Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Health and Human Services Committee, Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Date: Tuesday, October 7, 2025
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 22m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/3920
Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-29. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:05] All right, good morning, and welcome to the October 7th meeting of the Health and Human Services Committee meeting. We do have a shorter meeting today because we thought legislative might go over, but our new chairman and staff did an excellent job, but we do have two pretty robust agenda items for conversation today, and our next meeting will not be until January, so quite a bit to discuss, but before that, and especially because our second item is on the Employees' Early Child Learning Center, I wanted to bring to your attention, staff have put on your

[00:00:43] desk the brand new, hot off the presses, and I'm still going through it bit by bit. There's quite a bit of information in here. It is the new strategic plan for early childhood in Fairfax County, which included many, many stakeholders, Keisha, Dotson, and Flo are both here, and I just want to thank and congratulate their team on bringing together, I think, more voices than we've ever had in the planning. You will see a lot of data, stories. They did surveying as well as qualitative discussion groups and I

[00:01:19] think a really, really robust strategic plan for the future of early childhood. And I know many of us, if not all of us on this board, are very focused and committed to helping improve the future of our children, especially our young ones, before they get to our public schools.

[00:01:36] And so there's a lot in here, and hopefully we can find some time to continue this conversation in the near future. To that, before we turn to our first item, which will be on the middle school after school, budget guidance, followed by the Employees Child Care Center, ACCC family engagement updates. I appreciate many of those members here in the audience. I will turn it over to Deputy County Executive Chris Leonard for any opening thoughts or comments. Thank you, Supervisor Palachuk. And before we pivot away from the strategic plan, I just wanted to highlight

[00:02:11] the work that Skip did, our successful children and youth policy team that has both school board representation and Board of Supervisors, Supervisor Lusk and Supervisor Palachuk, really worked hard throughout last year to help put this together in a very collaborative way. So I just wanted to highlight that.

[00:02:28] Also, I wanted to take time. I know that this was brought up at our Budget Committee meeting, the Beyond the Bell program. We gave you a nip on that in August. We resent that in September. Make sure you saw that. We continue to work with our school partners on implementing that.

[00:02:45] As all of you know, the county has long had substantial wait lists for the SAC program. So the Beyond the Bell program is an attempt to really target that wait list and increase access for more families across the county.

[00:03:01] We have 20 pilot schools. So we're still on track to be able to get that implemented this fall. So just wanted to, I don't know if you had any questions before we get started in the two agenda items. We've got folks here that can answer whatever questions, but we are on track with our school partners to get that implemented this fall.

[00:03:19] Thank you very much. And before we turn to the presentations, you should all have the June 3rd meeting summary and just want to make sure that there were no comments or questions before we move on to today's committee meetings.

[00:03:37] All right. Well, seeing none, a quick reminder, I know these are two very critical topics. county's kids and making sure that they are well served and prepared for the future and I also want to remind us that this is a committee meeting so we will not be making any decisions we will not be making any votes but I think this is a really good opportunity for you all to ask questions and to engage in this conversation as we move through this next budget cycle. So to that we do have with us today Lloyd Tucker, Director of Neighborhood Community Services, joined by Chad Pressey, the Deputy Director of Neighborhood and Community Services, and from FCPS, Dr. Mark

[00:04:16] Emery, the Program Administrator for the Middle School Afterschool Program. We're delighted to have you. Yes, Chris. Yeah, just one other thing. He wouldn't sit at the table, but the Executive Director for Student Activities, Tom Horn, is here as well in the audience. I just wanted to highlight he's here as well. Welcome. Happy to have you here. All right. Mr. Tucker. Thank you, and good morning. My name is Lloyd Tucker. I'm the Director of the Department of Neighborhood

[00:04:44] and Community Services. In June, the Board of Supervisors directed staff from NCS to work with the Fairfax County Public Schools to determine options for reducing the cost of the middle school after-school program, including options for a fee structure. The NCS and county portion of the funding that supports the middle school after-school program was included as a potential

[00:05:18] budget reduction in the fiscal year 2026 advertised budget plan. And as part of the fiscal year 2026 adopted budget, the Board of Supervisors restored the reduction for one year pending future recommendations about reducing the net cost of the program. On our current slide, it outlines an overview of the program. The middle school after school program staffing

[00:05:52] model supports all of after-school activities. It is operated by 26 full-time staff after-school specialists, as well as program administrators. Our NCS agency participates in planning meetings and the hiring of the after-school specialists in partnership with FCPS and partners in developing the programs. Neighborhood and community services contribution primarily covers the salaries and benefits for the after-school specialist positions, and some operational costs. Fairfax County Public

[00:06:28] Schools costs primarily include a business specialist, hourly staff, snacks, equipment, vendor programming costs, and late bus transportation. I'll now hand it over to our Deputy Director, Chad Pressy. Good morning. So what you'll see on the next slide provides some context for the analysis that we went through when looking at the recommendations that we'll get to ultimately at the end of the presentation and provides a snapshot of um what attendance looked like in the in the previous school year so what we're looking at here on the chart is those who attended the

[00:07:06] middle school after school program during school year 2024 2025 and it's broken out into ranges of attendance number based on the number of days that individual students attended during the school year so just for reference the top row one to nine that's students in that row attended during the year one to nine days total during the year and at the bottom the 90 plus days those are the students that attended 90 or more days during the school year so when looking at the top two rows in particular you can see that there's a large percentage of students that attend you know less frequently during the school year those two rows are about 69 percent of the

[00:07:42] total attendees we're attending less than you know 19 days or less during the year. If you include the third row, the 20 to 29 days, it brings us up to about 81 percent of the attendees attended less than 30 days during the school year. So for context, if you're thinking about 180 instructional days, about 36 weeks during the year, about 81 percent were attending less than one day consistently. And by the time you get up to the 90 days, those are the folks that are attending a little bit more frequently, about two or more days consistently during the year with the lowest percentage of attendance um what we did find we looked also you know compared

[00:08:18] it to the school year 2023 and 2024 data and while attendance in the previous school year was up a little bit just due to enrollment increases the percentages in the different days of attendance were pretty consistent so we didn't see we you know this is a pretty accurate representation of historical attendance it appears for the program overall so just wanted to kind of highlight this as we kind of go into some of the next points to kind of keep some of this information in the back your mind as we as we look at assumptions and some of the considerations all right so then the fee model option slide that we're seeing now um one of the things we needed to think through was what would be the most appropriate model to use to assess a fee for this type of a program you know

[00:08:56] the county offers many attendance based programs across different departments and excuse me and every department has um you know their own fee schedule their own you know their specific fees to their program but what it when it comes down to it they kind of fall into two main scenarios either a sliding fee scale based on income typically where you'll see multiple fee income brackets that then result in different fees based on family's income or a one-time annual fee that's paid once a year by participants and when looking at the sliding fee option some of the things that we were as in our research and considerations were that this kind of more of a robust complex

[00:09:35] fee assessment process could potentially require additional resources in order to support the the infrastructure to do that type of income determination, do the enrollment management and such. Additionally, it could potentially, from the fee assessment process, require fees to be more structured, potentially needing options for families to choose based on scheduled attendance, which is a little bit in contrast from what we see how families use the program currently, which is more of a drop-in basis.

[00:10:05] With the one-time annual fee, this is very similar, just for reference to the way the the NCS administers the Senior Center annual membership fee it's one-time fee at the beginning of the of the year and it's just that one payment for the year this would help potentially maintain some of the flexibility that families have in choosing the just the programs that they want their students to attend during the year the things that interest their students as the fees not tied to specific programming or to specific days of attendance during the week additionally there were some other consideration items that we needed to talk through one of them being the actual system that we could use to

[00:10:44] administer a fee so in conversations with our partners at the schools they were able to do some research with their information technology team and found that the existing my school book system could be used as a venue or an avenue to charge a fee potentially currently that system is used for school lunch funding as well as other fees activity fees supply fees and such throughout the year so this could be a viable solution for charging a fee there are additionally some assumptions we had to make when it came to revenue projections and who we thought might attend. One of the assumptions we made is that those with lower days of attendance may not

[00:11:21] choose a fee or may not choose to attend if there was a fee implemented because as we saw there was a large percentage of students and families that didn't utilize the program on a consistent basis so a fee may discourage them or they may choose alternative options potentially. Another assumption that we were making in this analysis is that those qualifying for free and reduced lunch would not be charged the fee so that we would keep access as open as possible for folks at various income levels. Additionally, one of the considerations that we talked a lot about was not wanting to make the fee a barrier for students that just wanted to or needed to attend for academic assistance. So there are students that may only need to stay after to retake a test, get some tutoring from their teacher. We wanted to make sure that that was

[00:12:00] still available. So those types of scenarios, students would not be turned away from those opportunities if a fee structure was implemented. So ultimately, that brings us to our recommendations. As we had mentioned, of the two options, what we're recommending here in terms of a model would be the one-time annual fee charged to families for participation in the after-school program. We did find that with the My School Books system, it could support potentially a multi-tiered charge where they could be charged half in one semester, half in the second,

[00:12:37] potentially to make it more affordable for families who may find that $300 that we're recommending to be a little bit high. Again, those eligible for free and reduced lunch would not be charged the fee. And based on these assumptions, we're estimating that about $1.1 million annually could be brought in with a $300 fee. Based on the kind of the information that was shared, FCPS would need to administer, again, using the MySchoolBug system to help charge and collect that fee. From a budgetary standpoint, some of the recommendations, we have a couple of recommendations.

[00:13:13] One is that we reduce the county's general fund transfer by the estimated revenue amount. So just as a reminder, the NCS general fund expenditure is about $3.9 million annually from the NCS general fund. So this would be offset by the estimated $1.1 million in revenue, leaving a net cost of about $2.8 million. Additionally, we would recommend that beginning in FY 2027, the $2.8 million be included in the annual transfer to FCPS rather than it sitting in the NCS budget.

[00:13:43] As Lloyd mentioned in the beginning of the presentation, NCS's role is not to operate the program. We participate. We definitely partner in a lot of aspects of the program. But FCPS is ultimately operating it. And the positions are also FCPS positions.

[00:13:59] So we thought it would be more efficient to have the funding just be part of the transfer going forward as well. And that is it. Open to any questions. Well, thank you both so much. Before I open it to the chairman and my colleagues, I do want to recognize that we also have Dr.

[00:14:18] Emery here from FCPS and wanted to see if you had anything to add before we open up the conversation. And your mic, you just have to. Thank you. Pleasure to be here. No, nothing really to add. I think we had a good discussion with county staff and school staff to work through this issue and how we wanted to proceed and came up with an equitable plan.

[00:14:41] I think that is doable, recognizing that the school system is really opposed to charging fees for a public school program. So that remains on the table, but that's not my decision.

[00:15:02] Okay. I appreciate that. And I think my, and I appreciate that there was a lot of conversation. I know it has been many years now that this program has been functioning. I believe Chairman Connolly first created this program, but the goal really was to have more collaboration, coordination, and I think that's the number one thing that I'm most disappointed and maybe just sad about not seeing in this proposal is that we weren't able to get to that point.

[00:15:31] My understanding is NCS has some programs at community centers and beyond parks and probably other county agencies do as well. And I think my sort of broader question, maybe not so much a budget-specific question, is were some of those areas for connection and better collaboration looked at?

[00:15:53] Are there any avenues that we can continue to consider for better coordination between the schools and the county? middle school population thank you for your question Lloyd Tucker director of neighborhood and community services I think that our partnership and collaboration will continue we continue to partner on engaging our teens for our teen centers and drop-ins throughout the county as well we won't stop supporting you know recruiting and getting kids to go to the to the middle school after

[00:16:30] school program, encouraging them when they come to the teen centers as well. The schools and NCS do a great job, I think, together of making our families and youth aware of what other resources exist in the county. They might not necessarily be operated if our options aren't the best fit for their family needs. But we will continue to work together and continue to leverage each other as partners to ensure that the gaps that our teens have in their community and their families are met.

[00:17:04] I appreciate that. And if I understand correctly, and I'll turn to the chairman, following up on Dr. Emery's comment, so right now this is the proposal from staff of moving forward that was agreed to that we would support with the fee model.

[00:17:20] But if the schools choose not to, it is now the program is fully under the schools and has essentially been operated by the schools to this point, funded sort of NCS as a through body for funding. Correct.

[00:17:37] Okay, thank you. I will turn it over to the chairman and then any others who have questions. Yeah, thank you. First, a technical question on page four. And I'll preface this by saying I, just to be candid with you, I've been really disappointed in how long it took us to get the substantive data that we asked for here, and I'm troubled by that.

[00:18:00] But when I look at table number four, this table would lead someone to believe that 100% of our middle school students participate in a middle school after-school program, which is incorrect. So how many middle school students do we have in FCPS? Excuse me.

[00:18:19] It's about 27,000, 28,000. So it's about 70% to 80% of the middle school students participate in the after-school program. So there are several thousand that don't participate at all? Yes. and that should be on here if we're going to be clear with people and we're looking at participation levels because there is a number between below 1 to 9, and that's a substantial number, and I'm not making a judgment on, you know, why that is the case.

[00:18:45] But I am concerned about the significant drop in students, and so to me, I look at this as a multiple-tier opportunity. One is to right-size the amount of revenue that we have to put into this program during very troubled times, which this is one recommendation, a way to alleviate that.

[00:19:04] The other is to make sure the program is actually doing what we intended, the original people intended for it to do when it was first stood up. And I don't get a feeling that when I look at the various schools, the other chart we don't have here is the by-school trends, that all schools here are implementing this program in a completely fair, equitable way that would generate more student attendance in this.

[00:19:29] And so when we make an investment in a program, We want to make sure the intended recipients are receiving the program benefits, and I don't get a sense at all in this presentation that we feel that's what's happening, and maybe it is, but I don't see any data or anything that support that.

[00:19:46] But the last, you know, question that I would have is that, you know, in the last budget, the county executive suggested not funding the county portion of this, which is $3.9 million, but there's $6.3 million that FCPS has accounted for that they are investing in the program.

[00:20:05] But suddenly, without the county's investment, the program is gone. And so that's troubling to me. I mean, this is $6.3 million that FCPS was already investing in. So I guess to Supervisor Palchuk's question, what I would really love to see is are there any other ways to be more efficient, to reduce the cost?

[00:20:25] I don't see anything in here about is there a better way to look at the $6.3 million and be more efficient? Is there a better way to make sure we're not duplicating any efforts here? I hear that there's staff on the FCPS ledger and there's staff on the NCS ledger, at least the revenue to support those staff people.

[00:20:44] And so is there not any other savings in this program besides just the sliding fee scale that could be implemented that make this more sustainable? Let me address a couple of things with respect to the 6.3. $4.8 million of that is late buses.

[00:21:00] That's a fixed fee, so that's essentially a fixed cost. So we have FCPS is essentially putting in about whatever the difference that is, $1.5 million. That's for hourly staff supplies and equipment and so on for the program which is roughly equivalent to what the What you are participant you are submitting for you are contributing to the functional up for the operational cost of the program Eliminating the after-school specialist. So that's roughly equivalent we do

[00:21:36] We're working on it on a really really tight budget With respect to the opportunities that we're trying to offer and we offer a broad spectrum of opportunities across in all the middle schools. I have provided the outcomes of this program before, and I'd be glad to have provided again with respect to the benefits on academic success of students, behavioral issues, substance abuse within the schools. That all drops like a rock for kids who attend 30 or more days of after

[00:22:08] school, and we have that data. We have the grades behavior. Daytime attendance improves. There are simply zero students who are chronically absent if they're attending after-school programs on a regular basis. Zero behavior referrals for students who are attending 30 or more days in after-school across for the entire year. So we can send that information to you. So the program is a success. It is meeting the original goals of the program, which was to provide opportunities for children to participate in engaging academically rich activities in an

[00:22:47] educational environment after school for kids and keep them off the street. So, Dr. Emery, you're answering a different question than the one I'm asking. I have no doubt about that. My question is there's great variances at the individual schools at the number of kids that are participating.

[00:23:02] There's no doubt that the kids who participate are better, well-rounded, more academically supported, better students. My question is why are some schools struggling to get regular attendance and people at a different rate than other schools? And that's really what my question is, the equity question in terms of what's happening in the individual schools, not judging, because I think you're 100% right, the outcome is way better when we can get the kids to participate.

[00:23:28] But why aren't we being able to get them to participate in an equitable way across the county? That's a very good question, and it's a huge challenge, and it's something that we have been trying to address for a period of time. It's a combination of getting the students engaged, getting the family, and you can actually do that scale across the economic variability across the county with respect to income.

[00:23:58] A lot of students have duties at home. They're working for their family or taking care of their younger sibling during after school, and they can't come by the students completing their surveys. Those are high marks, the reason they do not come more often.

[00:24:18] But you're right, we need to drill down on that. We need to put in activities that would draw those students and get those parents recognizing that this is important. And that, I think, is the real piece that we're missing, is convincing parents that it's important for their child to participate in this for multiple reasons.

[00:24:38] Okay, thank you. Thank you. If I may just add to that, I don't want to throw a wrench in our youth survey, but we have great tools to try to help you get more data on why students are not participating, the benefits they're seeing from it.

[00:24:55] So to me that seems, whether through that or a different NCS initiative, but I think that's an area where I hope you're open with collaboration and assistance from county agencies who are focused on that. So that's something I would want us to consider. I think we all agree on the equity. You know, you say 30 days or more, that's 19% of this population.

[00:25:14] So I think that's what gives us pause is we care about this program and we want to fund it. We want to make sure that it continues to evolve and be more targeted, more equitable, and have, you know, the equity of implementation and that it's not principal or program specific.

[00:25:32] So to that, I will turn it to Kathy, and I think we have quite a few down the line. So you'll be next on the next round, Jimmy. I really appreciate the chairman's questions because I feel like there's a lot of information we don't have here. And I do think it's important to understand how this works at different schools.

[00:25:51] And, you know, I was on the school board when all this started, and I remember Stone Middle School. They got a great after-school specialist and working through that program and doing it. And so now I'm very far removed from what's happening on the ground. So I think it would be helpful for us to know how the attendance is in different middle schools.

[00:26:13] The other part that I truly don't understand in this program and what's considered middle school after school, I would always be under the impression that if a student needed academic help, they would go to their teacher. And that was just part of their school day.

[00:26:29] So it's unclear to me how that need, if they're taking a test, they're getting extra tutoring, how that works. and who gets paid to do the program after school. So you have the middle school after school specialist that gets paid. Mark talked about hourly staff.

[00:26:48] And so I don't have clarity about how those different pieces work. And then I don't have clarity about how any of this fits in with the athletics that are happening for kids after school. And so I'm not clear at what this money is really going to pay for and what it's doing.

[00:27:04] And, you know, I come back to what the chairman said. Of course, kids that take advantage and go, we know they're going to get great outcomes, but we are at a time in our budgeting that we have to look critically at everything we do to ensure that we are getting the effect we need at that level for the money.

[00:27:21] So I kind of need more information, and I do appreciate staff talking about how to do the fee. We don't want to create more systems that cost more to do a fee. So I appreciate this information, but I do need more. Thank you. And then Walter yeah, I'm just gonna you said buses are a fixed cost so late buses run whether there's an after-school program or not No, these are late buses for the after-school program only okay, that's what I thought so but but they also serve the Athletic programs that are after or do they not know that's a separate funding stream and there are there

[00:28:00] These are middle school only so there are no Competitive sports in the sense that there are league sports like a high school level at the middle school level So there are no buses for that except for We are doing middle school after I mean middle school there are there are buses for that for the competitions on the weekend Yes, but that's not part of the after school that's on the weekend not after school So they don't stay after in practice like they do in high school Well, they do have practice in after school. Yes, they have an hour and they would take these buses home No, they would they the late buses are provided for the after-school program

[00:28:37] So if a student attends an hour of practice say track and field Okay, I think we want to get clarification on whether the buses are serving both or not I mean I to me I would I would hope they are serving both but that would be good They're serving both in the excuse me didn't mean to run up They're serving both in the sense that the student participating in track and field and cross-country or intramural sports in The after-school program is considered part of that after-school program and those late buses are there two hours later to take them home

[00:29:12] So the sports are considered part of the after school. Okay. All right. Got got got gotcha. All right I would love to see the outcomes you talked about because I don't think we've seen them If we did I'd miss it. I would agree with Supervisor Smith I would love to see participation by school, and I'm afraid that's like most things.

[00:29:36] It depends on how good a principal and how good of an after-school specialist that you have. In some percentage numbers, some relation to total students would be helpful on that rather than just the numbers? We have that. That would be very, very helpful.

[00:29:54] Are there capacity issues? Just if you were to get all 24,000 of these students to go all the time, could you actually handle that? Well, they're now handling anywhere between 150 to 400 kids in an afternoon.

[00:30:11] So if we had all the kids, if we doubled that, it would require more staff, obviously, to be able to handle that capacity. But yes. So more people would mean higher costs. Exactly. It typically happens. I was just curious.

[00:30:26] Right. Okay. I think that's it for me. Thank you. Thank you. Walter. Thank you, Madam Chair. And this all reminds me why I will never run for the school board like this, you know, never. But thank you all for being here. I do have a question on one of the assumptions in the slide, the program attendance.

[00:30:46] And you noted later that with a $300 per year fee model that you assume that basically there would not be participation by a lot of the kids that had lower attendance. I'm just curious if you could provide, if it's not easily available, what the assumptions are by tier.

[00:31:08] I don't know if you assume that, you know, like the 1 through 9, maybe you assume 10% would pay. Do you have that off the top of your head, or is that something you could provide? Sure. So, yeah, we assumed for the revenue assumptions that basically 19 days and less would not attend, and about 60% of the 20 through 29 would not attend as well.

[00:31:29] One thing to keep in mind, especially for the one to nine days, is about 40% of those are free and reduced lunch, so they wouldn't pay anyway, even if they attended. Okay. Okay. All right. That's helpful. There is, okay, thank you.

[00:31:47] There is actually, I don't know if it answers exactly what was being asked earlier about participation by school, but in response to Supervisor Smith's budget question from this past year, I believe it's 107 C107, there's a list by school that shows each program, which is amazing, actually detail, so anyway, I was just looking at that and Dr. Remy, I do have a question, because I noticed that, I mean, I looked right at Langston Hughes, because that's one of the

[00:32:22] schools in Hunter Mill. But I noticed that the vast majority of participation in this program, at least at Hughes, was on teacher support. And I noticed it's also, it's not just Hughes, but it's Key, Kilmer, Longfellow, several others as well. Can you tell us what that is? And would that continue, how would that work under a fee-based model? There are two kinds, it's a good question, two kinds of teacher support in which that teacher support that stems from a teacher providing academic help to his or her student in an after school after the school day has ended

[00:33:00] or to do a makeup test. That's part of up until collective bargaining was part of the contractual obligations. We do not pay for that for the teacher. The teacher who does a homework club where kids get together and work on homework issues get their homework done before going home and get academic help from a teacher, and it's more than just that teacher's students, we pay that teacher an hourly support to do that.

[00:33:26] Or if they're doing a tutoring in algebra, which has opened all algebra students, then we pay for that. But the one-on-one, the tutoring with a teacher and his or her students, and to make up tests, we do not pay for.

[00:33:43] And I guess my question is, would that continue, assuming at the same levels, if there were a fee-based program i would i would i would think so yes okay uh one of in addition to a lot of other reasons kids come one of the main reasons to come is to get their homework done yeah so they don't have to do it at home that i understand okay that that that definitely makes sense to me i i guess you know for i am kind of struggling with a little bit on the uh on the pricing just in terms of uh there's such a wide variety of programs and the attendance i mean the

[00:34:20] drop-in nature of it. I'm struggling a little bit about how parents would decide whether or not to pay the fee. And I guess, has there been any more thinking about how that could be advertised? You know, how parents could be told what the choice is? I mean, would there be a list by school of all the different programs that are expected? I mean, has there been any more thinking about that I don't know that this exercise is primarily what what is possible in terms of reasonable with the data that we

[00:34:57] have I think when you get into a fee-based program it'd be like a lot of our fee-based programs be it an NCS or the park authority there would be extensive dialogue with the participants and not only the current participants but the universe of participants should be looking at going into the elementary schools that are on their way into the middle school program to be able to gauge that as well.

[00:35:24] But that would have to be a full program and almost an awareness campaign, similar to how we do in other programs. But that would be working with the school system to be able to implement something like that. And one last question, if I could. So I guess the issue of particularly some of these, I would say, smaller after-school activities, is the assumption that some of these could be done differently or like through, I mean, does this all have to be, because I'm thinking of basically, we're talking 70% of the kids, we're assuming, basically

[00:36:04] would not participate in the formal program because of the $300 fee, or maybe it's less than that because of the sliding scale, but is the idea that some of the programs, because there are a lot of really interesting, you know, very specific programs. Is the assumption they would continue? And maybe I should ask Dr. Emory that. Let me jump in before Mark is the right person to answer the question. But I think you have to remember to keep it simple, what you're paying for are the coordinators at each school primarily, right? You're paying for them, their

[00:36:39] salaries, their benefits, etc. That's what you're paying for by transferring that money into the school system. And everything else really does become a school-based model with regards to what programs they have, et cetera. I empathize with Mark. We deal with the same thing with some of our program sites. Some things are less robust. A lot of times it's you got a really good coordinator at a school and they whip things up great and other schools maybe not. So there's just a wide variety of reasons why programming is more robust in one place than the other. But from our perspective we're paying for that coordinator and i think everybody understands that without that

[00:37:16] coordinator that the the programs wouldn't they wouldn't have any structure to be able to get any level of robustness so okay well thank you and if you could expand on that dr emery and also i'm i'm just i'm looking at hughes has latina stem but they only met 14 times uh i mean programs like that i mean would they continue that's that's a very good question i would think that it's going to take advertising and selling yeah saying that this is important to continue and uh and convincing the parents or if those if those students are in free and reduced price lunch

[00:37:53] that they come anyway don't worry about whether or not you can pay it uh come ahead and attend the program but that's that's a good question i think one one may find that those niche some of those niche programs may fall away because the students are not going to come um that's a very

[00:38:12] very good question. I don't know the answer to that. Thank you. I think we've got everybody. So let's try to keep them brief so we have time for the next one. But Dan, and I think everybody's had their hand. Thank you. And Mark, former school board member, you go way back with really all of these issues. And I know that I was on the school board when we established the middle school after school program. Huge supporters still a huge supporter. I think it's a critical part of what the schools need to be offering.

[00:38:47] i think it makes a difference for kids i think we all recognize that middle school kids make bad decisions if they don't have some supervision particularly when they go home to a house or a group of kids go home to a house and hang out etc so again very strong support of what you do and what we've done with this what i don't understand is i think this is a school program i think it doesn't require county support other than at the same level we support our schools in general. So I see this as a school program, and we've had a lot of conversations today about what about this program, what about that. I think those are great school board and

[00:39:26] great staff decisions that the schools should make, and I urge them to continue making those decisions and continue making a difference for our kids, because I don't really understand why we are slicing and dicing these costs up the way we are. Schools have offered, as far as I can recall, and definitely while I was on the school board, we offered late buses, period. Yes, they were two days a week or three days a week or whatever it might be, but late buses were always offered. And we absolutely should continue to do that because it's an important part of the academic support that we provide students. And so part of this conversation initially, I know with the

[00:40:04] middle school after school program was, do we do it every day of the week or certain days of the week? And those are all parts of the conversations about how do we protect kids better, particularly middle school kids better so i think those are all essential things that fcps must continue to do strongly support doing that but i don't understand now we have sports programs and obviously there's buses for those that are maybe they're being done on top of it but i i doubt it we have one late school one after school late school buses that typically run through and i don't see where 4.8 million dollars of the contribution that that fcps is making should be part of our calculation at

[00:40:42] It should be a calculation that FCPS makes hopefully finding more efficient and more appropriate ways to do that so all in but I don't see where this is something that FC The county should be doing other than making a part of our transfer and and looking for and hoping for and in my case Maybe expecting but in the end the school board will make their own decision about how best to spend those dollars Thank you. I don't know if you have any comment on that or or not. I I certainly know the direction you're coming from.

[00:41:13] I think that is an appropriate direction. Yes, I would agree. The program, as you know, and as Supervisor Smith knows when this program started, it started with $100,000.

[00:41:28] And it was late buses, actually, that started this program from the very beginning. The Board of Supervisors wanted to put late buses back, which the school board eliminated, and to do intramural sports and homework. And those were the two themes of which were the genesis of this program, and it grew out of that.

[00:41:47] And with the collaboration between the Board of Supervisors and the school board, and funding on both sides to put this program together, I would stack this program up against any after-school program in the country. There's no question about it.

[00:42:03] The leadership shown by both boards to do this and to fund it with local dollars and to make it work has been phenomenal, and you need to be congratulated for that support. Are there things that need to be improved?

[00:42:19] Yes. I agree with you. The attendance at schools is not, at some schools, is not where it should be, and we are trying to address that. But in the end, in all honesty, I don't care where the money comes from, okay, except that it's there and it keeps these kids engaged and occupied and growing academic socially and emotionally through these very trying times between elementary school and high school. You've basically operated this program from day one, I believe. Is that accurate? I think you're part of the study that actually... The study for the Fairfax County After School Network

[00:42:56] that started, yes. That was when the gang issue was really... I mean, the real issues for middle school kids, and I strongly support that. I just want the school board to run this because I think it's an important part of our program for middle school and keeping folks out of trouble.

[00:43:13] Thank you. I have Rodney, Andre, and Jimmy. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I'll go quickly. I've got a few questions. The first is I appreciate the comment from the chairman and others about understanding what schools are using it the most and what you're kind of using it the least and looking at the best practices.

[00:43:35] Obviously, the schools that have the higher participation rate, they're doing something that could be applied in maybe some of the other schools. So trying to understand and ferret through that would be really, really helpful. Second, I wanted to ask how – maybe I'll frame it this way first.

[00:43:54] So it's $1.1 million, $300 per household. That's like 3,500 participants, right? It's actually 3,666, which is right in the middle of the chart that was just up there.

[00:44:12] So I'm going to – they just – they didn't do their work, Rodney. I mean, look at this. 1.1 million, pull out a calculator, divide it by 300, and you get 3,666, which is right in the middle of that chart. Right.

[00:44:28] They didn't do their work. Guys, I can do back-of-the-envelope calculations. We can all do back-of-the-envelope calculations. I've got the same comments about the next presentation, but these presentations are – you guys aren't doing your work.

[00:44:43] Okay. Thank you, Jimmy. You've got to ask – I'm going to go back to Rodney. Jimmy, you're a little out of order. Rodney, do you want to – I am out of order, but they are – Good. I've been – okay, go ahead. I appreciate the correction of the math. I'll say – doing this in my head, but I guess the point I'm trying to make is we're roughly 3,600 participants paying the $300.

[00:45:04] And then thinking through the number of kids that are on free and reduced lunch, do we have to qualify them through the free and reduced lunch in order for them to receive the exemption or do they automatically get it if they qualify for free and reduced lunch?

[00:45:31] I'm quite sure what you're asking. Yes, they would have to qualify. So they have to apply for the free and reduced lunch program. That's a good question in the sense that they apply for free and reduced price meals, yes.

[00:45:49] Now, my school bucks does not work as we would like it to work in that it's the parents just sign on and apply. What happens now is that a parent lets us know that they're on free and reduced price lunch and we have to send them a special link to get reduced meals.

[00:46:09] That is disrespectful of the financial situation and that's what we're trying to prevent here. That's why MySchoolBucks needs some tweaking in its algorithm to allow us to do that. Parent signs in and indicates, provides their financial information the same way they do for the lunches.

[00:46:30] And that's automatically taken care of. I'm just going to look at the time. I think there are still some questions about the specifics and knowing that the larger discussion is whether this becomes something the school board fully takes over and then decides how to administer that.

[00:46:45] I think the reality is that there's been a lack of collaboration between the two parties. And so it's unfortunate this is where we are. But I think if there are additional specifics questions, if we could send them in, clearly it hasn't been 100 percent decided how this will be funded or done, especially if it's no longer under NCS.

[00:47:07] And I think those are some of the bigger conversations. So I just want to make sure Andres also gets in. Go ahead. And the last question, if I could. Sorry. I don't mind on all my questions, but just this one if I could So we're anticipating that we're going to generate the 1.1 million dollars And we're basically pulling that out of the budget with that assumption. What happens if we don't reach the 1.1 million dollar Be generation because I think that will create a little bit of an issue with the budget for the year

[00:47:47] Whether or not a fee is charged is a decision. It's going to be left up to the school board. That's not my decision And it's not the Board of Supervisors decision. It's their decision I think the way in our discussions the way this evolved if that decision is made not to charge a fee The transfer is still 3.9 minus 1.1. Thank you Andres Thank you madam chair. I'll be extremely brief

[00:48:22] Mr. Leonard, you mentioned that one of the issues is consistency across the programs. Do you have any, does anyone have any thoughts on how to get all the programs to be more consistent? Because I think other than the idea, the attendance issue, you know, if the programs aren't consistent, then that's kind of failing on that end as well.

[00:48:44] Yeah, I mean, if I had any idea, I was also here when it was first created, right, with the program working with Mark. The challenge is you're pulling from the strengths and desires of a workforce within the school.

[00:49:02] So you may have a teacher that's really interested and has a skill that's outside of what he or she teaches. And that can become a club and become a very popular club. Well, that teacher, we're taking use of those skills and backgrounds that they may have. Each school has different – those are captured differently, right, across the workforce.

[00:49:23] So I empathize with Mark because it becomes so much – so focused. So what you try to do is you try to get your core programs to be consistent across the board, and then you build those other programs based on what strengths you may have in the school building.

[00:49:42] Thank you. Jimmy, did you have any final – No further questions. No, thank you. Well, I'm going to thank you all. I know this is a tough discussion. I think you've heard that everyone at this table, everyone in the community understands the benefits of the after-school programs, understands the need to ensure that there's equitable impact and access.

[00:50:06] As the schools do for those of us who did have the pleasure of serving on the school board know that there are many formulas to help target access for schools that have higher numbers of students who need supports. Schools are already looking at a whole variety of formulas, whether it's student by student or if an entire school has need. You know, I hope that's something that the schools will look at if it's saying, you know, a school has 80 percent of its students on free and reduced meals. Do we look at that differently and do we provide them additional

[00:50:41] support? The final thing I will say is, you know, there is no try, do or do not do. And so for me, continuing to try and not meeting the needs of our schools that need the most support, our students that need the most support, there is no more trying, right? We're saying it has to be done. And if it's not going to be in collaboration, if the schools are going to be running that, my hope is that under, you know, one easier model of oversight and ownership that can be better achieved. It's unfortunate from my point of view, someone who believes so strongly in

[00:51:15] master programming and voted against raising fees and took advantage of those late buses that we haven't figured that out yet. If the schools would like support, I know that it's there and available, but if there's not going to be that collaboration, I do hope that, and my expectation is that under more streamlined leadership that that will happen. But we all believe in the importance of this program and figuring out how to ensure access, especially to our most vulnerable population.

[00:51:46] So thank you for your many years on this. Thank you to the staff who worked on this. Appreciate everyone's time. And we're a little bit short. We had a short meeting today for our next presentation. And again, no decisions being made today, but I think more information coming forward. For both of these, for my colleagues, if you have additional questions, please send them in. We are having two pretty intense discussions in a very shortened time frame.

[00:52:14] And so I know that staff would very much appreciate any further questions on these. So I want to thank Dr. Emery and Mr. Pressey, and we will now invite forward the team to present their employees' child care center family engagement update. As a reminder, these were both requests, recommendations made by the chairman and the entire board. As a follow-on to our last budget conversations and again in difficult times taking a closer look at our programming at our investments in those programming at the outcomes in those programming and at ways to try to improve

[00:52:53] how we invest and have efficient and effective programs so we do have lloyd tucker joined today by keisha dots and the deputy director for ncs thank you madam chairman uh board of supervisors is good morning or afternoon. My name is Lloyd Tucker with Director of Department of Neighborhood and Community Services. In June, we were directed to look at the, to engage with our families and our parents of current parents of the Early Child Care Center at the Penino Building

[00:53:33] and how it serves our county employees and see if our children six to five years, excuse me, six months to five years of age, if it was even worth considering moving forward with a private provider in that space.

[00:53:53] The center, just a little bit of background, the center is licensed for 100 children. And given the limited capacity that we have in the program, most of the county employees are not able to utilize the early child care center. Additionally, revenue generated from employees utilizing the early child care center does not cover the full cost of the program with the general fund currently subsidizing by more than $1.8 million.

[00:54:25] Just to set the stage a little bit more, after engaging with the current families, We understood that if no or if full-cost recovery was not viable under the current delivery model, then NCS would explore contracting this service out to a private provider based on full-cost recovery to be implemented in FY 2027.

[00:54:56] Good afternoon. I'm Keisha Dodson, Deputy Director of Neighborhood and Community Services. So after the board directive to look at exploring how to increase savings for this particular program and how to move forward, we did some additional engagement with our families.

[00:55:15] Prior to this decision, at the point with the advertised budget, we did our initial engagements with the family as it was important to us to make sure that staff and our coworkers, our colleagues that have children in the center, able to understand the need to do something different with this budget season so we did have those conversations early on after the board directive we did some official engagements with the families utilizing the county's engagement process so we sought out an opportunity to bring family members that and caregivers that had children enrolled in the center

[00:55:54] together for two sessions. We did use the engagement spectrum that you'll see on the slide, looking to hear directly from the families about ways to save costs with the center in addition to ideas moving forward.

[00:56:12] The facilitated sessions were done by our engagement colleagues in NCS and had parents participating. In our first session, we had about 21 family members engaged, and then we had a second one in virtual.

[00:56:29] In addition to that, we also had a separate meeting to look at the work that has come from the parents that had organized around this initiative.

[00:56:43] So as we look at what came of that, I want to make sure that we are focused on the fact that the engagement efforts with those families were, we front and center looked at this as a financial activity and made sure that the families understood that this was an opportunity for us to do something related to the financial subsidy that goes to the program.

[00:57:16] This was not because of the performance of the program. This was not about the staffing members. So we had some robust discussions. Some of the key things that were outlined as a result of these engagement sessions were some concerns about increasing the cost too much, as well as looking to explore the sliding scale map model in addition to having county focus on how to retain, subsidize the benefits in order to retain the staff.

[00:57:52] Looked really at some hard to fill positions that were assigned to the Employee Child Care Center to potentially cut those, leveraging programs and partnerships to offer set costs.

[00:58:08] Some of the other things that we'll talk about more in depth in the next slide are some of the specifics about revenue and revenue optimization, excuse me, looking to increase the enrollment, maybe including access to this center from community members and not just county staff, aligning the rates with the county or with the private market, in addition to eliminating the subsidy and increasing the annual registration fee were some of the key things.

[00:58:40] The overarching theme and all of the recommendations that came from the family members were about maintaining the quality care that is provided at the ECCC and ensuring that families are supported with options there in addition to making sure that our staff have the necessary training and supports necessary. Parents stated that they wanted to have an active role if there were to be a transition, so that was highlighted as well. And wanting to make sure

[00:59:15] that logistical considerations are still front and center as we move forward. So those are some of the key things that came up as a result. So looking at slide number five, I want to And to begin with an edit on this slide, if you look at the third bullet under the second bullet, Revenue Based on Program Adjustments, part of that sentence is cut off, so I just want to state that it should read, cost savings will be higher if fully enrolled, and then we'll go through this slide.

[00:59:51] This is a snapshot. This is one of the resources, as I mentioned, we engaged the families that had organized around this effort and making sure that we were able to include some of the information that they had already prepared prior to the board-directed engagement sessions that happened.

[01:00:10] So, yes, this data is fiscal year 25 from the springtime point in time, and this indicates what it would look like with the reduction of the two part-time positions and the reduction of the center provided supplies that we currently cover for families now, in addition to doing a rate adjustment to reflect the area rate.

[01:00:39] So looking at, there would be an additional $601,908 that would show up with a rate adjustment. And in that scenario, I want to call out that that is going to be a full-time care with us being fully enrolled for with the reduction of the sibling fee as well and it's important to note here that some of this the full the reduction of the sibling discount the full-time care and full fully enrolled capacity would be

[01:01:14] where we got that discrep that difference did not include this on this chart, because that did not help us when we were trying to indicate the snapshot from the spring. But that is some of the work that was done to look at the whole of what had been explored. So when we're looking at this chart here, it's important to note that this would increase our full-time enrollment, and there could be some negative impacts to those

[01:01:50] that choose part-time care because we would have to literally match up the days of the week and hours for part-time to make it a full-time. So that's just something I wanted to make sure that we highlight there. With these steps here, we also dove in a little deeper as to what it would look like to collaborate with other centers. We are not currently fully enrolled in the center.

[01:02:21] I just wanted to go ahead and make that known as well. Right now, as we did have a pause at the beginning or at the end of the budget cycle to get direction on our next steps, we were reluctant to continue enrollment for not being certain in which direction we would be going in.

[01:02:38] However, that enrollment has begun again. We are enrolling families with the information that we're in a bit of a transition. So everyone that's coming into the center now is fully aware and we are actively enrolling families into the center.

[01:02:55] So as far as our next step, excuse me, Lloyd Tucker, NCS, as far as our next steps that we're recommending, we recommend moving forward with contracting out the space, the early child care center down on the first floor of the Panino building.

[01:03:22] With this transition, we understand that there's a lot of history with that. This was not an easy decision to make and to propose or share with you all, in particular with our colleagues who work there.

[01:03:39] And with this proposal or recommendation, we want to ensure that there is a seamless transition. So we will be working with our colleagues with DPMM once we get the thumbs up to go ahead and start a procurement process, as well as the parents and our current employees there.

[01:04:05] But just finally, with including the current families in a procurement process would include, once again, like I said, working with DPMM. but identifying what roles they can play actively to give insight and guidance to the process if this is approved.

[01:04:27] Thank you. Thank you so much to Keisha and Lloyd and Chris. I will say one brief comment before I turn it to the chairman, and then we'll begin with that end of the table. And again, this is another one of those just not easy solutions.

[01:04:44] There's no great outcome on any of these. And to me, going through this, you know, this, again, also started as a budget conversation and always looking at quality of our programs and both our employees and early childhood across the county, which is a huge focus of ours, and both ensuring that the employees who are currently participating in the program, who would like to participate in the program,

[01:05:13] and our existing employees who serve the program are very much included and their needs and impacts taken into account as well as the future of the program. So I know that we probably have a lot of questions and comments on this and appreciate the feedback.

[01:05:35] The only thing I was trying to find online, I don't know if it's still posted, is if we have the current tier cost for families of the program. If you have that or could share, that would be helpful. I can share that. Okay, thank you.

[01:05:50] All right, let me turn it over to you. Yeah, I'm going to be quick because I know we're out of time and I do have a lot of questions, so I'm going to not ask a lot of them here. Again, we don't make decisions in committee, so I appreciate that staff has a recommendation. But for us to get there, I think many of us are going to have follow-up questions, which we can do offline.

[01:06:07] But just a couple of high-level ones just so I make sure people understand what's being proposed here. So first, I think we haven't looked at this program, unfortunately, for a long time. And all of the ideas that I see in here are things that should have been being done routinely throughout the program's existence.

[01:06:26] I mean, we're running a child care center here. We should act like it and run a child care center and do it. You know, some of the things that are in here that have come forward as ideas are common sense ideas that every other child care provider out there is doing. So, yes, let's do all of that.

[01:06:42] The question, though, that I have is the remaining shortfall of $1.4 million. What is unclear to me is the act of going just to the privatization. What is the staff estimated savings just of doing that? Assuming that all the ideas that came up that should be being done anyway are being done, what amount of savings is directly attributable only to the move to the privatization?

[01:07:12] Well, I mean, that would be if we remove the subsidy and we get out of the business, then we would be submitting an RFP for a full cost recovery program. So the private provider that would be coming in would be getting the access to the facility, right?

[01:07:28] so they don't have facility costs, but the full cost operating the program would be borne by the private provider. So what we're saying is all the ideas that are in here would generate the $400,000 roughly, but to overcome the one point, so you're valuing the privatization at a $1.4 million savings to the county?

[01:07:48] Well, I think there's a difference to, Keisha referenced it a little bit. There's probably a $400,000 to $600,000, so it's probably more like $1.2 to $1.4. So that's what the savings is, privatizing, is roughly the amount that is also included in the recommendations that are here to structural changes unrelated to the privatization.

[01:08:08] Correct. Does that include sliding scale or voucher subsidies? Yes, there is a sliding scale, and that may also impact who's using the program based on the increase from part-time care to full-time care.

[01:08:26] So we can get more detail on that for you both. That would be helpful, and whether that's all county subsidy, whether there are state vouchers that could be used, any of that would be helpful. And also, to that point, the idea of opening this up to the general public as opposed to just county employees, what does that open up other opportunities that heretofore we've not been able to benefit from?

[01:08:49] And then secondarily, I would presume that there's no restriction on you charging a different fee for a county employee and for a member of the general public should you decide to do that. And so there's also no valuation of that potential that's clear to me in this either. So I do have a lot of other questions, and we're not going to get to them today, but I will follow up.

[01:09:08] Thank you. Jimmy, and then please let me know if you do have a question so I can time it. Yeah, so first thing, that comment's not true, because we have 35 employees who are at the Employee Child Care Center, and you are accounting for a million dollars in a drop in fringe benefits, But you've also said that you're not going to riff those employees, meaning we're going to move them elsewhere in the county and we're still going to pay a million dollars in fringe benefits.

[01:09:32] Also, I'm glad that you clarified, but I just want to I just want to walk through it for the people who are watching. On page five, it says revenue based on program adjustments, three hundred twenty four thousand three hundred eighty two.

[01:09:50] Now, I understand that you have a different number that you just spoke than that number, correct? Correct. And what is that number? That number was the $601,908 that would be attributed to the rate adjustment that was suggested, again, by the families that were engaged.

[01:10:14] That was suggested by the families that were engaged. So we are off right now on slide five by $275,000. potentially. And by the way, slide five also says fully enroll center. So when you were off by $275,000, you were at the same time claiming that you were going to do something that made you off by $275,000. Now I got a question to explain. Can you break down the 324,382 number? Where did that

[01:10:49] come from? You know, I'll just cut to the chase. I'll answer the question for you. That comes from an analysis that was done by the parents at the ECCC, in which the parents went and looked at comparable child care centers around here and came up with their own market rate and then changed the rates to be in line with the average market rates. And you know what? Great. Good work, guys.

[01:11:25] but we don't even know if they were right we don't even know if they were right we asked you to analyze this idea we asked you to bring us a presentation and you did no work you did no work you took what they said and you wrote it off and passed it off as gospel okay thank you if they were right right if they were wrong in either direction supervisor bearman supervisor bearman Yes. Please. We don't need that right now. Thank you. What we need to understand is that if we are

[01:12:04] asking for analysis from the county, that the county is actually doing an analysis. Do you have further comment or question, Mr. Behrman? Is there further comment or question? There are others who would like to speak. No? Okay. I think I've made myself. Thank you. Andres and then Rodney. Thank Thank you. Madam Chairwoman, I'm going to echo Supervisor Beerman's comments. A full understanding of cost recovery potential requires an accurate and current enrollment capacity of the center. Some of the data in the presentation appears outdated and lacks analysis necessary

[01:12:43] to make informed decisions regarding the future of the ECCC. Additionally, there are inconsistencies between the ECCC and other departments. Typically, fringe benefits are not factored into department level cuts. Beyond from the shortcomings and the arguments supporting the contracting out of the ECCC, I also wanted to reflect on the exceptional work of the staff there. During my visit to the center in July, it witnessed firsthand the impacts of the center on the children and families of Fairfax County employees. The diversity and sense of community is what makes this place so special.

[01:13:15] And just to wrap up real quick, we asked folks in the county to make cuts, and when they do, this is how we reward them. I'm extremely concerned about what we're trying to do.

[01:13:30] The fact that there's a slide that says this is what's happening next, you don't tell us what's happening next. We vote on it. You're giving us recommendations. Do not tell us what's happening next. That's all I have to say for now. Okay.

[01:13:47] I have Rodney and then a couple more. I'll just note I appreciate the comments from my colleagues. I also had the opportunity to go and visit the center and just want to acknowledge the work that's being done, being able to see the engagement with the students and the dedication of the staff.

[01:14:06] I just appreciated having that opportunity. And I recognize that, you know, we have to make difficult decisions here on this board. But I also would say, you know, every decision that we make isn't just about reducing costs and saving money.

[01:14:29] I think that we have some decisions that we make that have a personal human element, and I think that the employees who committed their lives in service here, I'm a 30-year plus six, now 36-year county employee, and we make that commitment for a reason, and services that we can provide to support our employees is foundational and also fundamental. So I'm not convinced that this is the thing that we should be doing at this time,

[01:15:05] will reserve my final judgment when we get to a vote but I'll just say we do need some additional information and we do need to understand the impacts to those who work there and the kids that are beneficiaries of those programs thank you thank you I think I will see okay three very quick comments and clearly there's a lot more question questions conversation to my colleagues if you did not get a chance to say today. First of all, as a former teacher, I would ask that we be respectful

[01:15:40] of both of our employees doing this work as well as the employees in the county. We did not do this analysis. We could have done this earlier. We did not. I will take full responsibility for the fact that this board did not address some of these issues earlier. We have asked staff to do it very quickly. We may not necessarily agree with what their current recommendation is. There's clearly a lot more work to be done, but I'm going to ask as a former middle school teacher, let's please but be respectful to each other, time, and the board as we're here.

[01:16:10] We are very much into our lunch, so any time you take is our lunch into that, I believe I have three more brief comments. Dan, did you have something as well? No. Thank you, Dan. All right, go ahead. Based on the information I've seen, I do not support outsourcing the program.

[01:16:28] I would take the budget savings found, look for additional reforms and integration with the daycare center coming in across the street. Thank you. I'll keep it simple as I can. I mean, I see this as a competitive advantage.

[01:16:44] We're short child care across the – to get rid of an existing one doesn't make any sense. The question is, is how do we move forward and how do we move forward cost effectively? And I agree with my colleagues down here that we didn't quite get what I would have looked for.

[01:17:01] But I think we also ought to take it a step further and look at how do we incentivize other employers across the county to do this. I know many do, but how do we actually incentivize that? I know I've done that with affordable housing. George Mason is the great example of that.

[01:17:18] George Mason is also an example. We've got examples, but those are my two or three cents. It's a recruiting and retention tool. Okay, I look at this differently. I think we have to step back and look at what we've done with the budget.

[01:17:35] We've gone from asking departments for 7%, 10%, and 5% reductions. And to me, the question is whether this is something we can afford to continue to subsidize. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.

[01:17:51] I will add one more thing to this before we close out is, I mean, we haven't taken a vote, but clearly there's not a clear decision on when we are on this. Some areas that I think would be helpful if we're looking at this beyond just a budget, a budgetary conversation which may not make mr. hill very happy but as we look at the impact and i'm here looking at our new strategic plan for early childhood if we are going to continue to invest in a program that is you know i would call it is the cadillac it is an excellent very very high quality there are other high quality programs we know that some of the

[01:18:27] biggest issues we have across the county our workforce training and retention our access to quality programming, our access to, and you all see in here on page 17, there's a map geographically, which I know we've all been wanting. I've been wanting to see where there are biggest gaps. And if we do continue to invest in an excellent program, how can we look at that as whether it's a lab school or a program for showing what high standards are, but using that to help train a lot of our small, private, nonprofit, home center-based programs to become

[01:19:07] more of that quality standard as we lead that in the region, how can we think about our ECCC's role in that? Maybe a clearer name, but our ECCC's role in that and in having higher standards and quality for all of our programs. Supervisor Pouchik, thank you. Again, yes, budgetary process.

[01:19:30] you know, I don't like talking about the budget much. Unfortunately, in February 17th or 18th, I believe I have to present another budget predicated by board guidance. Board guidance stated that we have to look at numerous things to get us in a place. As you recall, last year, we had 208 positions that we did not riff because we looked at it in a compassionate and humane way.

[01:19:55] I'm not saying that that's going to happen this go around, but I have to tell you, When we ask the school board for a budget of reality, I've got to ask myself the same thing. So I do appreciate your words. I really do, Supervisor Smith. I appreciate your words.

[01:20:11] But that's the reality that we're in right now, and we're going to move forward with as much as we can do without making an impact on our team. Madam Chair, to that end, and I'm just going to close on this because we are over time quite a bit, I see no reason why the recommendations that are in here shouldn't be being implemented now.

[01:20:32] in terms of the revenue enhancements because if you were to implement all of those and you worked off of the figure that we were given we should know for now a year from now whether our subsidy is 1.8 million or closer to 1 million and the other piece that i'd sure love to know is what specifically is the path if we were to have moved forward with privatization now what specifically is the path for those employees because to the earlier point made if we're not riffing those employees and there's some other position within the county, then we may be at $1 million anyway.

[01:21:09] And so I do think it would be helpful for us to understand that. What I would like us to do is move forward with implementation of these recommendations and also come forward with a path forward to eliminate the $1 million over time, the $1 million county subsidy. It's not a lot of money, but we should be heading towards eliminating that period. Whether that takes two, three, four, or five years, we should have a path forward to be able to do that, and I think that's what we're still asking for, but I think right now we need to move forward with the revenue enhancements and

[01:21:45] other adjustments that have been brought forward responsibly by the people involved, take advantage of that budgetary opportunity, and give us a path forward over the next zero to five years on how we can eliminate and chip away at the $1 million subsidy. Thank you.

[01:22:03] With no further comments, our committee meeting is adjourned, and I believe 1.30 will be the next committee meeting.

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