the land and set the stage. From there, we'll go to Rosie. John? >> Mayor, council, thanks very much for having me. Once again, interesting times, right? In the interest of being fairly concise and brief, I will tell you how we are looking at this and thinking about how it applies to the effort here today to begin to start organizing the framework around how we're going to make funds available to support the community. The first phase we have gone through or in the process of going through is the initial round of identification, stabilization. It is playing out largely as we thought it would. Perhaps you all recall when we talked a couple months ago we said it was likely somewhere on [2:10:14 PM] the order of one in four austinites might experience a period of joblessness. As we sit here right now, the official unemployment rate for the city of Austin as of April is a little over 12%. In conversations with Tamera, Rosie, and Veronica, we agree that for every person who's in the system there's another person right now who's not in the system. And so we are on track to see something on the order of one in four, of us might experience a period of joblessness. We are experiencing a period of joblessness right now with an unprecedented level of federal financial support. We are all familiar with the paycheck protection program which has helped a number of businesses. We are all familiar with the economic stimulus which is direct payments to households. We're also familiar with the federal supplement, if you will, [2:11:17 PM] to unemployment insurance that is providing folks 600 bucks a week extra over and above what Texas provides if they filed for unemployment. And that's going to go through the end of July. So, in this first phase, we've seen the effects we anticipated, in particular on the economy side. We've seen a lot of the impacts in what economists call consumer-facing or B to C. You're talking about your lodging, hospital industries, personal services industries. Those effects we're seen and we're seeing at least some level -- of pretty substantial support coming from the feds, phase one. The next phase is going to happen as federal financial support may run out. We were talking about unemployment supplements being done at the end of July. There is lots of back and forth conversation about whether that will be extended at the federal level. Let's assume for the sake of argument it will probably not be [2:12:17 PM] as extensive and widespread as the first round was. And that's also going to coincide, when the second round of economic effects begin to hold. And that's the B to B stuff. You may have seen, for example, today, American airlines announced it's going to have 30% layoffs and voluntary requirements for its administrative staff. That's a fairly big number of people. What are they going to do when it comes time to do an upgrade on the software system at American airlines? They're going to delay it. That has an effect on the company with the contract. What's going to happen to commercial real estate in Austin and elsewhere as people are saying, I've got to renew my lease on that office building, but I don't need as much space, or am not going to pay as much as I was before. What are the implications of that? That's the B to B, next phase coming at about the same time we'll begin to see that, as this federal support is likely [2:13:22 PM] diminished. Finally, how do we try to recover from that in terms of the economy as we've also tried to help our most vulnerable populations navigate on through all of this. And so a lot of this is in the spirit of seeing it in this kind of progression going from initial shock, stabilization, secondary effects, and then recovery. And we are trying to think about how we tee this up with the limited resources we have to deal with all three of those different phases of the process. >> Thank you, John. I think that's bringing it to me. This is Rosie. Can everyone hear me okay? >> Yes. >> Okay. Very good. So, our recommendation for rental assistance is $23.8 million. And that will be for what we're going to call phase two of our release of emergency needs for tenants program. Payment will be directly to -- [2:14:23 PM] rent will be directly to landlords. We're still looking at households under 80% median family income who have been impacted by covid-19. You see those mfi levels on the screen for folks that might want to see that. Next slide please, Ed. So, to refresh folks' memory, the first round of rent was rolled out at the beginning of the month of may. And it was for about $1.2 million of assistance. This was administered. It was funded with the housing trust fund and administered by the housing authority of the city of Austin in partnership with the city. We did a lot of reprocess may 4th through 6th. And eligibility, city of Austin resident, had a standard lease at 80% and below median family, income, demonstrate an impact by covid-19, pay 30% of income towards rent. [2:15:23 PM] The landlord had to be -- had to agree to payment of either the rent that was in the contract, or fair market rent, whichever was the lesser. And this was for one month of rental assistance. So, the results of the principle that we -- program we have so far, I'm going to give numbers that were updated from even yesterday. When we talk about these numbers changing on a daily basis, I have gotten two updates just today on the most recent numbers. We had 10,000 plus applications that were receive, over 5500 eligible and complete. We have, as of 12:00 P.M. Today, we have processed the applications for 1,549 applications, resulting in $1,175,673 in rental assistance going out with, again, $759 [2:16:25 PM] average assistance per household, leaving us a little less than $84,000 to go, which we think is going to serve approximately 110 more applicants. What we found with this particular program is that many folks had already paid their may rent. So if you want to go to the next slide, Ed. So we rolled the assistance forward to June for some of the applicants. We found that this was -- we went with partnering with haca, they were uniquely positioned to be able to handle a program like this. But we were challenged by the administratively intense aspect of this program and being in a remote work environment, and an intensive amount of case management. We had call center staffing. There was an intense amount of followup documentation and communications with landlords and tenants. So we are going to be recommending some changes between what we did with the [2:17:26 PM] prior program and what we would call rent 2.0. Some of the applicants have paid may rent, so we are rolling this forward to June. The majority of applicants were small households. We did have some challenges with getting folks to accept that landlord certification of a lesser of the fair market rent or actual rent and including the payment from the actual tenants. Now, the trends both locally and nationally for may rent collections were down approximately 10%. We were right in line with what we were seeing across the country. We do anticipate increased rental assistance needs coming in the coming months, especially as unemployment insurance -- the expanded unemployment insurance related to covid is going to be anticipating to run out at the end of July. So we look to national best practice and what we see is a desire to leverage existing programs with adaptive capacity to maximize flexibility, to focus on populations with the [2:18:28 PM] greatest unmet need and to manage current resources while still pushing for more funding. And that's pointed up at the national level there. We also look to our statewide collaborators. Right now, Houston, San Antonio and Austin are the only ones who have put on such large-scale rental assistance programs. And we are learning from all each other as we figure out how to take this forward into the next iteration. In the instance of time I won't go into the details of this program, but I can certainly answer questions if they exist from council. When we're looking at the modifications for rent, we're still very much in listening mode and want to get feedback from members of the community and from council. But we are wanting to consider a decentralized intake process where we look at partnering with [2:19:29 PM] three to five different nonprofits that will help us with outreach and eligibility and help us ensure that we're meeting our equity goals. We want to continue to come up with a deadline. We're considering having first come, first serve versus a lottery. But I think the lottery makes more sense. So if we can figure out logistically how to swing that, that is going to be our preference. For folks that are applying that are at 80% or up to 80% mfi, one month of assistance. If folks apply and they were already existing up to 30% mfi, then we are looking to qualify them with one application for three months of assistance. We're wanting payment to be the actual rent, not fair market rent or some subset of rent. That makes it easier in the -- it simplifies the process for how we're going to achieve getting the dollars out the [2:20:30 PM] door. And it also helps the landlords. We're also looking to partner with agencies that will help us bring in landlords that can help facilitate applications for their folks that may be low-income and impacted by covid. We do recognize that there is an increased desire for us to work on a program that will help meet the needs of landlords that may have been ghosted or have tenants that are flat-out not paying rent and not being communicative. I'm not sure this is a program that meets those needs but we are looking to continue to work on that. I have a call getting set up with folks in the community including the apartment association to discuss that and what kind of program that might need to look like. But we do recommend for rent, for the program rent, that haca would remain our agent. And that is the end of my [2:21:30 PM] presentation. And I think we'll turn it over -- I'm assuming, Ed, that you will want to do questions at the end. So I'll let folks go through the whole presentation. >> By way of time check, it is about 2:20 now. We're about halfway through the packet. So you need to pick it up. >> Yes, sir. Are you on the line? >> Yes, thank you, Ed. I'm with economic development. Next slide. Thank you, council, for your approval of the resolution in may. We are seeking $25.5 million to support small businesses through two phases. The first phase through the clear fund of a grant up to 40,000. This is in line with what Travis county is doing, around 40, and Williamson county is doing around 25,000 for grants for small businesses. You can see the profile of small [2:22:32 PM] businesses in Austin. In addition to the $23.5 million, we're seeking $2 million in long-term lease stabilization, a grant up to $40,000 for landlords who enter into long-term leases with tenants to deliver community benefits. Next slide, Ed. In addition, council has approved utility bill assistance of $10 million. Next slide. We know that our creative sector is economic engine in Austin. Council has already approved $1.5 million for disaster relief fund for a thousand-dollar grant for musicians. We anticipate serving 1500 musicians. In addition you approved a create a space disaster fund of a million dollars to provide grants up to $50,000 for organizations being used and independent artists. We are seeking an additional [2:23:33 PM] $5 million for the creative sector. We have already approved $1 million for nonprofits focused on artists and culture. We're seeking an additional recommendation of $5 million to continue that support. Next slide, Ed. Finally, the anchor fund, which was also approved, we are proposing two phases for a total of $7 million. Council articulated specific nonprofits that we are to focus on. The second phase will actually extend to nonprofits that may not fall in those categories. You can see the profile of nonprofits in Austin is over 4400, including 21,000 individuals. Next slide, Ed. Childcare was also approved by council, seeking those fightings facilities that are two-star and above you've approved $1 million and we're seeking an additional $1 million. Next slide, Ed. [2:24:34 PM] Technical assistance we are providing grants and we already initiated a long program, but we want to also provide technical assistance to small businesses that can help them in capacity-building, disaster recovery and resilience, and nonprofit management. And to this will be offered not only to the small businesses, but the nonprofits. Next slide. I will let Stephanie address this slide. >> The next three slides will be done by Stephanie and then we'll be wrapping up. >> Just a high level, this is just providing the financial support for individuals. So whether it's through R.I.S.E. Or a fund similar to the public health fund, which impacts vulnerable populations. Next slide, Ed. This is the food assistance, [2:25:36 PM] caregiver meals for the district, as well as del valle and our homeless population. Next slide, Ed. This just basically provides ppe through a grant, as well as our medical assistance program, which will cover additional behavioral health counseling and assistance for low- to moderate-income workers with healthcare and customer service roles. That's it. >> So, mayor and council, I'll just close this out with the workforce development, deputy city manager Rivera. This is one of the programs people are really excited about. We've had a lot of departments expressing interest in participating in this program and using existing budgets, [2:26:38 PM] things like conservancy projects, water utility and watershed protection, parks, fuel mitigation, Austin fire department, various other programs. Lots of opportunity, we believe, within existing city resources to fund the workforce development Austin conservation corps program. This is just a summary slide of everything we said. And we are all here to support you through this process and answer any questions you have. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Colleagues? Mayor pro tem Garza. >> Garza: Can you put it on that last slide, Ed, the summary slide? >> Yes, I can. >> Garza: Thank you. And I have a lot of other questions. Because I'm sure everybody does and I have limited time, my main priority is -- a couple of points I want to make. One, in the comment that was [2:27:39 PM] made which we all knew, I'm glad he pointed out while we've seen an official 12% unemployment rate the reality is there is a large hidden, so to speak, population in our community that would not be eligible for unemployment benefits. So they are not reported in that. To hear that number that it could be double that, we're at almost 25% of unemployment -- I'm really grateful for the money that was committed to R.I.S.E. And I know that we're committing more to rental and those programs, but I just want to point out that there is no additional money in this framework for other needs aside from rental, and food. And some families use that -- and the nonprofits could tell us what those anecdotal stories are. A couple of them have asked for more funding. [2:28:40 PM] And there's limiting funding so they haven't gotten it. They were able to create a system to get that money out. And there's not any more for them. And so if we're -- I just -- not having any additional allocation to families who are -- could be up to 25% of austinites facing dire situations right now, and we have no additional allocation for basic needs and direct financial assistance. So, I don't so I don't know where we move or how we get them, but I think it's really important that at the end of the day our very first priority should be prioritizing vulnerable populations that do not have access to any help, will not get stimulus money, that kind of thing. I appreciate all the hard [2:29:40 PM] work staff has done and I know you're being pulled in five million different directions, but the most vulnerable -- we see no additional allocation for needs beyond food and rental. And I hope that we can find somehow to get some additional funds to the non-profits that have told us that the need was so great and they've had to turn so many families away. And then -- and I guess my only question would be specifically to the non-profit assistance. Can you go back to that slide that -- I'm trying to understand exactly -- let's see here. Are those grants that I saw? Can somebody explain to me those grants for the non-profits? I know they absolutely need help. I'm just wondering if there's a way to help both, to help a non-profit and to [2:30:40 PM] help them -- and to give them a contract and some funding to be able to allocate to families? >> Sylnovia holt-rabb with economic development. This was a grant that was provided for operational support for non-profits in these specific spaces of health and human services. So that was the intent. And we could possibly look at how to do both, but the resolution I see talked about support. >> Garza: Was it support for the organization -- the rise funding? >> No, the organization as a business. >> Garza: Okay. You know, would it not help that -- could we do both? Could we not help them -- because I guess the situation is they've lost funding from donors from [2:31:41 PM] their regular donor base. And having a contract with the city is -- would be essentially an additional donor, so to speak. And they're contracted to provide some kind of service, but they get an -- excuse me, an administrative fee from that. Is there an opportunity there to -- I think you said you could look into that, so I appreciate that. And then is there a -- did the resolution -- I don't remember, I'm sorry. Did they specifically prioritize what kinds of non-profits or like as far as the service they provide? Or was it just any non-profit that applies for the grant? >> The non-profits that service the specific field. So the if you're a non-profit working in the education, arts and culture or health and human services. >> Garza: Okay. And then I'll go ahead and hand it off and I think [2:32:42 PM] y'all might still be meeting when I'm done with my thing. So thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Yes, councilmember Casar. >> Casar: Some of my thoughts are similar to the mayor pro tem's. I want to mention one thing as far as the updated spending framework. The new first line that says financial and other direct support, now at 15 million. Seven and a half from rise and I guess the other eight or so from -- the other eight or so is an addition. After talking with budget office, that eight million is the public health funds to make it so that if somebody's sick, you might want to keep them home or somebody is older and we need to keep them home and they stay home. So my recommendation is that, frankly, I think that people could misunderstand since this is economic support or economic recovery dollars, misunderstand what that fund is. So my sense is really that [2:33:43 PM] should be broken out and be in the public health section because this isn't funding that just any person with an economic issue can apply for. It's really funding with a public health purpose. So my recommendation is that that money live where I think the public would understand it better. So that's just one thought. Because here it's mixed -- and this call is mixed in with things like H.E.B. Gift cards to people who can't afford food and those things to me are categorically different. That's one thing I wanted to note. And the second piece is to echo what mayor pro tem Garza just mentioned around I appreciate the significant amount of new rental assistance. I appreciate all of this. Actually, let me start all by saying that I think we all recognize what the manager is trying to do and what we are doing is a balance. We are never going to have enough money for any given need. So the question is what is the proportionate balance [2:34:43 PM] that we strike. And given the amount of federal supports in some areas, but lack of federal support in other areas, I really think for me I fall towards allocating money to public health and emergency needs. And allocating money where we see the greatest need, especially the greatest need for people who don't have access to funds. And that's why I think rental assistance and regular financial assistance through rise is where I would strike the balance a little bit more in that direction. So I'll just say really transparently it's hard to say where to cut or where to reduce the increase, but I would fall more on the side of more rental assistance, more direct financial assistance since there isn't any increase there. And if I would have to reduce some, then I would find -- look to see if there's any reductions on the business side that we can do especially if you find out who qualifies more [2:35:43 PM] for certain business support from the federal government. I know there are some folks who can't get that support, but if I were to reduce some I would reduce it there. I would find as mayor pro tem maybe alluded to, ways for us to support our non-profit sector by asking them to provide services to people. And maybe reduce the amount of just business support there. And I would look at on the creatives -- on the additional five million creative money I have a lot of creatives in my district and we know across the city that need support, but we don't have a fund specifically for construction workers. We don't have a fund specifically for housekeepers. We want to create these rental assistance buckets and financial assistance buckets for any person in any industry that is not getting the help they need. So I do think that if we move some of that creative money over to direct financial assistance that would not be cutting creatives out. It would still be a place for creatives to go, but [2:36:46 PM] also if you're putting up lights at a show or an actor or musician in a show or if you're the childcare worker for -- in a household with a creative, you could all still apply to that same fund. So if I needed to put my cards on the table about what I would move around to create more rental assistance and direct financial assistance, I would look to those places because almost everything else is ultimately a public health expense or an emergency response expense. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. If you could return us to the screen where we could see run another, that -- see one another, that might be helpful. I can only see four people. Jimmy. >> Flannigan: Thanks, mayor, I'm very appreciative of staff's work on this. I think the reframing of this really streamlined and simplified how to interpret [2:37:46 PM] this. And we're going to have a challenging conversation as a council to figure out kind of to what councilmember Casar was talking about. You know, do we want to make any tweaks in these categories. But as far as the framework is concerned I think you've done a good job structuring this document, so I just wanted to thank staff for that. When I look at some of the numbers and I add up the direct financial assistance, the rental assistance food since tense and resilient assistance we get to $57 million, which is good because that's kind of in the ballpark where we've been hearing community members talk about the scale of individual assistance. So we are I think squarely in that ballpark, which exciting to see. There will be debate about how they break out in these categories and that's good debate. The place where I can get on board, councilmember Casar, [2:38:47 PM] is the timing and rollout of funds. So if we have the 20 something million for small business, but it's going to take flee months to roll -- three months to roll it out, the 20 million in direct and financial assistance only lasts a month or month and a half, there maybe there is some room to move stuff back over into the place where there will be more immediate help while we flesh out the scale of business support getting past that initial 10 million that we authorized with item 23. So I think there is some reasonable flexibility there that is as much a pragmatic implication as it is one that's policy related. But again, good work to staff on how you structure this. I think it's a great framework. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: I have some questions and comments. So one of my questions is [2:39:48 PM] how does this relate to money we already had in the existing budget, and let me give you two examples. So, for example, under the creative bucket we list the one million for the creative space program. Well, we already had 750,000 in our existing budget. So this one million reflects some money that we allocated last year in our budget as well as some covid funds. But it looks to me that we're counting it all out of covid funds. So I would want to have some understanding, you know, about that. And the only reason -- the only -- I just give that as an illustration because I don't know if that's the case for any of these other buckets. And my question really is if [2:40:53 PM] we are doing that, if we have in some of the buckets, existing dollars from the last budget that we approved, does that mean that we actually have an additional dollar amounts to play with. And then a related question so you guys can speak to it, a related question has to do with our homeless individuals. So we don't have a bucket in here for our homeless individuals to get housing. We don't talk about rental assistance for our homeless individuals, and they're among our -- I mean, that's what we're trying to prevent is homelessness. But we did have in our budget for this last year permanent supportive housing and rapid re-housing funds. So I hope I'm correct in making the assumption that those bucket of dollars, those rapid re-housing dollars and permanent supportive housing dollars that we approved in last year's budget are being [2:41:55 PM] spent now to help the homeless individuals find more permanent housing so that when they -- so that their path after the pro lodge, their path is into housing, not back on the streets. So to wrap all that up, my fundamental question is how does this bucket of money relate to what we approved in our budgets last year. Is it due counting in some way or not? And second getting to the homeless, are we using the dollars that we allocated last year for homeless individuals around the rapid rouse -- 'rapid re-housing and permanent supportive housing to help them get housing rather than going from a pro lodge situation back into shelter or on to the streets. So that's kind of two questions. [2:42:57 PM] >> So councilmember kitchen, I will take the first question around the Austin creative space relief program. You are correct, we originally had 750 thousand dollars in that program, but we amended the guidelines to incorporate covid-related challenges or criteria. And so that's why it's included in the sheet, but you're correct, it was in our budget. And I believe that's probably the only item and I'll defer to Ed, but we amended the guidelines to factor into the covid. >> Kitchen: Yes, and thank you. I don't mean to imply that it shouldn't be on this list. My question is so what is the other 750,000 being used for? I guess what I'm asking is I'm not understanding how this all adds up, and maybe Ed can help me with it. And if I'm just being -- if everybody else understands it, I can take it offline. But I'm not understanding [2:43:57 PM] why that doesn't mean we have an additional 750,000 to put somewhere. >> The 750 is from our operating budget. >> Kitchen: Right. And it was dedicated towards -- it was to be used for the cap program. Ed, do you understand my question? Perhaps you can answer? >> I do and I was not aware of that. If you look at the third page of the spending framework, I think the one example that we tried to capture that way was the workforce development program. Where we put $2 million towards that program and we anticipate most if not all of that would be refunded through existing department budgets. So we use that term for [indiscernible] Funds. That sounds like from what I [2:44:58 PM] heard her say is that it comes from the existing budgets. That's the only ones like that. >> Kitchen: My question is the total framing estimate is 271 million. So do we need to add 750,000 to that technology? >> I think the 750 is part of the 8.5 million. >> Kitchen: But I don't understand how we're accounting for -- I don't want to take everyone's time if everyone understands this, but I don't understand how we're accounting if this is already in our budget. >> Those are the only two examples I'm now aware of, in this instance and workforce development, where we have some existing approved budget budget approved for fiscal year '20. We have some of that money [2:45:59 PM] going to those two programs. Everything else is new funding from the cares act or FEMA reimbursement or from our general fund reserves. >> Kitchen: Okay, and my question and you can think about it and I can explain it offline, but why is the 271.6 million not then -- I assume the two million is in that, so why are we not doing 271.6 million plus 750,000. That's what I'm not understanding. Again, I can take it offline, but you can see the question I'm asking is we had that 550,000 -- maybe the other way to look at it is these buckets are being funded by a combination of cares relief, other federal funds, FEMA and our existing budget. Is that the way we're supposed to be looking at this? >> Only for that last part, with our existing budget, [2:46:59 PM] only $750,000 for the creative sector assistance and I would anticipate somewhere in the range of a million and a half or so for the workforce development program. We're still working through the details of that program. As I said earlier, there's a lot of [indiscernible] About participating in that program and there's funding in the budget that can go towards that program. So only for those two line items in the framework. >> Kitchen: Okay. Then I just have -- [multiple voices] >> Both of those amounts would be part of the total, the 771.6 million, that synovia just talked about, as well as the reallocation of existing funds for the workforce development program. >> Kitchen: Then I have a broader question that don't have to go into here. But I'm still -- I'm not understanding how we came up with the total that we've got available. To spend I guess is what I'm [2:48:00 PM] saying. So we have a 271.6 million here. Where did that come from and what is that total? We can take that offline, but that's a fundamental question that I have here because that's what tells me -- we know - - everyone is saying that we don't have enough money to cover the needs. Well, don't have enough money. What's the component of the money that we have? In other words, what are we adding up to understand the money that we have? So that's a fundamental question. So let me turn to the other one and -- >> Councilmember kitchen, I would like to address your question about the homeless services. >> Kitchen: If you could address that, thank you. >> So we are utilizing the existing funds in our Austin public health budget to continue to provide the case management to connect folks [2:49:01 PM] to housing. Also, we have about 2.4 million that was coming from esg and there's another million from cdbg. And that would pay for case management, financial assistance and housing assistance. So we're collaborating with the case managers to work with adults that are in protective lodges to move them into housing. So that is the goal. >> Kitchen: Okay. I knew that was the goal and I very much appreciate that. I just wanted to make sure that somewhere in all of this we had the dollars to effectuate that goal. So from your perspective director Hayden, do you think there are dollars in our goals and stated goals for folks that are in pro lodge that are going to get them into housing and go [2:50:03 PM] back out on to the streets? >> That is our goal. As the best laid plans, we can do everything we can to do that. We have to understand that we're working with individuals that have various barriers, but -- >> Kitchen: And from your perspective we have the funding to accomplish that. Understanding that [indiscernible]. [Background noise]. But to your mind the funding is there to accomplish that. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Kitchen: Thank you. Mayor, I have other questions, but you can circle back around to me later. >> Mayor Adler: That sounds good. Ed, on the dollars that you have, the money that comes from the cares act we can apply 100%? Anything we're paying for with FEMA we have to pay 25%, correct? [2:51:06 PM] You're muted, Ed. You're muted. >> Sorry. That is correct. And -- we have some rumors that the treasury guidelines may be softened and we may -- eventually they may make a determination that we can use our coronavirus relief fund to pay for the 25%. That's just a rumor at this point in time. That's part of the contingency that we can adjust if the opportunity comes up. >> Mayor Adler: And right now you're assuming the 25% will come out of the general fund budget, is that right? >> Or any operating department. But it's -- if there's other non-general fund departments that are part of the covid-19 response their budgets to be pit hit for that extra 25%. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. I would reiterate at a high level, this is one I appreciate staff laying it out this way. I would imagine that every month these numbers could [2:52:07 PM] easily be rejuggled as we more. Without being able to predict right now what the lay of the land is going to be like through December is going to be a really hard thing to do. And as we all look at the models for how this disease could run its course, we could be looking at two more surges or no more surges. And if we actually got 60,000 tests associated with an additional surge, we probably as I look at it, underbudgeted the contact tracing capacity that would be necessary in order to be able to effectively contact number and trace in our community to be able to isolate the vairs. So from where everybody sits everybody is going to want to add more dollars to where I'm sitting. I wish we had more money in the contingency to help with that because I'm just real scared that we're going to be looking at that in the fall. [2:53:07 PM] But then I realize if we run into that in the fall we're not going to be the only ones. That our government is going to have to be doing things that they're not anticipating right now either. There's so much uncertainty associated with all this and it's expected to move several times. >> Ellis: There may be a couple of other persons that want to talk, but I'm really excited about the rent program being expanded. I know that's one of the biggest things I've heard about. And sometimes it's the people who need to pay the rent and sometimes it's the landlord who maybe only has one extra property that they want to give their tenant a break and also be able to pay their mortgage on it. I'm glad to see an increase in that program. I would like to see even more. But I also have a question about what else may be coming down the pipeline financially. And I'm sorry I didn't bring [2:54:08 PM] up this question so if we don't have the update right now I'm happy to do it offline. I'm curious if there was an expectation of a certain amount of funding to follow the original cares act or if we know that information at this time. Understanding there's a lot of human parts and that may not be known right now. >> I know bree frank is on the line if she has any information about the bill that was passed and the potential for us to move forward. >> This is bree Franco. Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Bree Franco, intergovernmental relations officer. Right now, councilmember, the house has proposed a bill called the heroes act. It is not expected for that bill to pass, but it has been passed as a starting negotiating place. But for the past two weeks the senate hasn't met, so that's where we're at right now. [2:55:08 PM] I would not -- there is no information I can give you right now that would be helpful for you to plan for future allocations from congress for the state. And I'm sorry to be that blunt. >> That's still helpful to know, at least understanding how returning for us is helpful too. So I appreciate you keeping an eye on that. >> I will say that the tone from the senate is they want to see this money roll out and they want to see what impact that has. But they need to do more going forward. >> Ellis: They want to see how the cares is used before doing heroes or did I understand that correctly? >> Yes, that's what they've been saying. They want to see how this money rolls out or to determine -- [baby crying]. I'm sorry. And then determining after that where they need to fill in the gaps. >> Ellis: That's helpful. Thank you. [2:56:09 PM] >> Mayor Adler: Colleagues? Councilmember harper-madison. >> Harper-madison: I think it's safe to say at this point that whatever it is I'm doing where wrong where you can't see me, chair, I do get to revel in the fact that most of my colleagues are saying the exact things that I'm concerned about. And so councilmember Casar and mayor pro tem brought up a point that is a point of concern for me in that there are members of our community who will have multiple opportunities to receive funding and then members of our community who get one shot at if, in which case I want to make is certain that we're taking a look at that. And the other thing I was looking at this is looking through the newest iteration of the document, I just have some concerns about -- and I think councilmember kitchen has shown this already and councilmember Ellis already touched on this. And in fact, mayor Adler, you've touched on it too. I keep thinking about the [2:57:12 PM] limited supply here and the unknowns. So I'm very concerned about-- I think councilmember Flannigan talked about prudence. I'm very concerned about us expending dollars by way of the general fund. In that one column where it talks about where the money could possibly come from, I'm very concerned about how many times I see the general fund being referenced as the expenditure and in this case we don't know what's coming down the pipeline and we don't know what we're not going to be reimbursed for. So I know Ed van eenoo is still probably on the line N which case I have some particular questions about some of the specific sections. So it's blocked out in a way that there's some eligible expenses. FEMA eligible, coronavirus relief engine, community [2:58:14 PM] block development grant eligible, homeless emergency solutions eligible. I just -- I'm very concerned that we are about to put ourselves in a position where we are expending dollars by way of the general fund when we don't know for certain that those dollars will be reimbursed. In which case is there some calibration we should do to make certain that we don't inadvertently put ourselves in a tight spot when whatever may happen in five months comes to fruition. I have some worries about and I just wonder if there's something you could say to me and my colleagues or the general public about how we're being very conscientious about not expending funds that we could potentially not be reimbursed for out of our general fund. >> I can speak to that. And I think this would be [2:59:15 PM] something good for me to put into a memorandum and send it to you because I'm going to give you a bunch of numbers that I think would probably be better in writing, but broadly to your question and councilmember kitchen's question about what are the sources of funding this $270 million. Of course you have the coronavirus relief fund, that's $270 million. FEMA is another source of funding so there's a lot of expenses that will be eligible for FEMA reimbursement. We have an outside consultant helping us through that documentation process. We would anticipate within this framework, 50 to $55 million of reimbursement through FEMA. We also receive money from the cares act for the community development block grant program and emergency solutions grants. Various other smaller amount grants, but I'd say the three big chunks would be that coronavirus relief fund of $170 million, FEMA reimbursement say in the [3:00:16 PM] neighborhood of $50 million, and then we are looking to all those general funds you saw. We are anticipating that our reserves will be drawn down about $25 million over the course of our response to this crisis. Now, we started -- we entered into this crisis in a strong financial position with a 12% reserve policy, but we started out close to $26 million above that 12% policy. And so that's why we keep coming back when we show multiple sources is the need for flexibility. Yes, some of these expenses that we're incurring will not be eligible for reimbursement from the federal government so that's why we need some general fund dollars to come into play there. And I think if we're given the flexibility as council moves forward with this framework to look towards the best uses for these different funding sources, we'll be able to maximize what we get out of them. And I'm still helpful -- it [3:01:17 PM] concerns me to say this to you, but I feel it's more important for you to hear, I feel like we will end this fiscal year and still be able to achieve our 12% reserve policy. We'll drag down our reserves some, but through the various federal reimbursements and funds that are coming from the federal government, and the hiring freeze and other actions that the city is taking we'll be able to navigate through this in a way that we can end the fiscal year and still have our 12% policy level. That's really important because if there is a rejudgeness of the disease we would still have a fully funded emergency reserve to take additional actions at the federal government and come forward with my additional funds. So I think your point is well made. It is a key part of this framework, but perhaps the way staff has presented the broader dynamics aren't clear, but they're definitely in the front of our minds and I think the framework addresses those issues well. [3:02:18 PM] >> Mayor Adler: John, did you have your hand up? >> Harper-madison: I'm sorry, I thought he was also trying to answer your question. >> Go ahead. >> >> Harper-madison: You might be answering my question. I'm happy to listen, thank you. >> So I think that -- this is shot through a lot of the comments I heard is this notion of how do we make sure that we're using the money as efficiently as we can. And then the group that I was working with we call it the economic recovery panel. There were a couple of folks, professor tank and professor Wright from at UT and we don't want to say that we meant for people to die. We want to say, councilmember Casar, look, if you were a business and you've gotten a paycheck protection loan, you're not on the first line for us. If you've gotten an economic impact recovery loan and eivl disaster loan I guess [3:03:19 PM] it's called, you're not the first line for the city of Austin. Conversely right now if you're on unemployment and it's good unemployment we need to serve people who don't have those resources. So we're in this kind of funny position and I was trying to allude to this earlier that right now there is the strong level of federal support. I think it's incumbent to try to say we're helping the people, whether they're individuals or organizations, who are participating in that level of federal support and then the next phase is okay, you need rental assistance. Your rent is 800 bucks a month, but you've got 400. We've got the other 400 as opposed to here's 800 bucks. Because again it's in the spirit of trying to make not enough money go as far and as efficiently possible as we're trying to navigate on through this knowing that there are going to be other [indiscernible] To fall as we get into the process. [3:04:20 PM] >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember harper-madison. >> Harper-madison: I'll certainly say that helps, that additional measure is helpful. But I keep thinking through like from this -- a good example is the public health emergency component. Some of that seems to me as though we shouldn't incur those expenses from our general funds. Or like councilmember Casar and mayor pro tem pointed out, if you're a housekeeper, you get a one time access to this funding, but if you're an artist you get multiple points of access to funding. I guess I'm just very fearful that given that I'm recognizing more and more, especially, especially as we're hearing from my colleagues and I, we all got the same emails the last several days, the series of emails that we've received about funding, how it was received and/or expended. We will never as a municipality have enough to meet the need. So in recognizing that I'm [3:05:22 PM] just very fearful that we just have to be as conscientious as possible. And I think Mr. Hockenyos just assured my concerns and my fears. I mean, we'll never meet the need. In which case what's the response and how do we respond generally to the public when we're saying while I can appreciate, Ed, you said some of the cuts that we're making and some of the concessions we're making will help us, but it won't relief the pressure. In which case I -- I wouldn't know how to begin to answer people's questions when they ask us why we can't meet their needs. I wouldn't know how to begin to answer the questions just looking at these finite numbers. I'm looking at the columns, looking at the dollars, where they come from, and none of it makes sense to me. And I think councilmember kitchen might have really brought it home in that I don't know how the numbers [3:06:23 PM] make sense and I don't know how to make them make sense for somebody else. So I don't know that I'm asking a question so much as making a statement, but any assistance that somebody is mathematically inclined brain that works in a way mine doesn't can offer me to offer explanation to our constituents, that would be very helpful because I can't see it. >> Mayor Adler: Okay, thank you. >> Harper-madison: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Colleagues, councilmember pool. >> Pool: I'd like to ask a couple of questions, potential funding for cares act funding, we'll be looking at an item next week, bringing an item to initiate a temporary program [3:07:24 PM] that helps small businesses recover more quickly. It's the shop the block initiative that I posted about on the council message board. And so I have two questions. Since the purpose of that permitting problem is economic recovery for small businesses that are affected by covid, would we be able to waive fees for the permit and cover our staff costs under cares? And then the second question is this portion could apply to any of the economic recovery programs that we're running, can we recoup any funds that the city may spend on marketing or education to the business community about available programs? So this would apply to marketing that EdD may do or the convention center does through the city of Austin, that sort of thing. Ed, what do you think? Are you able to answer them here or shall I submit them and look for a written [3:08:28 PM] response? >> I think on the first part I think it would be better to have a written response. I think it's the details of the system, how we would actually set it up, how we would be able to document it. To the extent that it is a program that economically supports a business that has been negatively impacted by covid-19, that's the general parameter. So we would just need to understand the details of it. And again, it's about identifying the best funding sources available to us as we actually implement these programs. So again, I kind of want to put it in that framework. When you see all those general fund, think about it as eligible funding sources as opposed to this is absolutely going to be used for this purpose. We're looking to identify what the eligible sources of funding are and asking staff to be able to achieve your program flexibility goals within the funding we have [3:09:29 PM] available to us while also managing the broader city budget and reserve policy and all that stuff. >> Pool: Thanks for mentioning that and I appreciate the ask that's permeating all of the presentation today for the flexibility, recognizing that times are fluid and unpredictable. And mayor, you often talk about the iterative processes that we go through in order to fine tune things and I think this is another one of that. I appreciate the work that staff is -- all the efforts that staff has put toward bringing together this framework. I think it's a good one. I like the fact that we will be revisiting it over time. We will be able to bend and flex the same way the monies will be. And to meet the needs, it is a heavy burden that anybody in public service is always confronted with. We lit actually can't so we do the best that we can. And I think the tragedy approach that Jon -- triage approach that Jon hockenyos was talking about is a good [3:10:31 PM] way to explain it. I would also like to see an effective use of the funds that we are being given in these crisis times and make sure that while we may not be able to meet everybody's needs 100% or even 75%, I would like to see as many people helped some and as much as we can. So those are the decisions that we'll have to just keep revisiting and reviewing and supporting over the next few months for however long we're in -- for however long we're in this circumstance. Thanks so much to staff. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Pio Renteria? >> Renteria: Yes, mayor. I also support the -- waiving the fee to some of these small restaurants. If we could have the opportunity to have them use the parking lot or maybe somewhere in front of the [3:11:35 PM] street and get to the point that we can waive the fee, because the more business the restaurants do, we don't have an ability to keep them from stopping them. Right now they're operating at 25. I'm pretty sure the governor is going to come out and say he's going to open up the restaurants at 50%. If we can help the business spread out their seating arrangements, I think any waiving of fees will pay for itself because of the added sales tax revenue that we're collecting. So I'm really excited about trying to experiment with some of this kind of programming. And the other question I have for Stephanie Hayden is I read in the morning that the goal was to test 40,000 people a month. Are we going to be buying those test kits and if we are did we set enough money aside for those kits? I just saw 80,000 on this [3:12:40 PM] report here about having 80,000 test kits? >> Yes. So in all we are making a purchase of 1,000 test kits because we've already purchased 20,000 early on and we're working our way through those. And we've requested 2,000 test kits a week from the state so we are waiting to hear back from them. And then within that plan also, because this was a federal plan and because we use the CDC guidelines for the contact tracing and case investigation, and so that -- they called for nine investigators per 100,000 people so that's why we put 115 in here. But inside our budget the national association of city and county health officials calls for a little more than [3:13:44 PM] that. I think my number is 15. And so we actually budgeted in this budget for 180 contract tracers for the city of Austin, but we've met with our partners and they are willing to go up to at least 65. So in all we have the potential to be scalable to have about 2 contact tracers -- 245 contact tracers and investigators from now until the end of the year. >> Renteria: Thank you. That sounds -- I'm very alarmed because of what I'm seeing right now that they're not keeping the social distancing that we recommended. And I'm sure they're going to be a lot more cases of infections. So I'm really glad that you're doing that. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Alison [3:14:45 PM] alter. Councilmember alter. >> Alter: Thank you. First I want to say that I think this is a really helpful framework. I appreciate how it prioritizes the public health and emergency response and I think it's -- I think we are clear that everyone here is saying those buckets should stay where they are. Maybe we need to add a few things more into that. So I think that offers a sense of clarity for us as a council about our priorities on the health and emergency response. And on the economic support. And I think these buckets are a helpful way for thinking about it. I wanted to ask a couple of quick factual questions and kind of make a few comments. I notice that utilities we only cited the four million dollars of direct financial support, but I believe there was 25 to $35 million in rate reductions running [3:15:46 PM] through October. And it seems to me that if we're going to do an accurate accounting of how we're helping folks that we should find a way to capture that within this framework or at least to note it. I know it's a reduction in fee and so it's a bit different in that regard. So I wanted to note that. And then I wanted to ask when director Hayden mentioned the homelessness funding sources with the cbg and [indiscernible] And whatever the alphabet soup is. Are those numbers already in this total or are those additional to this number. So we talk about -- we talked about the 170, but is this also the cares act hud money calculated in or is that bomb above and beyond? >>Ed hud funding is also part of this framework? >> Alter: So that's already in there. [3:16:47 PM] And then the business bucket, there was the 10 million or 11 million we had with its clear fund and then there was that balance, but then it says ground for that one. Is that one another one that has general fund or it's possible it could come from general fund? >> It says potential. It's an appropriate funding source. >> Alter: Okay. Thank you. One thing I thought was missing here from the economic support and maybe it's something we're doing generally is that there are a lot of federal programs, and I'm grateful that our federal government has stepped up as much as they have and I hope they'll do more. But we just got an email if you're in aid about a food program. There was also an article in the "New York Times" about how this food aid was not reaching children and that families were eligible for [3:17:48 PM] $700 in food relief through carts that they were distributing, but that a lot of people hadn't accessed that yet. So we talked a little bit about having sort of case managers for businesses but I'm wondering if as part of this process we have any kind of case managers for individuals helping them to find aid. I know we did the tax support from foundation communities, but it seems like there might be a lot of ways to get additional resources to help people in our communities that they may not know about, but that we could have an important convening role or connecting role. So is that something that we have covered in here? In any way? >> We don't have that covered in there, but we can reach out to aid. As you may remember, the [3:18:48 PM] city funds a portion of their parent support specialist salary, and on the call yesterday Dr. Cruz spoke about having them to work some this summer. So we can reach out to them and coordinate with them about that. >> Alter: There may be children in aid. That was just one example. There may be people who maybe haven't gotten their tax refund or -- I feel like there's a lot of different programs that we're hearing about that it may be useful for us to help people get their unemployment benefits faster and some of these things. I don't know how something like that would fit in this framework because there may just be a lot of money there. I wanted to throw that out there. Then I wanted to speak to -- [3:19:48 PM] so councilmember Casar mentioned the public health money that was providing relief to folks who tested positive or were in quarantine. And that was several million dollars and maybe that should go into public health. And I don't really care which bucket that's in, but I do think that's a form of direct financial assistance. It's targeted so it also helps the public health. We had a provision in rise that focused us on that. So I think we may want to do above and beyond that, but that is direct financial relief and it's still going to be helping folks who are in the vulnerable populations because that funding is targeted to an 80% mfi. I don't think it's anyone who is positive gets the financial assistance if they can't demonstrate need. So I just think that is an additional financial help that we have. So on this sort of general question of providing [3:20:52 PM] additional direct financial assistance I would support providing some more of that, but I think we have to get a better sense of how much we're talking about so that we can understand where we may have to take that from. And also to recognize how much is already in here in various ways. I hear loud and group about folks having access to that bucket multiple times and I think that's something that we may need to flip some things around for. With respect to the non-profits and I'm sorry the mayor pro tem is not here, that funding is critical for our community and in every way that we help our community. It was designed to help them make it through this period. Those non-profits have cash on hand for maybe two to three months. Otherwise they go under. And they're critical partners for us. [3:21:52 PM] And that funding, when you take off of the head of the executive director the need to raise sort of some of that basic capital, they are really able to focus on the delivery of the services that they are delivering and that is the hardest funding for them to get. What we have heard with respect to the rise fund and the non-profits that there's not enough money in there for the operating support. So that might be something we address elsewhere. But I think that kind of basic money given the number of northwests we have -- and we're going to need them through this process, whether they're delivering the direct services or not. The final thing I wanted to talk a little bit about the recovery phase that Mr. Hockenyos talked about. I know we are trying to triage and do a lot. This budget is extremely heavy on the first phases. And now that we are several months into this, I think we do need to think more about [3:22:53 PM] what that recovery looks like, what a world looks like when you have 25% unemployment and there are no [indiscernible] Opportunities. I know that councilmember harper-madison has talked several times in various forms about we need to reinvent how we think about the workforce and we need to help folks to pivot with how they're working in other things. And you know, I'm pleased to see two million in there for workforce development, but I think we really need to think seriously about whether we need to have more money for workforce development or if some of our small business money has to be focusing on helping businesses to persist. We can focus on all the money we want, but if there are no jobs there in three months, four months and no organizations to help us through, we won't have bridged successfully. And there's no easy answers here. But I love to hear from Mr. Hockenyos, who I think has his hands up of [3:23:56 PM] suggestions of how we make that pivot of recovery piece. >> I'm learning to go back to third grade and raise my hand to be acknowledged. I think it's a great point, councilmember. And as that conversation is beginning we're beginning to see at least people beginning to think about how do we pull together as different institutions in the city, whether it's our different public sector jurisdictions, different private sector, economic development groups, philanthropy, educational institutions. How do we all knit together in terms of both resources and a coordinated effort to respond to inevitably what is going to be a change to the economic landscape as you rightly point out, and develop a plan that sets us on the path to working through that. And that could have impact on skills development. It could have impact on helping existing businesses expand their business footprint. It could have impact potentially on recruiting new businesses to the area. [3:24:57 PM] It could be a lot of different things. We don't know yet. And a although a lot of the encouraging conversations, and although this starts with conversation and data. And we're getting to get indications - - workforce solutions was telling us that they are close, I would say within a month or so of having a really robust data analysis system about who is actually in you want employment insurance program. Not just who they are, but their demographics, their occupation, their educational attainment, previous income. All this kind of information, if we can use that as kind of a foundation and build on that so that we better understand not only the people, but the businesses involved and marry it all up, we can really begin to say who are we, where are our shortcomings and where do we need to go from here in building this recovery plan? I think this is in the back of the mind of a lot of folks talking about the need for flexibility what that's really saying is we need to keep some dry powder because [3:25:59 PM] we don't really know what's coming down the road. We want to have some resources, I know it's a balance, some resources that we haven't really tied up yet so that we are positioned to take the results of what will hopefully be this code of comprehensive community process and really put it into action. >> Alter: So I really appreciate hearing about that. I think it is important, but nonetheless, we're not really giving ourselves much room in here if we think we need a lot of contingencies for the emergency or public health to be able to do some of these pivots. We know there are opportunities to invest in further nursing education and other kind of things like that. And the contact tracing could be reworked for workforce and they're just -- this in combination with our budget I think we really need to think about [3:27:01 PM] that workforce component, so that people can pay the rent over multiple months, either because they're given a job through these programs or because they've gained skills that let them get jobs, but we have an opportunity to do much more than we're doing. That's what I'm struggling with in this framework is I don't think -- I don't think it is yet giving us that unless we rely on the contingencies, which I think are rightly in the public health and emergency area. >> Just real quickly and then I'll shut up. I think one of the things that we would hope would happen would be that other sources of funding would join with the city so to multiple the resources that are available. And those conversations aren't far enough along yet to call out who that might be or how much it would be involved. But ideally it would happen that we don't have to just rely on city resources and cares funding to carry the financial burden of what we're talking about. >> Councilmember, if I could add on to that, to Ed's [3:28:01 PM] point we are trying to be flexible and nimble in the framework as well. We certainly get that workforce development is a huge issue and the conversations that we're having now on how we can be a part of that partnership, but we do see that there's -- there might be some flexibility that we need and moving funds around so that we're addressing that as that becomes more apparent on what the next steps are. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Kathie, do you have any questions before I start round two? Go ahead, Kathie. >> Tovo: Thank you, mayor. I have a lot of questions. I think I will tackle first one of my overrule questions and then -- some of my overall questions and then some O my questions about rent and then maybe save some of the second ones for second round. So I appreciate the conversation with Ed van eenoo about the chart and how the funding sources are listed. And it seemed to me that -- I think the second time you talked about it you talked [3:29:01 PM] about it as available or viable funding sources. But I guess I would -- what is important to me, and I think it's the perspective that all of you are operating under is that we use the most eligible -- that we use our federal dollars before we use reserve funding. And so I think about it in the way that Carla used to talk about kind of a flow of funds. I hope our flow of funds will always be to seek out those FEMA dollars or the more general federal funding before we rely on money that was already within our operating budget so that we are getting reimbursed for as many things as possible. For those new expenses. Is that kind of the way you're conceiving of it, Ed? And I guess my second part of my question would be, you know, because there are -- because it's sort of all hands on deck and every department in the city is [3:30:01 PM] working on this, I wonder -- I don't know if this is a question for you or the manager. My secondary part of that question would be is there a staff member who is going to -- going to provide oversight and make sure that we're doing that in every case? We had a conversation, for example, about the rental assistance and it was taken out of the affordable housing trust fund. I made the amendment last week or whenever we had a meeting. To replenish the affordable housing trust fund since that's likely an eligible expense under the federal money so that we're preserving our more flexible funding for the future. But is there but is there -- given that these things are happening again across the city. Is there one staff member who's going to be sort of the ombudsman of the spending decisions, so make sure that we're always using -- to make sure that we're always -- the flow of funds is always the most -- the most [3:31:04 PM] beneficial in terms of preserving our flexible funding for flexible options, and I should just say as a caveat, I understand that's not how Carla used -- she was talking about a completely different context, and I'd just like that expression as we think about the decision-making apparatus that has to be deployed for this kind of operation. >> Well, I'll start, councilmember, that's a great question, then have Ed chime in Ed has guided a team across these different departments. As you know, we have incredible professional experts in our city organization, and as they look at what other folks are doing within these programs, within these funds, they're able to have those conversations in realtime. And so, you know, Ed is real leading that group, but it is a collaborative effort across the team, and if we can bring back that slide to show you who's all part of that group. Ed, did you want to add anything else? >> I would just add that the [3:32:04 PM] funds -- I think it's an appropriate use of the term here, and I think you hit it right on the nose. We're going to first look to FEMA. Anything that's reimbursable for FEMA will be or first go-to. As I mentioned earlier, like most large cities, we have a consultant that's an expert in FEMA reimbursements and is helping guide us through that government process, and we're doing everything we can to document our expenses. And we'll go to FEMA first. The coronavirus relief fund needs to be looked at second, there's guidelines is to when that funding needs to be used. And then, you know, some combination of the H.U.D. Funds and the general fund after that maybe just depending upon the circumstances. Maybe circumstances where it makes more sense, most advantageous to us to employee the H.U.D. Funds, and in other circumstances, maybe the general funds. I think that would broadly be what we would be looking to. We're to have away from the [3:33:05 PM] finish line to know exactly how that's going to play out, and that's why you see all these funding sources, kind of more so what would be appropriate funding sources than any kind of state, this is how much we're going to take from these different buckets. >> Tovo: Thank you. I think that's really helpful. I guess -- I mean, what you're saying is that -- what I'm hearing, and I think it's what you're saying, is that the prioritization will always be for those federal sources first, before we look to general funds. You offer that there might be situations in which it's advantageous to use general fund sources, and I'm not -- I guess we don't have to answer that question now, but I want to understand what are those -- what are those circumstances, given that, you know, we have so many other demands on that. >> Well, there are restrictions and limits to how we use these different federal funding sources, and so we'd be looking to the general fund, really, as a last resort. There's programs that we are needing to fund and council is wanting to fund that aren't [3:34:08 PM] eligible to the federal bucket. >> Tovo: Got you. That makes complete sense. It seems like that would be the only circumstance that would make that a priority fund over one of the federal, if it's just not eligible under the others. One comment I wanted to make, I see that the food assistance is in here. Thank you for having that in here. Just to be really clear about that, I'm not sure how that -- I'm glad that there's some additional -- I need to better understand the funding, actually, actually -- in this piece. So before I ask questions about housing, I want to ask about this issue. So food assistance is 5.4. It's my understanding we've already committed to, with regard to the caregiver meals and del variables and the aid, amounts to 2.2 million. And so is that additional 2.2 already expended through rise? >> Yes. [3:35:11 PM] That additional 2.2 million for food assistance went to the capital area food bank. >> Tovo: So I would just say that then that figure does not include the possibility of assisting in some of those other districts, and so I know in our -- in our social services cabinet, for example, we've had the conversation about manor ISD and some of the other ISDs, and I'll let councilmember harper-madison talk about -- about that issue, but we know there is need beyond just ISD and del valle. I would just point out that this dire figure doesn't allow for that expansion, so that's a concern for me. I would certainly add, it is certainly food assistance, but I want to be really clear that this is also economic assistance because with aid, the vendors they have contracted with to prepare those meals are primarily restaurants. In fact, entirely restaurants. [3:36:11 PM] And so, you know, this is really assistance to our small businesses. It's really an economic development program right now, or economic assistance program right now to our small businesses that have been so impacted. With del valle, they are also contracting, or we are contracting with one vendor, but that vendor is going to be able to reemploy individuals who are laid off during this period of time. So in both of those cases, while it is certainly providing and meeting that basic need of families who will benefit from it, it's also economic assistance. So how we talk about that, I think, is important, and just want to be sure that my colleagues have that piece of information about how that's working. Mayor, have I used all my question time or can I move on to rent? I can't hear you. >> Mayor Adler: Let's pass it around and we'll come back to you. [3:37:12 PM] >> Tovo: Sure. >> Flannigan: Mayor, if I may, as we're going through round two, staff would appreciate feedback on what you would consider from council as a next step on this conversation. This came from a resolution from council and we're hoping this framework has been helpful in guiding these discussions, but we also know that this is a snapshot in time and it will evolve, and we have -- we have a lot of unknowns as we chart our course through the next weeks and months. I can see a range of options for possible next step, including attaching this framework to the next council meeting for a vote, that would be the entire document. You could also choose to vote on just the big categories of spending, if you will, those three big buckets and the amounts underneath. We could also just do kind of a fist to five, if you will, in this meeting, just to see if we're heading in the right direction and making sure that we are adhering to the general categories and ways in which [3:38:13 PM] council wants that to be directing this funding, with the assumption that we will be continuing to update council as we move forward and as we learn more. And so I just -- I put that out there, as you go through this next round and ask questions, any additional feedback on the direction that we want to go from here would be helpful to get, so thank you very much. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. All right. Let's do another round. It is 3:40. Ann. >> Kitchen: Okay. Just quickly, let me thank the staff and respond to the city manager's question. I definitely feel that you have -- first off, I appreciate the staff putting this all together. I do understand the need for flexibility for all the reasons that everybody has articulated and importance of contingencies and that sort of thing. I am open to see what the rest of [3:39:15 PM] council would like to see happen in terms of how we move forward. I think this -- I agree with this framework. I think this general framework is a good framework. I'm open to some moving of things around, if that's what counsel wants to do. But I think, all in all, the general framework and the total dollars we have in each of the three big buckets makes sense to me, and I'm happy to just vote on those big buckets, if that's what people want to do. I'm happy to get more granular if people prefer to do that. So -- and then I just want to comment on a few things that people have said. You know, really, we have said that this is about balance. It's about a combination of things. It's about balance, it's about triage, and recovery, how much do we put into just immediate help and how much do we look to recovery. Someone said, if we don't have [3:40:17 PM] jobs, then we're not going to have recovery, and people are not -- people need income, and they need jobs, at the end of the day. So how do we -- how do we make sure that people have the basic needs that they have to live while at the same time we help make sure that our businesses recover so we have jobs for people to go to. So -- and that's the hard balance that we're all trying to reach right now. I also want to say that the other kind of thing that we're balancing is direct care -- or not direct care, but direct dollars versus buckets of dollars. And we've done that in a couple of different ways. So, for example, councilmember Flannigan said that you've got -- mentioned that you love to look at, you know, food assistance, rental assistance, utility assistance, assistance for vulnerable folks, the rise fund, those all get at basic needs. So they get at them in different [3:41:17 PM] ways. The rise fund is more of a direct -- direct dollars that covers a range of needs, whereas rental assistance is a bucket for a particular need. You know, the utilities was a bucket for a particular need. The food is a bucket for a particular need. I don't know which is better, but I think we should acknowledge that we have a mix of those going on right now. So I don't -- I don't think we can say that unless we put more dollars into direct -- into a bucket that gives direct dollars without a particular type of service, I don't think we can say that we're not doing that in other words, I'm open to putting more dollars into the rise fund, but if we don't, that doesn't mean that we're not covering rental and food and utility and other basic needs that people have. So I think we need to -- to acknowledge that. The other thing is the -- we've done the same thing on, you know, [3:42:18 PM] direct versus buckets, in the business sector. We've identified buckets for small business, we've identified buckets for nonprofits. We've identified buckets for creatives. And I do not believe that creatives have more multiple points of access than others do. We have created multiple points of access because we have a mix of direct and buckets of types. So individuals have multiple -- any individual has a multiple bucket for rental assistance, for food, for the rise fund, for utilities. And in the business sector, you may have -- you may have a music person who's a small business who may have access to a small business fund as well as a music fund. So I just want us to be careful in how we characterize, because I don't think that what we're doing is unfair in terms of people's [3:43:20 PM] access to dollars. We may decide and it may make more sense to put more into a bucket that just gives people direct dollars that they can then see what they need to spend the dollars on. In a lot of ways, that makes sense to me. But it's not inherently more fair than a bucket for rental or a bucket for -- you know, for utilities or anything like that. And I would say the same thing, councilmember Casar, I really appreciate what you're saying, but I would never characterize giving funds for the creative sector as pulling out a certain type of person and not recognizing another -- certain type of work and not recognizing another type. To me, it's more akin to the small business bucket and the -- small business bucket and the nonprofit bucket. It's about work. It's about their ability to produce income and have a [3:44:22 PM] business, which is a type of need, I think. And that doesn't mean that I don't agree with you that I would like to see more -- you know, like to see more in basic services, and that perhaps the best way to do that is -- I've been very impressed with how the rise fund has worked. But I just want us to be careful about how we talk about it because I -- this is -- am my mind, this is not saying that a person in this bucket is more important than a person in this bucket. It's all about the different avenues in which people have access. I mean, we could choose to just say, we don't need all these different buckets; we're just going to say, for basic needs, everybody gets X dollars. And for business, everybody gets X dollars. And then we don't try to divide it by types. That's not what we've done here. So, again, all I'm trying to say is, I think we should be careful -- I want to be -- I personally want to be careful. So then the last thing is, I just [3:45:23 PM] want to say to -- I want to make a comment on the access for smaller landlords. I think I heard Rosie say that there was some efforts happening in that regard, and I'd like to ask her again if she has a timeline in mind for that. And I just want to make sure I understood correctly what she was thinking might happen in that area. >> Sure. Hi, councilmember. We are -- have a meeting it up with the apartment association and abor on Tuesday afternoon to help kind of do some additional thinking and conversation about that issue. Recognizing that the current rent program is set up really as more tenant-focused, that we recognize the need for the landlords that are having -- you know, for lack of a better term, being ghosted by their tenants, and wanting to [3:46:24 PM] make sure that however we establish that program, that we're able to tie -- for rent, that we're able to tie the assistance back to a low income individual who's been impacted by covid. So they don't mesh well together in that respect but we do recognize the need. [Indiscernible] Will be included from the city side and we'll start to brainstorm and shoot the problem there. >> Kitchen: Well, I just want to encourage us to continue that work. From my perspective, it's all about rental assistance for individuals, and I see the smaller landlords as another avenue for reaching that same goal. So I just wanted to reiterate that. And finally, I don't -- this is a question for -- I think maybe for John [indiscernible] Or for others. I haven't seen -- I would love to see some kind of -- you know, we've been talking about the needs -- the importance of marrying up the need with what [3:47:24 PM] we're doing, and I haven't seen data that shows me we're doing that. I mean, I've seen some data -- data in different buckets, you know, that shows me that we have rental needs or we have this need or we have that need, but I'm not really seeing the kind of data that supports the connection between what we're doing and the needs that we see, whether those are immediate, basic needs for triage, or whether they're to get our economy going, again, and jobs. Is there any -- maybe this is a question for director Briseno, or for John hockinos, but are we going to see that at some point? Are we going to see some kind of analysis that will help us understand? I mean, I'm just not comfortable continuing to say that there's just more than we could ever do. I want to understand what that means in terms of what the needs [3:48:26 PM] are. >> Do you want me to answer or do you want to take the first step? >> Do you mind starting to talk about general needs on how to assess need. >> That's a good question. I'm the guy saying we need good data to make good decisions. Part of the issue is, the pandemic is, what, [indiscernible] Weeks old at this point? We don't have a lot of good data yet that's actually based on what's actually happened. That was why it was chiropractors exciting, as I mentioned earlier, to talks workforce solutions, they're willing to drill in and say who is accessing the system, for example. Veronica and her team are collecting information about who is -- who are actually accessing information through their programs, who are coming to them saying, hey, we need some assistance. So we're still building that capacity. I mean, we certainly made some guesses based on an understanding of what we think the impacts are [3:49:27 PM] likely to fall, that we've kind of sketched out, but at this point the forecasts and projections, the more information we have, the better off we're going to be. If there's a modest silver lining in this thunderstorm, we've gotten this large level of federal support, which has given us a little bit of time, not completely, but a little bit of time to put together this information capacity to understand who is coming forward and also who is likely to be coming forward. So we don't have the data yet, councilmember kitchen. We're beginning to get a feeling on it. It's interesting, for example, that when we were -- when director Briseno and I were doing some work looking at the folks who were coming to them for business assistance to their program, they tend to be in the industries that are the first ones that are hit, the lodging industry, the hospitality industry understand a all that it -- and allthat. [3:50:30 PM] It was interesting to note those tend to be disproportionately people of color and women and small businesses, and that squares with what we know, those tend to be the folks who have been less successful at accessing federal business support than other businesses have had. So we're beginning to get our arms around it but it's going to be a little bit of time before we have as good of data as I think we can reasonably get. What I'm hoping, as we get that data, in the end, we can bring it back to you all and make it that much easier for you to make good decisions, database decisions, going forward. And that's a matter of weeks, not quarters. Right? And that's part of the reason why folks have been saying, let's sort of identify our priorities with these categories, but be flexible about actual amounts because the real world information may cause us to make some adjustments along the way. >> I would just add to that, we [3:51:30 PM] realize that as a need, we're continuing to roll that into everything we're doing. We're assessing what other entities have done, surveys, for example, the greater Austin chamber, each of our chambers, so we're making sure that we're looking at all that data from multiple agencies and entities. And then we as a city in all of our departments and all the contracts that we're trying to roll out, we're trying to set those contracts up so that our service providers are collecting that data as well, so that we can do a report. So we're learning as we go, but we're trying to make sure that we're putting those stopgaps in place to collect as much data and make recommendations to you based on data. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Kitchen: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem Garza. >> Garza: I just want to make -- as we're talking about what all we need to recognize, we all have to recognize there is inherent [3:52:31 PM] equity issues in every system, in every program that we create. And so I think the point that councilmember Casar was making, and councilmember harper-madison as well, some people have more opportunities, we can't pretend that that's not true, for a variety of reasons. Not just what job you have, but just for the disproportionate effect we're seeing in the Latino community and African American community, it's because of engagement and education and trying to reach those groups. So there is inherent inequities. And when -- for example, if I am a housekeeper, I have the opportunity -- yes, I have the opportunity to go for rise funding, for rental assistance, for direct food, but I wouldn't qualify for the creative funding. But when you look at the reverse, if I'm a creative, I have access to the creative bucket, to the rise bucket, and to a variety [3:53:33 PM] of -- to every single other bucket. I think that's the point that other councilmembers were trying to make. And, councilmember kitchen, let me -- I was on mute when you were talking. Would you put it on mute? >> Kitchen: I'm not -- I'm not saying anything. >> Garza: I know. But you can hear the background noise. >> Kitchen: I'm sorry, I didn't realize I wasn't on mute. >> Mayor Adler: That's okay. Got it. >> Garza: And so the point being that even if -- even if there are other buckets for rental assistance -- for example, one of the nonprofits, let's say el win, come didn't go to second round of funding, if I was a recipient of that whatever, a $500 debit card, the only reason that person was assisted is because they trusted [indiscernible]. They had the ability to connect with certain communities. So that person, if there's no second round for certain unprofits -- I don't want to [3:54:34 PM] specifically talk about them, that's probably the last -- that's it, we gave them, you know, one month may be of half their rent. And even though there are other buckets, even though there's rental and there's food, it doesn't mean they're going to have the opportunity or the ability to know that they can access those buckets. So I just want to make sure we understand that, that there are some -- I know -- I absolutely understand that there's an unlimited amount of need, and we won't be able to meet every single one of those. But by not having an avenue for people who could not qualify for federal stimulus, who only have a connection to help through a certain organization that, as of right now, is not going to get funded again because there is no new money for the financial assistance under the rise, they likely will not get any more help, no matter how many more buckets are out there, nothing guarantees that they're going to get rental through the rental bucket, nothing guarantees that [3:55:35 PM] they're going to get food through the food. I just want to say rise provides a specific kind of funding for a specific need. That doesn't mean that person is going to get access to anything else. So at this point, those people, those families, there's no more -- there's no more assistance for them. You know, the likelihood that there's no more assistance for those families. And so that is why I hope we can find another way to invest in that bucket of rise. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Councilmember Renteria. >> Renteria: Yes, mayor. Thank you. You know, I agree with my colleagues there, the mayor pro tem. You know, I saw rise money as something that gives us the flexibility to go out and help the members of the community that, you know, are dropping [3:56:35 PM] their loopholes, you know, and I always felt that that would give us the opportunity to be more flexible. And I thought also that we were going to reimburse some of that money that we did get from the care act into this program. And so I really wish that we could, you know, reimburse the rise program so we could use that for a more flexible reason in the future. And, you know, I also want to really thank the staff. You know, I -- how they came out and put all this spreadsheet together and the suspension, it's a great job and, John, I really appreciate what you said because we do have to be flexible. And I know things are going to change as they come on, as the economy opens up slowly, but it is what the governor is going to do, and there will be more jobs [3:57:36 PM] out there. But we know for a fact that these jobs are going to be open, and people -- a lot of them are going to be people of color. And they're going to be exposed. And I want to make sure that they're not afraid to take a test because they need -- you know, they know that they're going to be out for -- quarantined for two weeks, and they don't have sick leave. And if we allow them to keep having to go back to work so they can earn a paycheck, then we're never going to get out of this problem that we're in right now, you know. I'm really afraid of that. I know the way they're set up is real split. I know that some of this money, a lot of the floodplains that are eddid a lot of the groups that are going to be applying for it, because of what they received before, the paycheck protection, money that some of these [3:58:37 PM] businesses receive, probably not all of them are going to be able to qualify for that money. But -- you know, and I know that in the future, we're going to be -- we're going to have the opportunity to see exactly what we have and what we're going to have working with us -- what we're going to have to work with. So that's very important to me. And I know that -- I hope so, that we can put some reimburse or rise money so that we can use it in the future for those type of programs, what I just said about maybe people stay home and not in fact other people and not have to worry about having to earn a paycheck. But that's what I would like to see. Thank you, and thank the staff. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: Thank you, mayor. I have some specific questions [3:59:44 PM] about the rent program. So there's a reference to, or I didn't understand about the past payments being either fair market value or actual rent, and I wonder, Rosie, or director true love, if you could start by explaining what you meant. >> Sure. As we set up the rent program, we established payment of either fair market rent or actual rent, whatever was lower, recognizing that not everyone is charging what we would call a fair market rent or they may be charging more than that, or potentially less than that, but wanting to get folks comfortable with the concept of fair market rent and working on that as kind of the baseline for what we would be paying through the rent program initially. >> Tovo: And so in other words, if somebody was paying more than what you would consider to be fair market rent, they might -- they would get only the fair [4:00:46 PM] market -- half of the fair and accurate -- okay, I'm sorry, I just couldn't follow that in the earlier conversation. Thank you. >> That's okay. >> Tovo: There was a discussion at the housing committee about whether individuals who are staying in hotel -- long-stay hotel or motels would be eligible. Are you adjusting the eligibility moving forward with this program so that individuals in those kinds of housing settings can be -- can apply? >> So that's something that we are considering as well. In the initial iteration of the program, we were requiring that folks had a standard lease. And as we go into -- as we go into the next iteration, we're going to see how that can be adjusted to take that into consideration. We don't have -- again, we don't have a solution on that yet, but that is on the list of things to talk about as we -- as we get more in depth into program design. >> Tovo: I would see that as a priority. And I think we may have even [4:01:47 PM] talked at the housing committee about ways to do that, by providing receipts and thing like that. The other group that I wanted to ask about are those living in mobile homes who are on kind of rent-to-own situations, and whether you've considered how they might also be made eligible for rental assistance. >> I will add that to the list and we'll talk about that with the team. Yes, ma'am. >> Tovo: Thank you. >> Uh-huh. >> Tovo: Okay. Now to go a little bit back to the line item for shelters and quarantine facilities, and this gets to the question that councilmember kitchen asked earlier, and I heard the answer but didn't fully understand it. Director Hayden, I heard you say that there was funding within those -- within I think that category or maybe it was another category, to assist individuals who are currently in lodges and want permanent housing. It wasn't clear to me in the [4:02:48 PM] response whether that was just kind of the case management necessary to identify those options, or whether it was also some form of rapid rehousing dollars that would actually help pay for that housing for that period of time. So is it actually the housing dollars, or just the supportive case management dollars that are included within the funding? >> It is both the housing and the case management dollars. The additional case management dollars come from the emergency solutions grant, so the esg. >> Tovo: That's super. Good. Thank you. And apologies, I think you may have answered that question, I just didn't hear the response clearly. Thank you so much. And that's good. I think that's really good news. I may be losing my -- I may be at my last question here. I have more, but in terms of courtesy to my colleagues. This is a question that I would like to have answered at our [4:03:50 PM] Monday Austin energy meeting. I'm interested in knowing where we stand with regard to utility bill assistance, like how much of that has been accessed, and it's primarily -- most of our programs were in the residential consumers repairs, but I would be interested to know whether any of that utility bill assistance was made available to commercial tenants. And then, director Hayden, I'll make my last question for the moment one that I think is for you. On page 1 of the spending framework, safety measures, there's a discussion that this includes aph facility renovation funds to modify lobbies and reception areas, behavioral health counseling support, and sanitization. Can you help me understand, if you know it now or maybe afterward, how that 2.9 breaks down among those categories? In other words, how much is for lobbies and reception, [4:04:52 PM] renovations, how much is for counseling support, how much is for sanitation? >> Okay. So there is -- yes, there is a million dollars for additional behavioral health and counseling supportive services. Let me see, make sure I'm looking at the right line. Oh, okay. Yes. And then with the renovations -- and so this is, when we have public facing facilities that are right now operating more mobile and we've modified -- we know we're going to need to, you know, open our doors to be able to provide those services, so if there are any type of -- either [4:05:53 PM] partitions or make some changes to our reception areas, and so that is a little over a million. And let's see, I think that total line is 2.5 million? Right? >> Tovo: 2.9. So that gets us pretty close. >> Uh-huh. >> Tovo: And that gives me a sense of it, and I really appreciate it. And maybe if you have an opportunity to follow up with that detail afterward, then -- >> I can send it to you, and sanitation is about 50k. I'll send it to you. >> Tovo: That's super. Thank you. >> I'll make sure it goes to everyone, so everyone sees the answer to that question. >> Tovo: Thank you, director Hayden. I have other questions and I'll end for the moment. If there's a third round, I have more for that one. >> Mayor Adler: Sounds good. Thank you. Colleagues, anybody else want to ask any questions? [4:06:54 PM] Alison. >> Alter: Thank you. First I wanted to just follow up on councilmember tovo's comments on utility, and in Austin water, we've heard that there was still some room for folks to be using the water assistance, at least at that point in time, we weren't talking to where you might have expected that to have been used. And then we also discovered that for the water assistance, that wasn't helping a lot of the multifamily properties and that we had asked them to look into that more. I'm not sure if that's a problem for the Austin energy, but I think it's something that we should look into. That was part of what prompted me, when we voted on the rise funding contracts last week, to say that we immediate to make -- we need to make surewe're getting the utilities information out to people. But for water, there was definitely some piece there that could be utilized more, and we [4:07:57 PM] had to ask Austin water staff to look into that. That's a problem that they had before covid that they were trying to crack because they don't have individual water meters. So I wanted to also note that in response to councilmember Renteria's comments before, that I think that that need of rents and being able to stay home is built into the public health piece of the financial and other direct support, as I understand it, so I think that there's over 5 million, maybe 7 million in there, for that kind of support. I just wanted to flag that for being in there. In response to the manager's question, though, which I think is one we need to figure out, is, you know, how do we want to proceed with this framework that we asked for, which I think was very helpful for us to get our thinking together and to see kind [4:08:58 PM] of where staff were at. I would venture to say that if we did a 5, that probably the first two pieces would get 5's, and then on the economic support section, it, you know, sounds like there's, you know, a desire is to have some additional direct financial or rental assistance if we can figure out where. We probably don't yet have agreement as of where that would come from. I've expressed a desire to have additional workforce spending, whether it's from this framework or as we build out the budget. I think we need to pay a little bit more attention to that recovery. The other thing that I think there may be -- some clarity might help, is on the rental assistance. So we have talked about some of the benefits of the method that we use for rise of using the different organizations. I don't see anything in this [4:10:00 PM] additional -- I don't know, 18 million of rental assistance that says how that's being divided, other than that it would be a payment that would go directly to the landlord, so that we knew it was rent, but that doesn't stop it from going through organizations that have better connections out into the most vulnerable populations. Do we know any more about how that is set up? >> Hi, councilmember. What we are envisioning is that we would partner with a number of nonprofits throughout Austin and that we would use them to receive the -- you know, to basically provide the intake for the applications from the individual residents themselves that might need assistance. And those folks can also, in turn, then help with outreach to folks that might be in need of rental assistance. >> Alter: So we -- >> We don't have them identified yet, but we're looking for folks [4:11:01 PM] that would have -- excuse me -- the experience with income-qualifying people for similar type programs. >> Alter: So one might venture that it would be some of the same organizations that did the initial round of rise spending. >> Potentially. And those are certainly on our mind of potential partners. But we haven't identified them yet. >> Alter: Okay. So, I mean, I'm not sure at what point we need to vote on this framework, per se, but I think that's where I -- from what I'm hearing, that's what -- what we're asking on a fist-to-five type situation, and that's -- I just wanted to kind of lay it out there because I think we do have to figure out what our next steps are and get some clarity, particularly if there's some sort of vote next week, which I don't know whether we have to have a [4:12:02 PM] vote. I think this was a useful exercise and a useful way of, you know, coordinating our thinking. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Councilmember Casar. >> Casar: To answer the manager's question, I generally agree with how councilmember alter summarized where we are. So given that I, and I think several others, and folks have expressed wanting to move the balance some, I can't think of another way other than just to take a vote on those limited categories. I think what I'm hearing is that there's actually real broad agreement on a lot of parts of this, but that there is just some modification among some of the economic recovery items where there are -- we probably all agree that there should be increases to each of those funds, but, you know, in my view, we should increase the funds that are directly to people a little [4:13:04 PM] bit more, given all that we've talked about today. I don't know of a way to achieve that and to get to a consensus or make a decision without just taking a -- having a little bit of debate and take a quick vote on some numbers. So if anybody else comes up with another way, I'd be happy to look at that, but I think there's consensus on almost everything, we could leave that alone, sounds like there's just a limited amount of vote that would need to be taken. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember tovo? >> Tovo: Well, I think that -- I have to think a little bit more about what -- what I regard as kind of our next steps forward, the question that the manager asked. I mean, if we are -- if we're going to weigh in on whether the allocation in the big buckets is -- I really can't stand the term "Buckets," in the big [4:14:08 PM] categories, we were going to leave our voting, I'm not sure we need to take votes on individual line items at this point. I think we can get some other information, among other things, about how a little bit more granular information would be helpful in terms of rental assistance we need and how those really other basic needs are going to be allocated. I'm still a little unclear on some of the categories within here. I could name a few. Like on page 2, under rental assistance, we've had an opportunity to talk about it a little bit, the grants to the landlords, it's not clear to me whether those are residential or commercial in that category. They might be commercial. Anyway, I just think we have more conversations to have around some of these categories and what is included within them and what are basic needs. But if we're -- I'm not sure that we're -- I think we may have a consensus around the general talk level categories of funding. [4:15:09 PM] So, you know, to me that kind of begs the question about what -- how -- how -- how exact and detailed we want to be at this point, toward a more general approach at the moment, just because I'm looking at some of the line items. On those I'm familiar with, I see a need to address them. I mentioned foods/economic assistance, we know we have other school districts that stand to benefit from that kind of work. So, let's see. I wanted to just underscore a couple points I heard that I agree with and wanted to see some more thought around. Again, the general category seems to me to make best sense because it allows for us to have flexibility within those. Councilmember alter raised an important point and a few others amplified it with their agreement. I would like to have additional discussions in this forum and perhaps in the economic recovery [4:16:11 PM] cabinet about what some additional long-term investment strategies might look like. And I know that other municipalities are having those conversations, too. We passed one of them, the CCC program, I think, is one of those longer-term strategies that we're enlisting individuals and providing immediate economic assistance, but hopefully skills that could lead to future employment opportunities. And I would support some more creative thinking and believe that we need some more creative thinking around -- around what some of the other longer-term investments are. I had a last question. I'm going to have to leave it for now because I've forgotten what it is. But it's around workforce. If it comes to me before we conclude, I'll come back to it. I appreciate all the work that the staff did. I think this was extremely helpful and really advances our thinking about the scope of needs and the scope of opportunities to [4:17:12 PM] help meet those needs. So thank you. >> Mayor Adler: I like the general categories as well, manager. And, you know, I think that this is really helpful to show the breadth of what it is that has to be covered by the dollars that we have. I'm not real sure what the next step is, so to not have kind of academic discussions over something before it's Teed up, but one of the things that I like about this is that all our spending choices require us to make decisions between things. And we weren't doing that up to this point as we were trying to immediately address real significant needs that were directly in front of us. But even just having this level of document means that as we have future conversations about spending, it's going to necessarily involve choices and setting priorities and comparing [4:18:15 PM] strengths. So I think that's going to be a better context to have all those conversations and maybe make more sense when there's a specific proposal that considers something, to take a look at it at that point in that context. As a general rule, at the high level in terms of the three buckets, I think I agree with my colleagues that, generally, I think this this is replayed to reframe those generally conversations. Anybody have anything else? Councilmember Casar. >> Casar: So how are we going to decide whether we're taking this up in a week or not? Because otherwise, we won't have another chance at a public conversation to do this. So what's the next step from here? >> Flannigan: So one proposal, again, this is just a realtime brainstorm, but seemed like there [4:19:15 PM] was a lot of agreements on the larger buckets, but the point of discussion, which was a very healthy and we think useful for staff, did we get the right balance between support for individuals and businesses in the economic recovery bucket. And so we could do potentially a fist-to-five just right now to see how off -- or is there a need to revisit that? But if we feel like we're generally in the right framework, then we can move forward with that. But if we see that there needs to be a recalibration, then staff will take that and do that recalibration and come back with a different framework. But that could be -- that could be one option to pursue. But this was councilmember kitchen's resolution, so I see her hand is up. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: Well, one route is we could ask the city manager to [4:20:16 PM] make some adjustments, and then we could -- if -- then we could vote on -- then the vote we could take could be on the big buckets, assuming people are comfortable with the adjustments that are made. If that's the route that people want to take, then I would suggest some adjustments that put some more dollars into the rise fund. And I would consider where you might get those additional dollars from. You could -- you could consider the kind of suggestion -- and I don't know if it was actually a suggestion from councilmember Flannigan, but he did -- he did mention the time horizon. So perhaps there's some of these dollars that would be spent later out that we could put to these more direct needs right now. Because I consider the rise fund to be more immediate needs, so we could perhaps do that. I don't have other suggestions at this point, but that might be a route, if there's -- if there's an ability to make some - - some [4:21:19 PM] adjustment so that folks could see some additional dollars in the areas. What I'm hearing is the desire for some additional dollars related to the -- what I'll call the direct dollars. I'm wondering also if -- if there's a way or if it works at all to get at, you know, what folks are wanting to see, if it -- if there's any way to make that connection between the rental bucket and the rise bucket along the lines of what councilmember alter was asking about. Again, I don't know if that answers the questions that people have. So I guess what I'm asking is, is there a potential for staff to do a bit more work. Because I think we are very, very close. And from my perspective, I would agree with what others have said, that the first two buckets look fine, and that the tweaks -- or [4:22:20 PM] not tweaks, that's not the right term, the adjustments that people are interested in are more in the third bucket. So... >> Tovo: Councilmember -- mayor pro tem, and then councilmember Casar. >> Garza: I agree with councilmember kitchen in that I think, overall, we're headed in the right direction. But if we were to do a fist-to-five on whether we're happy with the allocation of individual versus business, I would definitely be a 1 at this point because I think there needs to be some kind of shift? Allocation for immediate and individual needs in the framework. >> Tovo: Councilmember Casar. >> Casar: Yeah, I'm fine with staff coming up with options or ideas for us, but I don't want staff to try to go around trying to guess what we need. I'm not suggesting, councilmember [4:23:22 PM] kitchen, that's what you were saying, I just don't want to put the staff in a position where we're having to rewatch this tape and guess what would make sense for us. You could have some site suggestions or ideas based on the conversation. We have a pretty simple method of addressing it through just voting, and it's hard and it's public, but it -- I don't think we have to drag it out. I know that there might be some concern that we take up tons of our day next Thursday, but I think we're close enough that it's just some summary vote to just say, hey, let's move three million from here to here, pass or fail, four million from here to here, pass or fail, I just don't think it's that complicated. If staff has ideas, I'm interested in it, but I don't know how interested I am in a new staff proposal because there, we might be torn between editing both of those. >> Mayor Adler: Is the question presented is, do we want to have more direct relief provided? And if we do, from where does it [4:24:23 PM] come? Is that the question? >> Casar: That's the remaining question, that's right. >> Alter: And how much. >> Mayor Adler: And how much. Councilmember harper-madison. Did you raise your hand? You were just confirming. >> Harper-madison: I did, but councilmember alter already asked my question. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So maybe that's a thing -- I mean having isolated now do you know to that question, maybe that's the thing for people to think about over the course of the next week. And make this part of the covid question, the discussion that we have next week. Because it's a response to that. I mean, if that's the question, maybe that's what we ought to be focusing on. Jimmy? We'll come around to everybody. Jimmy? >> Flannigan: Thanks. Yeah, I'm still aware, I was, when we started the conversation today, I think we had some really [4:25:24 PM] good conversation, but it does need to be -- we need to be clear about what we want. And -- because just saying more is not -- it's just not sufficient. Right? Because if we do some napkin math, there's 50 to 60 million for individual assistance, and then there's 25 for business and another 7 for nonprofit, and maybe those numbers are a little bigger. And like I said before, I'm willing to shift those numbers around, but are we saying that the individual assistance number needs to be 70? In which case we have to go out, we need to look at the math and find a reallocation of 12 million. And I'm making notes off the top of my head here. We need to set a target. One of those numbers we need to know, then staff can kind of move things around to meet that number. But if we don't give them any -- it's like an algebra problem with too many variables, we can't give them any number they can't solve for X. I'm fine with the way they laid [4:26:25 PM] it out, I'm fine with taking the individual assistance programs from 57 to 65, or I'm fine with taking the small business assistance from, you know, 24 to 18. But we've got to at least solve -- we've got to at least answer one variable so staff can come up with a reallocation. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: I guess, mayor, you had said if that's the question before us. I want to be clear about what that question is. To me, it's not as simple as adjusting -- adjusting the balance between support for businesses and support for individuals. You know, as I look through this list, I certainly see technical assistance. I mean, that's pretty clearly support for businesses. We provide some of that already through our city programs. Perhaps that's a million dollars that we could reallocate somewhere else. But when we're talking about providing grants to businesses to [4:27:25 PM] help them pay their rent, if that allows them to stay open at the end of the day, that's also support for the individuals who work there. And so it's -- you know, I want to be careful about how we have this conversation because in supporting the businesses and helping them stay open and helping them meet their payroll, you know, there are individuals who are going to be able to continue to be employed, I hope. And so, you know, as we -- if that is -- if we're going to try to get a more granular level of reallocation, then I want to have a much more in-depth conversation about the different line items and really make sure we're removing and real indicating funding that makes sense. So, again, one that jumps out is technical assistance. Child care service provider assistance, I'd really have to think about. I mean, that's support for businesses, absolutely, but if people can't -- if people don't have reliable child care, they can't go back to work. So, you know, that, again, impacts individual -- that is individual assistance being provided through some of our core business infrastructure that we [4:28:27 PM] absolutely need. So, anyway, that's my thoughts on that. I did have one thing I wanted to mention about the rent program that I had forgotten before, and that is, councilmember alter, I think you -- you hit on a very important point. As -- as director truelove talked about, there were some administratively intense elements of the program in its first phase, and it seems to me there might be a really good match between the point that mayor pro tem Garza raised and then the suggestion you made, and what the staff learned through the first administration of it, which is that it may be -- it may be better for all kinds of reasons, administrative as well as really getting deep into the community through trusted organizations, to allocate that rental -- some of that rental assistance money to some of the same organizations that helped with the rise funding.. So thank you. Are we thinking about talking about this as well [4:29:28 PM] on Tuesday? Is that the thought? I would suggest that we have a conversation about it on Tuesday. >> [Indiscernible]. >> Tovo: I'm not sure I see it as the best use of our time to try to have votes about the mar granular -- granular issues at that point. I would prefer to have another work session and maybe having a little bit more time to reflect on it between next week and the next council meeting. >> Mayor Adler: But I think it does give us some focus. Again, if the issue in front of us is do we want to give more direct assistance, which I think is what I've heard. And councilmember tovo, I wasn't suggesting by indicating the issue of what that would be or how much, but what people are saying they're not seeing in this that they want to see is more direct assistance than [4:30:28 PM] the question would be then okay. And if there was support for that, where would it come from and how much? Which then gives rise to all the other questions. But at least it gives a framework to have that conversation. It's a choice. So the suggestion has been made that we think about that question and we take a look at the line items, ask staff questions about the line items, if you have them. And then as part of the covid conversation at the work session, we'll see if people have suggestions or if there's an idea that looks like it has a consensus. Even though we can't vote on Tuesday, we can certainly discuss it. Paige? >> >> Ellis: I'm on board with where this conversation is heading and happy to talk about it more on Tuesday. My biggest thing is that we do need more direct assistance than definitely rent, whether it's from the rent fund or the rise fund, [4:31:29 PM] I think whichever is more flexible would be helpful because there are also people who need to pay for prescriptions because our uninsurance rate is high. People have lost their jobs and health insurance goes with that. So I want to make sure that the strains on family budgets can be alleviated in the most flexible way, but definitely agree that we need to see more money allotted to rent assistance. And whether it goes to the landlord, to the individuals, I don't know that I -- I'm strongly opposed to one way or the other. I do like the the flexibility of something that could be ready used of other parts of family budgets that are being strained right now. So if that's the most appropriate way to get that done, I would support that type of direction. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember pool. >> Pool: Thanks, I don't think we can vote today anyway because we were only posted for discussion. I'll just reiterate I like the work that staff has laid out to us today. I've heard the various commentary from all of you [4:32:30 PM] all and we'll think about it some more. I believe that if we give relief when we hand it out, if it helps the landlords that it helps the tenants if that's the case. And if direct money is going to families, then if there's more ability for them to spread it around to their needs, then we don't know what those needs are. I almost hate to ask if we actually know how many people -- what the dollar big is for the need in the community with regard to rental assistance. I don't know if anybody has put any pencil to paper on that. And maybe that number is something that would so blow our minds that it would just -- [indiscernible]. So just rhetorically if anyone has given any thought to that, I think it would help us know what it is -- I think in Jimmy's words what are we solving for? Alison also says what are we [4:33:31 PM] solving for? So what's the -- and it could be that it's indefinite and we can't -- and incal cue label. But for the effort to the extent the iterative process to where we've gotten to today, I think staff has really done an extremely good job, very admirable work. I appreciate the work. I would be happy to move forward with this document as it is today, knowing that we can always make additional changes and adjustments as time goes by, which may be the best course of action at this point anyway because we do not know three months from now what we'll be faced with. >> Mayor Adler: Greg. >> Casar: Given that we've narrowed down the question, I don't know that we can't just post it to make a decision on Thursday. I'm concerned -- I'm fine with passing it with an as [4:34:31 PM] sixth street that we can come back and change things when funds aren't expended, but what I don't want to do is delay the -- have the staff stutter step about whether they should start processing applications, start getting certain programs moving. We hear everyday from people that need some of this help. I'm having trouble understanding what the reluctance would be to just post -- just voting on the framework and voting on an amendment or two to land the question that councilmember Flannigan has put before us, which is yeah, the answer is we're never going to have exactly the right number, but we should just do our best and pick the recalibration and take a vote. Because if we start talking about it on Tuesday and we realize we need to vote, then we can't post for Thursday. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: I'm fine with voting on Thursday. [4:35:34 PM] Voting on the spending framework and then if there's an adjustment that needs to be made if people want to bring that forward, I'm fine with doing that. I think that the -- I think it's really important that we -- that we give whatever direction we're going to do to staff so they're not wondering whether they should be proceeding with the program. So I share the sentiment that councilmember Casar just raised. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: So as you rephrased it, the question is direct assistance. But I -- are we really talking about -- there are various forms of direct assistance about this spending framework. There's rental assistance, there's food assistance. There are other kinds of direct assistance. Is the question that's before us really about increasing those existing pools of rental assistance [4:36:35 PM] and other categories or are we really talking about more cash assistance? I just think we need to be very clear about articulating what exactly is the question. Because there are again -- I think we really need to communicate clearly to the public there are multiple forms of direct assistance that has been a primary priority for all of us for several months now. If we're talking about a general -- including a category of general direct assistance that is not specific or that is cash assistance that could be used for those other things, then let's name it what it is. Is that the question that we're -- that poked are wanting -- that folks are wanting to vote on next week? Or should we be thinking about how much for rental assistance and those other additional categories. [4:37:37 PM] >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem? >> Garza: I was thinking more along rise -- I think rise has now been split up into all these different buckets. I would say rise itself is not -- obviously would love more rental assistance, but if we're trying to -- there's already a whole other -- I know you hate bucket, but there's a whole other rental bucket. So it would be, yes, the debit cards that we were giving people for, as councilmember Ellis pointed out, prescriptions or now they've lost their insurance because their co-pay went from ten dollars a month to $400 a month. Like there's all these -- so if that's what in my thought what individual assistance was. And then if I could just quickly speak to the-- I hate this -- that we have to pick one and not the other, but not purely understanding. I guess rental assistance for businesses, I agree that [4:38:38 PM] to some effect -- to some respect it allows them to stay in business, which then allows them to stay at jobs. But capacity, for instance, if I'm a restaurant and I'm going to get rental assistance as the business, I get my rent covered, right? But I'm still not clear -- maybe this is true. You're required to as a part of that, you're still required to employ the same 20 servers you had before. My assumption is I don't think you are. And then I think we also need to consider when I used to wait tables and I don't think it's changed, you only got $2.13 an hour. So if you're working in a restaurant, sure, you're still getting your 2.13, but you're not getting anywhere near the tips you were getting because of the capacity limits on that establishment. So even though the business might be okay now because we've covered the rent and technically they're still providing the job at 2.13 or [4:39:40 PM] whatever that person is not being able to bring the same amount home and cover the same needs that they had. So I just wanted to make that point. >> Mayor Adler: I could be wrong, councilmember tovo, but that's what I had heard from hearing people talk that it was a direct payment to the people that they would have the discretion to decide about it went, but I could be wrong. That's what I gathered from people were saying. >> I think that's a pretty quick conversation and my guess is there will be a lot of support for creating a category like that. I would ask too that we -- I think one of the things I'll need to do between now and then is really understand the different pools of rental assistance that are within this and to whom they're applicable because that's certainly that we've got demonstrable need of [4:40:40 PM] just from the rent program. So getting a handle on that is important, I think, because that may be another area if we are going to take votes about specific assistance and where it is. That seems to me another category that needs additional funding. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember Casar. >> Casar: And councilmember tovo, I think even the mayor pro tem said the same thing and I'm at the same place I think, adding more direct financial assistance is priority one, but if it were enough that some more also went to rental assistance, I -- for me it's a general tent dent -- tendency towards those. So I would be good with one getting some growth without moving around our public health priorities. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Alison. >> Alter: So is it my understanding that within the proposal for some of the [4:41:45 PM] small business that they're landlords, I think there's the rental assistance that was grants to landlords, but some of those landlords are businesses. And I'm just wondering if there was a creative way to really be supportive of the small landlord and more rental assistance and be able to get it out into the community. And I'm not sure that I have that information today to think about it. But I think we've done some of our best work when we are -- there's someone behind me waving. So some of our best work when we've hit multiple goals. So the work that councilmember tovo did with respect to the ISD food and [4:42:46 PM] meeting the needs of the businesses. And I'm just wondering if for some of that there's a solution here with a little more thought. And I believe Ms. Truelove said she was meeting with some of the landlord representatives tomorrow, but maybe there's a way to do both things with the same money living more creatively than we have because I think that that might be a way to get more of the rental assistance in there and address some of the business needs at the same time. >> Mayor Adler: Part of the conversation that was ongoing with the apartment association and with Amor with respect to landlords was trying to figure out applying the same test that we had given to people, who are the people that were most hurt by this and least able to sustain that injury, to think about landlords the [4:43:47 PM] same way. Who are the landlords that are most hurt and least able to sustain the injury. People that are now hurting and a retired person with two rent homes and now they're not getting any income and the like. And the question we asked was is there a way maybe for that landlord who might have a tenant who otherwise qualifies, but is not applying for from the landlord to be able to apply on behalf of the tenant and that kind of thing. And we had suggested to both the landlord groups that they think about how you could create that filter to make sure that we're helping the people again most hurting, most unable to sustain the injury. I agree with you. I would love to see where those intersections are and where that help could -- there's rental assistance, [4:44:47 PM] but it's also helping people that may not be covered by what it is we're doing. >> I do think that it's helpful to understand the order of magnitude that we're talking about given authority in the framework. They're seeming like there are few of these category buckets where we could take the funding from. It looks like we could take it from the small business assistance. You could take it from the creative sector assistance and otherwise it doesn't seem all that flexible and those buckets are only so big. And otherwise they're the base of things that we already passed as council. So are we talking on -- in the order of magnitude of five million. Are we talking 20 million. What are we trying to address? Because I think we would all like to give more direct financial assisnce, but there are trade-offs from where that comes that we [4:45:53 PM] have to account for the direct trajectory of depending on where the funding was coming from. >> Mayor Adler: I think those are the questions. Councilmember kitchen. You're muted. That's okay. You can't unmute? >> Kitchen: There we go. Okay. I just wanted to say that, yeah, I think that's a fundamental question is how much are we thinking of and where can we take it from? I can see some coming from the creative bucket. That's hard for me to say because I've been a champion for creatives for a long time and they're under funded. But I'm happy to look at that as one place. I certainly wouldn't want to [4:46:53 PM] wipe it out, but perhaps that would be one place. The small businesses might be one place. There might be other places too. I agree with councilmember tovo that the technical assistance is something from my perspective, that is a good thing to have, but it doesn't -- it's not an immediate need so that would be another place that would work for me. But these are all order of magnitude things. There's not a huge amount of dollars that can be taken from any of those buckets. I would ask the city manager to -- I know you've probably already done this, but we had a discussion earlier about the extent to which there was some local -- some existing budget dollars that were repurpose so I'm sure you guys have already scrubbed for that. But if there were any, that would be something to ask. >> Mayor Adler: Was there an issue with respect to use of the cares funding for [4:47:54 PM] direct assistance payments? Is that allowed? >> I think bree was closest to that. >> If it's covid related. >> You're muted if you are. >> I'm sorry, was there a question for me? >> Mayor Adler: Yeah. I was wondering is there any issue with respect to using cares funding for direct payment to people who are hurt by covid? >> The direct payment has to, as we've said again and again, be related to covid. So we need them to show and demonstrate that they lost their job, they can't go to their job, they have -- they have to stay home. So we all know that, right? [4:48:57 PM] But also we don't believe that we can just give out cash without tying it to what that aid is S. So yes, we can provide aid for rent rental assistance, food, medicines, but we need to have the reason associated with it, not just here is $250 for everybody. >> I will also clarify that we're waiting off the guidance we have. >> Garza: I guess I have a question about that, mayor. Can I? >> Mayor Adler: Yes, go ahead. >> Garza: Not to say you're wrong, but just to be clear, so it was okay for the federal government. And this is more their hypocrisy than anything you've said. They can send 1,200-dollar [4:49:59 PM] checks for whatever they needed, even if people who didn't need it, not having to prove whether they needed it or not, but we can't use cares funding to do that exact same thing? That's what you believe the interpretation is? >> I believe that's how they will hold it against us, yes. >> Garza: So the 1200 covered the anything need? >> Well, the 1200 was seen as a tax rebate. So let me start there. They're going to say that was giving back money you already put in. That was giving back a tax rebate. We can't vote for a tax rebate. We don't have that ability. So they're going to argue with the philosophical similarity, but I understand the point you're making, absolutely. And we're working with guidance which means that the treasury department has an unlimited amount of wiggle room, I should say. There's a better term. [4:51:00 PM] Of ability of what they decide guidance means at the end of the day. >> And I think our public health was able to provide -- like to give direction to its providers. Something along the lines of people were asked is this because of covid and is this for rental, food, diapers, utility. And if the answer to that is yes, then it's allowed, is that right? >> I think the guidance I've seen in health providers is -- remember, treasury is going to say that [indiscernible] For the non-profits that we ask to administer these funds. What the I saw that with [indiscernible] As the guidelines about that, that does provide the nexus and that relation to what the need is. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So it's just before 5:00. [4:52:01 PM] I think it probably makes sense to have a resolution that would tee this up so that we could take a vote on Thursday and give the direction. We can certainly talk about it on Tuesday. And about whether to what extent we want to get into the document. At least that would maintain that available to us on Thursday. It's also a relatively short agenda so far. I don't know what else, we'll see here tomorrow. But it might be a good agenda to do that on. >> Flannigan: Mayor, for clarification, that would include the level of detail that you see in the spreadsheet, not just the big bucket tag, is that correct? >> Mayor Adler: I think we wouldn't be deciding that question now. It sounds as if most people are kind of okay with the big buckets and the like. It could be that the only change would be one or two lines relative to the conversation we're having. But it gives people the [4:53:01 PM] ability to take another look at those lines, as councilmember tovo was -- as Kathie was asking for, to really understand those elements. So it's more just preserving the opportunity. My sense is that the will of the council is not going to be to do a wholesale rewriting of this. I think people are generally pleased with it. And I think the question really centers around is there a tweak to be made with respect to direct cash payments with whatever limitations are required by law to be able to use funding. And is there more rental assistance. And if so how much and from where? I think really those are the questions being Teed up. But I don't know how you tee that up without letting the whole thing be in front of the council so that they have the ability to be able to act on it. But I think that's the nature of the conversation that I'm hearing. Councilmember alter. [4:54:04 PM] >> Alter: That would really just be putting the framework on there for us to vote on it. This would not be a resolution from councilmembers. This would be the city manager placing the spending framework on there for us to take a vote and make amendments to that framework, which seems like we've landed on making those changes just to the economic support section. >> Mayor Adler: I think so. Manager, if you could post that as an item from you as opposed to coming from council. Then it would just be to confirm that, recognizing that two weeks later we could change it if suddenly there's something else that happens. But it's a framework for everybody to be working off. >> Flannigan: So we may need to find language that would work for that. These are estimates that would be within this general spending framework and that's what we're calling this a framework, but this is a direction that council is really authorizing the city manager to use these funds for. >> Mayor Adler: I think so. If you make that part of the agenda posting tomorrow. Councilmember Renteria. [4:55:07 PM] >> Renteria: Yeah, mayor. I agree with you. I think we should be flexible. As long as we have the ability to come back, you know, and have the flexibility, seeing if there's something in one area that's really affected and really need attention that we could allocate some resources to that area. Because we don't know exactly what's going to happen in the future. So I really would appreciate it if we had the flexibility to be able to move money around in the future if there's a problem or there's something that, you know, a big cluster somewhere so we can address those kind of issues. >> Mayor Adler: Manager, if you would pull this -- put it on the agenda and also pull it for Tuesday's conversation at the work session if the clerk could do that as well. Councilmember alter. Alison. >> Alter: I wanted to ask if we could get some additional information on the financial and other direct support bucket, the 15.5. [4:56:08 PM] So 7.6 million from rise, but that balance -- can we understand -- I know there was a prior version of public health oriented one, but I don't know where that number came from and what that allowed us to do or if that's still what we're anticipating that would be used for. So is it possible that -- I'd like to know more about what that amount was thought for, where that came from because it seems relatively high relative to other assistance that we provided individuals. So I would just like a little bit more on how many people and what we're anticipating with that. Thank you. >> Is Stephanie still on the line? If she is I would let her speak to this, otherwise I can speak more generally to it. [4:57:09 PM] >> Garza: Are you talking about was the question of why 7.6 was allocated? >> Alter: The bucket has a balance -- the bucket has a balance above and beyond the 7.6 million that was already in rise. And the previous iteration that was going to help people who tested positive in quarantine and it kind of says that, the bucket really says vulnerable populations too. So I wanted to understand more about what they thought the need was for the particular public health focus element and how many people that was anticipated. Because there may already be some money in that bucket and they wanted to understand that. >> Okay. >> We can provide the more detailed question in writing about how many people it would serve, but there was an additional $7.9 million within the previous iteration was referred to as the public health fund and the idea for that fund was to provide assistance to individuals who perhaps [4:58:12 PM] had -- showing symptoms and tested for the disease and had to choose between going into work to earn their income or being able to stay at home. So the public health fund would be targeted more at providing assistance to people to stay home when that was the right thing to do and not have to make that choice between having an income or having to go to work while you're awaiting your test results and perhaps infecting other people. So it was assistance to individuals, but just target understand a different way. >> Alter: Thank you. And I appreciate that that's a need. In this iteration it doesn't say that that's all programmed or not. So I was trying to understand that piece and some of what we're talking about. Thank you for the clarity. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else before we stop for the evening? All righty then. Everybody safe. It is 4:58 and this work [4:59:13 PM] session is adjourned. Be safe.