Anchorage Assembly: ACCEE Fund Board Meeting 2026-06-17 Meeting Recording

So just to let you know, the way we approach the budget is, if you bring up the slides, uh, and let me know if you can't see this, is we're basing this off of that we have ASD and Best Beginnings as part of it. Okay, now side note, we are going to work and we'll have a discussion at the end about some advocacy and having conversations because again, I can speak from the Children's Trust standpoint. When we got and worked for this $5 million, this fund was never to move those things over. I also recognize the city is challenged with other dollars, but, uh, again, it was to make $7 million and not just a $5 million. So, but understand that we don't have control of that, and I'm kind of wanting to build a budget off of worst-case scenario and then hopefully build off of that and so forth.

So that's where we're approaching this. Next slide, please. So just to remind folks, the baseline facts is we're working off of $5.2 million. That's what they're predicting. Fingers crossed that it's that and not lower.

Just to remind folks, you will see out of that $5.2 automatically 5%, which is $260,000, goes to the Treasury. That is their cost to collect the dollars. We also have a formula up to 10%— we'll have the discussion if we want that or not— of administration, which is $520,000. And then again, ASD and Best Beginning funds may or may not, but we're going to base it off that we have those in our budget.

And one of the things to always remember is all this is based off projections. Some we have hard numbers, some things we don't, and we have to predict, and/or we're trying to work with some of our grantees on trying to get some of those projections and what that looks like. So do bear with us.

This is last year's, just as a reminder, again, just to set the stage, is operational was $2.4 million. Early Educated Childcare Subsidies It is now $1.625 million, and the reason is because we voted in moving $125 million over to the capital and pilot projects because of the mathematical error. So nobody was harmed. ASD is at $2 million. Pilot capital projects is $1.25 million.

That includes that. Okay, and then Best Beginnings is $125 million.

So our process is we're going to review the programs. We'll do a Mentee poll. We got specific questions. It's not going to take too long. We'll have a discussion.

There is always potential rollover, but it's not going to be mathematically in because we don't know.

And of course, we'll use the Mentee results to identify kind of where we're kind of landing for allocations. And see how it lands. And then we'll be plugging and playing with the budget. So we have a total budget document that is set up, and you'll start seeing any— and just board members online, I cannot see you when we're sharing this, which is fine. So please, if you have a question, don't raise your hand, just pop in.

And stop the conversation and we'll get to you. Okay. Any initial questions or thoughts? Trevor, I had a question. Yes.

This is Jessica. Please, go ahead. Do we know approximately how much was spent on the administration part that's available for the 10%? Do we know how much we've spent in the past couple years? Yes, we do, and we'll be talking about that.

So if I'll put a pin in that question, uh, and we'll share what we know.

Any other questions? I don't think this is an issue now. I think we're just board members online, but for the mentee, we'll just ask this for this process. We're just asking board members to participate. Thank you.

Okay, for those who have never used Menti, it is an online survey process. So if you want, please get out your phone. You'll see the QR code, or you can go to menti.com and use the code. I think you might still need the code when you use the QR code. If you can't read the code, it's 11900481.

And then we'll walk you through each one of the questions. So the first thing we're going to look at is just the child care worker subsidy. So again, just to set the stage for 26, we know— and we pay by child, not by family, and I share that because in my head I— we're paying by the family or the person, and it's actually per child because subsidy. It was a good reminder to me when I actually thought about it. I'm like, oh, that's correct.

So current number of children is 153. There are 17 applications pending, so we're estimating use of around 170 kids, and we pay 75% of the difference. They then cover the 25. Last year There was a point where we could actually go back because we had enough funds and they covered 100%, and one of the questions will be, do we do that this year or not? And we'll have that conversation.

So you'll see in '25 we had 120 kids. So if we reach 170, that's 50 increase. So that's fantastic that more people are learning this, and we suspected that could happen. And we don't have a cap in the sense of number of kids. We have a cap on dollars and they monitor that, and the reason is each family can vary depending on their own income, things of that nature.

Do they get the state subsidy or not? Things of that nature, and that's hard to predict. Although now at 2 years of data, we're hoping to have a better sense, give or take a little. As mentioned, last year was 100% coverage versus the 75% currently. And the total amount distributed was just under $850,000.

And Christine, you have a figure if we did 100% this year? Mm-hmm. Of 103 children, because that's the latest numbers that— the last time I had hard numbers from AFS. So if we paid 100% this year for 103 children, it would be $1.1 million.

So an idea. So the first question we have related to this is, is what do we do about this year? We can stay at the 75%, which— bring up the Menti question. So you'll see—.

That's—. Sorry, let me just get out of the first question. Thank you. So the first question is, at what percentage of the child care should we be paid by this program for this year? Do we stay at 75% or do we increase it?

Now, the reason we're asking this question is it comes down to rollover dollars.

If we stay at 75%, we could have a couple hundred thousand dollars rollover. Potentially it could be $300,000 to $400,000. It all depends. This is where we don't have a number for you all because we're trying to work with them and get some predictions, but it's about the rollover. Or again, there is value of the more we're able to cover for a family, it's more funding that a fam— more income that a family has, and most of these families are already low income.

And how that helps them on the overall scale of things as well. So things to consider. So what we're asking you is, do we keep it at 75, or do you support, because the money is there, to raise it? Or do we hold on to some of that money to deal with the potential challenges we have for next year? How do you feel?

I also want to open this up to any discussion. If people have any questions before you vote, or if you want to share before you vote, although 3 people already were like on it, and Sherry. Jessica, I do have a question. I'll come back to you, Jessica. Oh, go ahead, go ahead, Jessica, go ahead, Jessica.

We'll start with you. My question is, um, showing like an ASD question. Do I need to use this other Menti code that's on the screen now? Yeah. Oh yeah, the Menti code on the, on the slide was sending you to a different question and the QR code to a different question.

So this question is on that code. Okay, so let's use this. Yes. Yeah, sorry folks. Well, when Christina flipped through it automatically, you reload your page, it'll come up on whatever.

Yeah, I was about to reload it. Yeah, mine was good. Okay, so just doing the pause reload. Does anybody not now have this question up?

Okay, great.

But roughly what 100% costs versus 75% to a family, or do we not have that? What it costs to a family? Yeah, be different for every family. Yeah, so we don't really have any idea. Well, and that's the other thing, I don't, I don't know if we know if it would affect the family because at least in in my case of my employees, if they were paying $75, I'd be discounting the other $25.

So it would affect the program, but not necessarily the family. Like if they had a copay, we've been covering it as the employee discount, which is what we did before this existed. Gotcha. It might be more of a— okay, but I don't know if that's how other programs are doing it. So one of the questions we may have for them is potentially what is the average cost to a family at the 75.

So we can at least come out with an average. And we might not be able to get this answer right away, but it could be something of the survey is who is covering that difference when it exists, uh, and what that looks like. And to a family, but even to our programs, we already know that they are struggling, so even if they're covering it there's that— it's an extra burden, but I think it's questions that we should be asking. So good questions.

And the other thing I want to point out is, if you— you'll notice that the 120 for children— I was going to say 120 for children— 120 kids was $843,000, and then the 103 kids is more this year, and that is the difference of the age of the child. Whether or not they're on state subsidy, et cetera. So that's just putting out there that this is such a varying number and can be, and that additional— keeping it at a lower percent provides the opportunity for additional participants to sign up at any point in the year. So we want to keep that in mind as if we don't want to get to a point where we have to cap participation, or we can, but that should be part of your thought process is if we said 100% and that ate up the entire amount that they had available, they would probably have to cap participation at certain, a certain month of the year. Okay.

Yes, and that's exactly what I was going to say is to me, if there's a cap where we run out of money in the year, uh, really affects how effective it is in terms of recruitment. Like, it works for retention, but if we don't know if new families are going to be able to join later on in the year, then we We can't say to potential employees like, yes, child care is covered. We have to say, you know, you might be able to get this subsidy. And so having that extra money so that we don't run out of money, I think it's more valuable than going back and paying more than we had committed to. Thank you.

I think we have 9 members present today. Yeah, so if everybody would take a moment and vote.

Please. And Julio, since we can't see you, if you do have to leave, just let us know.

And we're just short— we're short one person.

Is anybody not voted? Where is this? We're missing somebody. Okay. Going once, going twice.

We will move on. All right. Let's go to the presentation. Okay.

Hi.

Best Beginnings. We reached out to Best Beginnings just to get a clarity of how the funds used, how many kids, things of that nature. And again, if you have additional questions, please ask. We may have the answers and/or we'll get them. So it's for their Imagination Library.

It's direct purchase and shipping of the books. They estimate that it's about $37 per child per year. So the $125,000 supports just under 3,400 Anchorage-based kids. They serve actually just over 6,000 kids, so our funds cover about 56% of, of their project. They outlined that the support helps sustain the citywide access to early literacy.

I think we all know the importance of early literacy. And again, much of this is not up for debate of what's important. It's trying to prioritize and what does that look like. And reducing access would particularly affect children who are not enrolled in formal child care or preschool. So this is the current information.

Just to remind folks, we— this used to be, again, also by the alcohol tax. It came over— this came over by an assembly member, and we had to adjust the budget. I believe we just reduced the capital and pilot projects to cover this, if my memory is correct. So the question is before us. We'll bring up the Menti question, and then everybody's phone should change.

And don't vote right away, let's have a conversation before folks vote.

So your phone should have changed. Is the question—. Is, uh, sorry, we skipped, oh, uh, 2027 of Chuck. Oh, we did, my apologies. So, um, let's pause on that.

Forgot that there was a second question. So we needed to also go back to the subsidy of '27 was what percentage of childcare should be paid by the program. So, and what you see here is again, these are estimated numbers that we calculated internally based off the numbers that we have. But this would be the cost of, for a full year at 100%, 95%, all the way down to 70%. Currently they are at 1.625%.

So 70% and 75% are at that amount. Anything above would increase overall cost.

Wanted people's vote on where this stands.

My apologies for missing that. So please vote. Are we just choosing one option or are we ranking all of them? You just choose one. Okay.

8. Only 8 of us today? There's 9 of us.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Now we'll go to the best beginnings. My apologies about that.

What we want to do is determine how do we fund them.

So again, this gives us an idea. Do you do 100% number of kids, 75, 50, 25, and/or we don't fund them?

And again, if you wish to fund them, you want 100% do so, we will then lay all of this based off of your rankings. You will start seeing the budget, and then we look at what the deficit is, or maybe we have a surplus. It won't matter, but where do we, where do we land on this? And this one you can rank on your phone so that we can see. Oh, this one you can rank?

Yeah, so we can—. That's what I was asking, so if you can rank all the options, right, or just choose one. So we'll see what the top option is, but as we get into budget and If we run into issues, we can go to— we could say, well, we can rethink what we decided and look at what was second-ranked, possibly. I'm sorry, I didn't realize you could rank. That's okay.

So, Chuck, is this more a conversation about where this funding is coming from within the municipality? Like, it came from somewhere else before and it got moved over, or is this a It's here where it's—. This conversation is where, based on our budget, that it falls under us. Um, now, as I mentioned at the beginning, my goal is to try to advocate and get these back over to the alcohol tax. So we're actually working with our full 5, which then opens up things.

But, um, I want us to really working off of bare bones. Budget, which is we decide if this is in or out. Now, always remember, we propose the budget, the mayor can change it, and then the assembly can change it. So the assembly may disagree with us and want Best Beginnings and reduce something, so Best Beginnings is in. We don't have any control over that.

We will share why and how this all lays out, but they ultimately get to make that decision.

And that is what happened last time, right? Yes. Well, we were un— unbeknownst to us, they actually lost funding and that this was even being looked at, and then Assembly member moved it and the Assembly supported it.

And that's how it came over, right? The alcohol— the ASD came over to us per the mayor's change. But what you're saying is we should just decide whether or not we think it might be what we want to recommend, whether or not we think it might be changed at the last minute anyway. Yes, because then we're— but in that situation, then are we in a situation where everything we plan, that we have to take some money from somewhere else? Yes, and it's really hard.

What we've been really trying— well, and again, what we've been really trying to do is build a really strong relationship with the Assembly so that they know that this is coming from a very large conversation through experts, through the community, and so forth, that hopefully that they trust that process. And we will make sure that we present the budget, explain it to them, and so forth. Now, ultimately, again, we have no control. All we can do is recommend. And what my suggestion is, is we don't recommend based off of what we think they will do, is we should be recommending what we have been charged to do and then educate, advocate, and then ultimately they may go, no, we want Best Beginnings.

So hopefully we'll be present or the ability. So anything that they, they want to add, and I'm using Best Beginnings, but that's wrong because it sounds like we're not adding them. Is any change that they want to make, that we would be present and hopefully work with them going, well, if that's what you want to do, can we at least suggest that this is where it comes from versus this, things of that nature, and try to work with them. But ultimately they get to finalize that budget. That is the power of the assembly.

And just as a reminder, the— this poll is to get a feel for where we're at, to start us into playing with some numbers. So it's not a final vote, final decision.

Yeah. And we'll draft the budget, we'll create the basis of why, and then we'll start educating folks on it.

And you can rank these. My apologies, I didn't realize you could do that. So if you wish to rank, please do. Okay. Let's go to our next slide.

Sony has one. I remember that.

Okay, ASD. Oh, yeah, hold on. Let me pull up that slide.

Would you like to identify a conflict of interest? I have a—. It's pretty obvious. So, uh, and would you like me to explain my slide? Uh, so let's first deal with the conflict of interest that has been stated.

Uh, does anybody object to that? There is a conflict.

Yeah, recognizing that there is, and it is, uh, Jesse directly benefits in her program. Uh, we, uh, so in this, uh, she will not be voting with the ASD dollars., and, uh, we'll be very conscious of that overall budget discussion and so forth. Um, because this, uh, is a new slide to us, uh, I am going to ask Jesse to please, uh, explain it because we haven't been able to translate it. Um, and, uh, because of that, because normally we have tried not to bring in the programs, but Jesse's here and she will help us understand. So It's all yours.

Thank you. So the ACE Fund, previously the alcohol tax, funds 8 classrooms, but that is not all. I think that is the overarching idea of what the ACE Fund covers or funds. I don't like using the same word twice in a sentence, but that serves roughly 142 children in the classrooms, but it also funds mental health consultants, which reaches over 850 students and individuals. It helps cover curriculum and assessment supports for the entire program.

The funds also cover a teacher expert or instructional coach. The words are kind of interchangeable, which that person supports about 15 teachers. The 8 classrooms are within that 15 count, and the early identification behavioral and developmental needs are from the mental health consultant and the teachers and instructional coach that are all within that umbrella of funds. So if that's with full funding at the $2 million, and then if I, I just simply put for 4 classroom teachers and 4 paraprofessionals only, um, with fringe and a couple thousand dollars for substitute pay, we're looking at— with the increase in benefits for next year, we're looking around $675,000.

Um, our Play to Learn is the other component of our preschool funding that comes from the ACE Fund. And you can see at the bottom right corner there, we have over 1,500 hours of community contact through various cohorts or activities within the community.

Great. So I guess, do you want me to—. I am getting in. Okay. So to the Menti.

Yeah. Is there any questions about ASD?

You can bring up Menti.

Okay. So there's a couple things just to let folks know is with ASD, we have There's one question here, but we're dealing with two things. So one, they have been funded for this year. Our school year runs end of August to mid-May, so their school year runs over two fiscal years for us.

They are funded for September— August through December.

Not funding them from— for next year would mean no funding January through July. That means they have a program set up and they can't just end it. So one of the things that you'll see in the budget is we've actually built in what funding would be for January through May because we, we can't start a program and then midstream defund it. So when you're looking at this, part of this would be understanding that if we support whatever level of funding for ASD, it does commit some of our dollars for the next year. Does that make sense to everybody?

So we don't want to hurt the program in midstream. So the, so the question that's before you is, looking at what additional dollars we would be paying. So for this 6 months, it's just less than $1 million that would be going to ASD. So the question would be, are we going to fund additional dollars on top of that? Jesse?

The number, the 100% is $2 million. This, so this is for July through December only. Oh, sorry. Okay, so sorry. I was not—.

For the 6 months. So, okay, so remember, if you do 100%, it's $1 million of this year, which would be July through December, and we know that in '28 that commits us to another million. Does that make sense?

Okay, we're trying to figure out how best to outline this and show it. So please vote, and again, you can rank.

Oops. Trevor, I voted and I'm jumping off.

Thanks. All right. Thank you. Appreciate your time.

Bye. We should see 7 votes because it's been 8 so far.

Those 7—. Oh, and okay, so 7 because Khalil did vote. Yeah, this one. We're missing one individual.

Is anybody able to share with me if they're not voting so we can be aware? I feel like we're missing somebody or something's happening.

I voted. This is Mildred.

I'll vote twice. No, Kevin, don't put that on the record, please. Sorry, I only voted once, to clarify. I have a question about the voting. So, yes, does yours at the bottom show like a check mark or something?

Mine shows like a spinning wheel.

I think it should say, please, after you hit submit, it should say, please wait for the presenter to change slides. Yep. Okay, I think that's where mine is at too.

Okay, well, again, this doesn't finalize it, it just gives us a concept to work with, and then there'll be a larger conversation. Here we go. All right, we got 7. Okay, thank you.

Now administration, so we can get up to 10%, that's $520,000. Jessica asked, what are those expenses? I actually had Christina look at those. A lot of expenses this past year, last year, this year were like Austin, which is no longer. So what I asked for is what are the core costs, and we're expecting about $370,000.

I would probably go maybe around $400,000, give us a little wiggle room because things change. But what it then does is leaves us about $150,000 to do other things. Uh, we have things outlined in our strategic plan around data, things of that nature. So this is always the hard part. At what point do you fund the now, but also how do you also fund the things that you need to get us further along?

And what does that look like? You always hear me, you can feed the line, but if you don't shorten it, it just gets longer, and what that looks like. But again, also recognizing administration costs are always the big question. So we created a question here. It's the last one, which is what would you want the administration percentage to be?

So if you did 7%, it's just slightly under, so it would be probably like 7 or 8, it would be in there. Or at 8%, 9%, or at 10%, what do you support? And then just recognizing, subtract 370 from each one. And that's when you get the amount. So at 10% is approximately $150,000.

If it's at 9%, you're looking at about $110,000. So you get the idea. Can we clarify if we do not use the additional because this year we have not, um, is it in a, a co— a line like I'm thinking of how my budget runs that If we do not use it, we can roll it into another line. So yes, so what happens is we can roll it over. So, and that's part of, and we'll be talking about, is we're expecting some rollover dollars of this year.

We don't know how much. Some of it will be administration, but we did have a high— it won't be like the $150,000 because we had additional costs, which was really, it was the crossover between Christina and Austin. Things of that nature, but we expect there might be some, and with the other programs and so forth. So it all rolls over to next year as a lump sum, and then we can utilize it. Okay, it doesn't stay in it.

It doesn't stay in administration. Nope, it just goes back into the larger pot. Okay.

Okay, we have 8 votes.

Go back to the presentation.

Oh, now we have 9. Okay, no idea. Things are maybe catching up. I love it.

Okay. Okay, I think that's it. That is it. So again, just to mention rollover, we don't know what that is. At this stage.

And again, working off conservative, we are working towards that, trying to figure out what might be left over if we stay at that 75% with the child care subsidies, looking at the admin, looking— we think that all the projects should spend, but there might be some money because not everybody always spends. Something happens, so there's always potential, and sometimes we won't even know it until maybe November. But we're going to do some, again, conservative projections. I'd rather have us have more money and decide what to do versus figure out what we're cutting. So I always approach things in a conservative sense, and that way, again, it's easier to add at times than to subtract.

So with this, what we're going to do is start putting in from the results. So do we have the results? Yep, I'm writing down and I'll plug you in. Do a large. Thank you.

I'm like, I got old man eyes.

So right now I'm just plugging in things, what our results did come out to. So for admin, it voted on 9%. So I put in that $468,000. Childcare worker subsidy, it was voted at 75%, which landed at $1.4 million with our estimate $1.45 million. So I went ahead with $1.5 million.

Um, and then ASD, it was voted for 100% for that second 6 months. So this first one's already been populated for January through June of what it would cost. There's the second. And then for Best Beginnings, it was— we landed at 50%, which is $62,500.

Close second to that one was at 75%. But the top was $62,000. So if we can scroll over, um, can you fix that formula? We actually don't have a deficit. The difference is showing a negative.

Brackets mean a negative, and it's not. So you want to take, uh, $5.2 million minus the total. You have the total minus the $5.2 million.

I, yeah, I think though, because it's, I think this is showing that we still have $968,000. Once it goes to deficit, it goes red. So in accounting, brackets means deficit. Okay. So what you're showing is, that's right, you're taking the total minus 5, the 5.2, you want the opposite.

Up in the formula, just change it to— minus J5. So 5.2 minus J5. Yeah.

You have an extra zero in there or something. The probably color formatting.

Yeah, just ignore the colors. 5 Point. Okay. So we got 5, 2, 0, 0. 1, 2, 3.

There you go. So what we have is $900,000 and— $968,000 unspent. So again, enlarge this a little bit just so people can see. Uh, scrolling up. Perfect.

So what we haven't added is operational grants and pilot capital.

So one of the things we have heard as a group over and over is the number one thing that providers need is operational grants. Those are at 2.4, and then pilot and capital are that extra. Um, so if we typed in even, uh, let's just do operational. If you put in 204 $1.2 million current and nothing for capital and projects. We're over by about $1.4 million.

So this is where the advocacy is going to come in and/or the decision as a group of what we do. We do not have enough funds to do what we want to do.

Potentially, unless you feel operational grants should be just about $970,000.

We may have some rollover dollars. I would conservatively say we probably have no more than $300,000.

We're going to work and see if that's the case. But even with that, that gives us just over— if we added that, it would be 1.2. It would be half to operational if we wanted, or if we even wanted pilot and capital. So something we might want to just have a conversation is we, we see the lay of the land, is how do we feel about piloting capital? This we'll have a conversation, kind of vote, uh, openly is, do we feel that pilot and capital is the— I will say the last thing that gets funded?

And I am showing some of my bias. I feel like it is, but you may not. Is, or does that need to be a higher priority?

I'd like to figure out what we do with that., and then be able to talk about operational grants. Can we stop sharing screen so we can see everybody? So I'd love to hear people's thoughts around pilot and capital, and where do you think that should be in our priority compared to everything else? Um, can I again state my conflict? And can we talk about the, um, feel like I need to shut the door?

Um, The idea of reopening the conversation of ASD going back to alcohol or entertaining the idea of bringing it to the assembly of maybe 50/50, or I mean, I think the, the fact that it's supposed to be in alcohol tax is hugely detrimental to the ACE Fund, right? Detrimental in whichever way you want to kind of look at it. Hugely beneficial to the community and hurting the $5 million, right? Yeah.

And it's supposed to be in the alcohol tax. Maybe if it was only $1 million, it could open up the door, right?

If we— green chicken, but that's also like me.

So I don't know. And same with the other. Well, let me— I think Jesse brings up a good point. Let me just share kind of what I've been thinking about in the sense of strategy. So the one, the strategy was, okay, we're stuck with this.

What does this look like? And I see your hand up, Barry. What we're already planning is, is over the summer is to actually meet with all the assembly members and talk about the budget and specifically talk about the alcohol tax and the changes and how it's being detrimental to the fund and to the overall purpose of how this fund was created. To do exactly what you said, advocate and see. For those who joined us, was last month when the mayor joined us.

We, I was quite frank and straight with her going, we kind of need to not know in September. Like, what is your intentions? Like, I don't want us to go through all of this work and then them blow it up. Like, are you gonna get behind this and looking at alcohol? So I'm gonna follow back up also with her and try to have a more concrete conversation.

So hopefully by July and/or August, we're able to bring and go, yeah, this is what we're expecting. Because if we can also get the mayor behind us, then it will definitely be easier with the assembly. So that is our tactics. But again, I've set us up for today to go with the conservative, just to have an idea. It's So in September, October, we're not freaking out that we're freaking out now and figuring it out.

And then hopefully we're able to do exactly what you've just outlined and maybe have more dollars. But I'm trying to rank things and figure out where we're sitting and how best to do this. So when proposals are brought to us or ideas are brought to Christina and I, if I can't get them to the board quick enough that I have a good sense of where you all would stand and give them feedback. But I want both Best Beginnings and ASD back over in the alcohol tax. That is my goal.

Barry, I saw your hand up.

Thanks for sharing the budget. I mean, I just, I want to, I guess, just agree with you guys, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that this entire budget discussion is the result of us having zero tax burden at the state and local level, right? Like, I mean, yeah, we don't pay taxes in Alaska. We get a permanent fund dividend, and then we pay it out in property tax for most of us, probably, and just take from one bucket to the other. But I would just say, I know maybe I'm not sure if we're discussing our priorities yet, but I would agree with you, actually, Trevor, that pilot and capital is kind of my first place to take away from.

But I do think that, like, As much as we want to play chicken and stress to the assembly members that they should be paying for the ASD budget through the alcohol tax because that's where it was supposed to come from, that to me is like the highest priority thing because it's the one place where we're directly paying for care too, right? Like, and I know it's not what we intended to do, but that's us directly taking, taking money for spots and for spots who are kids who are special needs and stuff like that too. And the child care worker subsidy I think is incredibly important as well because people have built budget or built families family budgets around it for the workers, but it also leverages our dollars more effectively. And I think like the last thought I would just end with is when we talk about the operational grants, I know that the sector has said that they're incredibly important, um, but I think it's worth thinking about who in the discussion, right, has time and capacity to talk about things too. Like we won't necessarily hear from the childcare workers who depend upon the childcare subsidy to work, because they're working, right?

Like, they're literally watching my kids right now. And so they're not going to be able to advocate and explain how that policy is working for them. And they may not even really piece together that they're only working because that policy exists, right? Like, that's why we're on the board here is because we have time to think about these things. And so that's just my, my thoughts on where we stand.

But I just, I felt like it'd be remiss as an economist to not say that this all sucks. And it's a policy choice that the city's voters have made, and it was a bad choice, and they shouldn't have done that. Um, they should have voted to give ASD more money, and they should have voted— we should vote to tax ourselves to support these programs because they're worthwhile.

Thank you. I support that. Um, another, uh, come to you, Chuck. You pointed out something, so I'll just share. Uh, I'll take my chair hat off and put my Alaska Children's Chat hat on.

And know that I'm also looking from an organizational standpoint of what advocacy needs to be happening and what partnerships and how do we support the providers in getting their voice out without just hoping that they do it. So I'm already thinking some advocacy strategy that it's not just us as a board, but we're truly interlocking arms with our partners. And I see The Children's Trust playing a significant role in that because quite frankly, we're the ones who created this and I'm not going to let them hurt it. So that's something I'm looking at. So, but I appreciate it.

It's, we need a very strong voice, singular, made up of multiple voices. So more to come on that. Chuck?

I just wanted to speak up in support of the pilot and capital projects. I think it is from what I have gathered and seen, one of the few sources of funding where you can take on larger projects that are impossible otherwise, whether they be fixing up buildings that are falling down, accessible playgrounds, or the, the really cool pilot project we've seen around training staff and that sort of thing. So I want to lift that up. And then I think as well, I think the concern I have with the operational subsidies is, I mean, I did some rough math and it Seemed like we were paying for about an hour a kid a month when you kind of distributed it all, and that was under the previous amount. And if we're cutting that in half, it, to be honest, it seems like a very small amount of money that's being kind of distributed across a huge number of organizations and kids and places.

And especially if you then cut that in half. Like it feels like it's really not going to make a meaningful change in any given place. And that by just kind of spreading it too thin, we're not doing anything versus keeping the really what seems like the one source of being able to make long-term investments. And yes, if you build a building or like transition a building to serve kids in a preschool, then it can do that for years. Like I am so I would certainly lean towards viewing the pilot and capital as a critical part of what we're doing, and that the operational grants are just not funding enough to, to make a meaningful difference.

And I, I think I also do worry somewhat about, like, who does show up to, to share at these meetings, right? Like, yes, we do hear operational grants are important. From the same 3 people, and that's great. Like, I'm very glad they're showing up to the meetings, and I think it's a very, like, distinct group of people who are coming. And so, yeah, I will, I will end my, my train of thought by, I think, the ability to make larger investments that'll have long-term gains is something we should not give up for spreading money too thinly.

Appreciate that. What I also got from that is if we did keep PIH or IAD capital, that maybe restructuring and making sure that it really captures what you're talking about, that it is— it's not just playground equipment, that it is maybe targeted to that kind of long impact, if that's what we're thinking about. So it's not just about doing what we're doing, but maybe honing that in. Okay, thank you. Georgina?

I actually have like kind of the opposite take of that. I do think that operational grants personally should be a priority just because while the other programs are very important, like the subsidies, if the child care facility closes, those parents are out of a job and those kids out of care. And in the data that Thread collected, it, I think one of the questions was like, did this help you stay open? And it was like 80 or 90% of those participants were able to stay open because of the operational grants. And so to me, it goes to show that they're really impactful, maybe not per kid, but in different ways that maybe we don't see or we can capture with that data that we would want.

And what the pilot and capital are, are pretty good improvements. I think one of our goals initially was to stabilize the sector, and I feel like if we lower that amount for the operational grants or put other programs as a priority, we might be hurting that goal. Um, so personally, I think operational grants and the child care subsidies for the workers should be kind of up there, uh, and then maybe I would start cutting first with the pilot, not because I don't think it's a viable program, but because, um, we're not cutting something that's kind of like going, you know, because all of them are kind of like a one-time thing usually, like we're gonna use this money for this one thing, uh, and we do want to see the progress of those other two programs that we have going. So that's just kind of my, my two cents. And I would hope that we can maybe do 50/50 with the alcohol tax and the ACE for the ASD, maybe that would help us have some of that money back for, for operational grants.

I have to say, I don't think operational grants really stabilize the sector. Like, they're definitely a Band-Aid on a struggling program to keep them open, but providers don't have any idea when they're going to come or how much they're going to be, so they don't necessarily create stability, I would say. I don't think it creates long-term stability. It is a bank, a life. Yes.

And we need more money just in general, you know, like, like Kevin said, like taxing ourselves to add more funds. But with what we have and what it's been doing, I think it's, it's worth it for now.

Other thoughts?

Okay, thank you.

Well, a common theme that I'm hearing, obviously, which is not a surprise, is, and it's always been part of it, is how do we use these dollars to not just only have the greatest impact, but really getting to as much stabilization or longevity. So I appreciate Again, back to that analogy that we're not just feeding the line and how do we shorten it and recognizing we actually have to do both. And this is the hard part. We're constrained with 5.2 with this extra burden placed upon us that never existed when we were first creating and implementing programs. So, and what does this look like?

And obviously there's a lot more advocacy. That's needed.

So, just trying to think on the spot what is next and open to any thoughts or questions.

Do people want to rank operation over pilot? We could create a Menti poll on that. What, what would be most helpful to you all, do you think? I, as a, as a, I guess, a director that I have 92 classrooms right now that I oversee, like $36 million in grant funds.

And, um, the harder grants are the ones for me to operate. The easier grants for me to go after are definitely, um, pilots or, um, Playgrounds or, um, you know, capitals, those are easier for me to find and go after. Um, but the ones to get a classroom up and going are, or serve students for a long period of time, are much more challenging. And I don't know if that's because of my scale. Um, And when I say $35 million in 92 classrooms, it's 58 of them are special education.

So please know that special education grants.

So I just want to kind of put that out there, that it's, it's a different, different grants are easier for me or for my organization to go after. So I would say that In my opinion, those are less a priority. Well, and absolutely, we know through funders and anybody that's a nonprofit, they like one-time funding or something for a short period, but they don't want to continual. And that's where I've always been challenged with like certain pilot projects, like, great, can this be sustainable? Because we can't continually give this money.

So, yeah, you're not alone there at all. I think doing a mentee would be helpful. Okay, we'll set one up really quick. Just— and so let's have a conversation of what that question is to make sure we're getting to, and maybe it's more than one. Do we just want to rank in the sense of what you feel is the priority pilot versus operational?

Do we want to have a question of, of maybe it's, and we could rank this 100% operational, 0 on pilot, and vice versa. Then you could also do like 75/25, 50/50. What would you like? What do you think would be most helpful for this group? Could you put pilot and capital together as one?

Is that what you—. Yeah, so we could just recreate the MINTI with the understanding that the first number is operational, the second number is pilot. We'll do 100, 0, 75, 25.

50/50, 25/75, 0/100. Does that make sense?

Yes. Are you with me? I know. I got you. All right, give us a moment.

We'll just take a quick break. Chuck, are you wanting to say— okay, look like you wanted to say something. No, it's kind of process. Me too. You all are.

Creating budget by committee is I don't do that in my office. I just create it and then there's discussion. So this is interesting process for me. Mildred, were you about to say something or—. Yes, I was just going to say, wow, good processing the way you're fast.

Yeah, you said the Menti was a really good idea. I like that. Well, I was just trying to do like polling, trying to get people's sense rather than just getting into numbers and just trying to figure these out so we can starts creating it. And most importantly, I really wanted to make sure that, uh, it wasn't just based off my thoughts and then presenting you something that really— again, trying to involve the board.

Who knew spending $5 million was so difficult, right? I think back to our, you know, first conversations as a board is it's a drop in the bucket, right? Yeah, it seems like a lot of money until it's not. Yeah, excuse me. All right, everybody go join the mentee again.

Okay, did we just— let's see, and it's—. Let me share screen for those. So I see 75—. Hold on, 75 operation, 25 read them because they didn't order the way she did. 100, 0.

We also need like— okay, we got those. Okay, I think, yeah, I think we got it. You have to read them carefully. Yes, they just didn't go in the order she, she put them in.

Oh, weird. Why did it—. I know it does that. I think it—. Yeah, I don't know, it randomizes for everybody.

Yeah. The face that they're blocking. Oh, I'm so sorry.

Should be 8 of us that vote. We're up to 7.

Might be just Jessica's circling and that pops in there at the end. Give folks just a moment.

Well, we can see the results right here. Just looking at it, doesn't— it's a close— I'm not sure how the votes work or if it shows on your end. The majority of people were feeling, but What is that? What is that vote? Is that like 3 people, 4 people?

Like, what's— do we have those numbers? They just—. Yeah. Well, they're probably counting a ranking. It's like, well, that's the thing.

Some of us might have said second option, but—. Oh yeah, because of how you rank it. Yeah, that's true. So the way this is just laying out, it just gives us an idea. People are leaning towards more the operational than the capital.

But not too far off is at least 75-25% and then a 50— people would basically— they're strong, overwhelming saying we need to do operational, not as much for the capital, but there is a desire if we could. So that gives me an idea and we play because one of the thoughts I've also had is, which will set it up, is having a conversation with Rasmussen. Is there a partnership on that capital side? We've talked about it. Could we set something up?

So there's a lot of things that we need to look at to be able to do, and I'll connect with Christina to help with some of that and start seeing if we can position. Because again, I think we're in a much better position if a couple of things happen. One, if we try to develop certain partnerships like that, and I don't know what other one there could be, but to show both the mayor and the assembly, like, we're not just looking to you, we are also strategizing. And the other component is setting up that there's some strong data that shows why this— why we need to separate these dollars and go back to the school. And I'm working on that.

And then have the advocacy arm. So again, we're going to create something but we're just not going to create it and then hope that people just do as we ask. Is there's going to be a, a plan put forward, uh, with— in conjunction with the board and then the Children's Trust to, uh, to try to move our ultimate agenda and goal. Because if we go back to the overall budget If we could just, again, if we just right now, if we got rid of the money for Best Beginnings and ASD back, and let me rephrase, that sounded wrong. We can move ASD and Best Beginnings back over to another funding source That is a savings of over $2 million, and we could still do operation capital and everything else that we have done.

So, um, yeah, the numbers aren't— that doesn't make sense. The total's not adding up. Oh, it's because we have the operational in there. That's why. So anyway, we can't see it.

Oh, sorry. Yeah. Thank you.

So by getting rid of those, it leaves at least $500,000 for, uh, doing some, uh, pilot or capital projects. And then if we have partnership, we could get a couple hundred thousand maybe from Rasmussen to add to it, or them coming in with that and then picking some— like, who knows? But there is that opportunity.

And then with rollover dollars potential, so there is some value being able to do that and doing that advocacy work, which we'll do.

Okay. More yet to come. We'll work with you all and keep you apprised.

And I'll start working with Christina around this. Any additional comments, questions, thoughts around the budget?

Hearing none. Uh, any, uh, announcements or additional work or topics?

Christina, is there anything that you need from us? Otherwise, we get out of here 30 minutes early.

I think just knowing that I'm here, if there's anything else that you think of between meetings that you would like to see prepared for the meeting or given to you ahead of time, feel free to reach out and Yeah. Okay, uh, and as I've been looking at advocacy and some other things, I'll be circling you all in. This will need a little bit of board support and/or involvement, a little bit beyond what you're normally used to. I do recognize if you can't participate because of role and so forth, I get that, but making sure that you're all a part of it and at least know what's going on. So more to come on that.

Okay, and I would just say one more piece that we are working on is Carlos's position was, is fully funded by ACE Fund, but it is set up in the health department and specific just to grants and contracts. And so, as prior, when it was Austin as a contractor supporting this fund, There were a lot of other MUNI support who, because she wasn't a MUNI employee, were filling in parts of making all of this work. And now that I'm here, that's all transitioned to me. And so there is a need we're working with. We're working to restructure Carlos's position to come over to this department, be under me, and be able to help with other, you know, from suit to that.

So getting a sense of things that we're working on, things that I'm working on beyond just the little small grants and contracts piece, especially as we move forward in budgets, thinking about what we're actually— great, you know, if we reduce pilots and capitals, that's a large amount less of grants and contracts. So just keeping everyone in the loop that that's something that we're working on on the back end. Thank you.

Right. All right. If there's nothing else, this meeting adjourns at 10:31. Thank you, everybody. Have a wonderful Wednesday.

Enjoy the sunshine. Thank you. Take care. Thanks, everybody.