ACCEE Fund Board Meeting, October 2, 2025

Hi, Diana.

Hello, can you guys hear me? Hi. Hello. Yes, we can hear you. Okay.

Hi.

Thank you, Rachel.

You're welcome.

All right, Diana, I'm gonna head out. Is that okay? Yes. Okay.

Hey.

Thanks for sending the text.

Is there like a UA jobs list server or something? Are there ways that they distribute that? There is a thing called Handshake. Oh. But I'm saying if you're looking to hire somebody from the business college, this is the It's the easiest way to do it.

We have a conjoint newsletter too, so I can make sure that it gets on the list.

And handshake is always— Hello, Mary. Hey Trevor, how are we going? Good. I have a question for you. Sure.

I'm using it anytime I go here. Well, you're done at 12:18. Yes. So what time do you finish now?

As close to noon as possible. All right, all right. Okay, we'll move people. Thank you so much, I really appreciate it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hello, hello.

It's going. You made it here. I did. I was trying to be quick enough to maybe grab a coffee, but I was like, yeah, I saw you in there. I was like, oh, I need to get going.

Can't be late. Always looks bad that you're late and you got a coffee in hand and people are like, no. It's like time management. Yeah, that's barely Oh, you're like double on. I'm like, why?

I'm like, Erin, why do I see you? What? I'm in two places at once. I figured it out. Wow.

Could you teach me that skill? I wasn't sure if I would need to share screen. Yeah, there we go. Okay. Um, who's managing today?

You are, Trevor. Diana and Marie are both home sick today. Um, Sharon from the mayor's office is coming in to start the Teams— she obviously already started the Teams meeting, but to restart the recording, I believe. Okay.

She's got a couple minutes. I'm sorry. And I might be able to start it too. I don't know. Oh, hi, Diane.

It's starting. It's starting. Austin, it's already started. Great. Yeah.

Okay, I will just sit here then. I don't know if we have a staff I have no idea. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] No, I need you here so it all works. Thank you. I appreciate that offer.

Well, it's a minute after, so let's just call the meeting to order. Can we do roll call?

I can do that. Trevor is here.

Jessica, Xian, and now you told me people are sick and I can't remember who you said. Bronwyn. Good morning. Good morning. Can you hear me?

Yes. Can you hear us? Yes. For now, right? We'll see how that all works out later.

Right.

Kevin. Great. Khalil? Here. Georgina?

And Georgina will be joining in just a few minutes, Trevor. Okay. Mildred, I think I— yes, I do see you. Yes, sir. Good morning.

Good morning. Jessie? Here. Oh, there. I'm like, where did that come from?

Hi. Hi. Oh, perfect timing. And Chuck. Fabulous.

We do have a quorum. And past it. I couldn't hear. Yes, Chuck is here. Just for notes.

Thanks. You bet. All right. Uh, the agenda is before you all. Uh, any changes, additions?

Chair, can we add consideration and hopefully approval or not? That's either fine of the August 7th meeting notes. I forgot to add that to the agenda when I created it. Absolutely. Where are we?

Approval minutes. And so we could add it to the date. August. What was that? August what?

August 7th. Thank you. I will add that. Any other?

Hearing none, we will jump right into exactly what you asked. We need to do approval of our minutes. Um, do we, uh, September 4th and 5th strategic planning session minutes and our August 7th board meeting minutes? Motion to approve. Thank you.

From Khalil. Go ahead. Thank you. Second from Kevin. Any discussion?

None. Anybody opposed?

Passage unanimous. Love it. Oh, and just to let folks know, I was asked to try to get us out of here a little bit as close to noon as possible due to the fact that they have a press conference at 12:30 and have to do cleanup and setup. So I will try to get us as close to that as possible so I stay in the good graces of the Mayor's Office. All right, we do have public comment.

Is anybody here for public comment?

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] All right.

We will close that. Was that somebody joining? No, that's messages. Okay. All right.

If somehow somebody does show up and we have the time, we'll make it. We'll jump into old business. Executive director search, just to provide a quick update, the announcement closed on the 30th, which was Tuesday, and we have 30 applicants. So, Bill, have they already been reviewed to that they meet at least the minimum requirements? My understanding.

Okay. This is only the people that met the minimum. Okay. So we might have received more, but they at least meet the minimum. So that's great.

So 30 applicants are in. Just to remind folks, on the interview committee from the board is myself, Jesse, and Khalil. Just letting people in. And then from the administration, we have Bill. Is it going to be you, Suzanne?

I think it's going to be me. Okay. And/or Nolan, right? And/or maybe. And/or, not both.

Oh, it's just an or. Or. Okay. Just an or. I'm waiting to hear, so, 'cause I'm working that out.

So we do have interview committee. I do have a general timeline. We've been working with the committee. The hope is by the month of October, we get through the first set interview. Well, let me rephrase.

So first is review of the 30 applications. We have designed an evaluation matrix based off of the job description in the core role. Each of the interview committee will review that score. It is weighted because some of our requirements or need as a— for a staff is greater than, for example, fiscal management is not going to be as important as the leadership and strategy section. So we've waited and the committee looked at it.

They've approved it.

From that, we will determine who gets interviewed. It has not been determined we're going to take the top 10, the top what, that's still yet to be decided. Of doing that, we'll go through interview 1, hopefully by the end of October, select the top candidates, 2 to 3 individuals is what's being proposed, do a second interview. And then hopefully have somebody selected by end of November to mid-December. And this is all based off of everybody's schedule, which I say that with a big asterisk because it's just really tough to get the entire team together and be able to do all these interviews.

So that timeline may change. What's most important is we will definitely be communicating with those 30 applicants as we go along where they're at and what the time frame is and trying to minimize it so we don't leave people out there that might be looking and could be the right person, but we lose them because they find something else. But also recognizing that we don't want to hurry the process either. Am I missing anything from folks on the team? Got it.

Is there any questions from the other board members?

Jack, please. What roles do board members who aren't on here? Uh, the— what will happen is, in the sense of the full board, is, is, um, just one moment. Is there anybody else? Uh, is Diana or somebody online able to take care of letting people in and so forth, or do I need to do that here?

I just want clarity. I'm taking care of it. Fabulous. So you're here, you're just sick. Okay, thank you.

So I won't touch this anymore. I wasn't sure what I needed to do. Appreciate it. Uh, Chuck, uh, what we looked at doing was the committee, when we get down to our last 2 to 3 and we've done interviews, we would go into an executive session, share that, and then share what our recommendation is for hire and why. Obviously opening up for conversation because the executive, and then be able to come out and be able to finalize that.

Now, uh, I, I just want to recognize that Georgina has joined us from the board. Welcome, Georgina.

Remind me, Austin, if I'm correct, we can only have 3 of us as board members on this committee because otherwise it becomes a meeting, correct? Correct, unless you're meeting— unless all of the things you're doing are in public, but I don't assume they would be, right? There— none of this would be in the public, so we can't have 4 or 5 board members, right? Correct. Okay, so just to remind everybody, that's why there's just 3 board members.

'Cause I, and I was checking going, well, maybe people are interested in joining. So, and if there is another way and open to discussion, if board members would like to see the matrix and give feedback, if, and please correct me if we're not able to do any of this. Again, MUNI system or it can be a bit different.

Board members wanted to— and help me because it's not a meeting— board members, if you wanted to be part of the review of the applications and add your thoughts of who should be interviewed, we could do that because it's not coming together as a group, correct? Not by email, so all members can't be emailing each other because that's essentially like meeting, right? We're not doing that. They would be sending me separate. Well, you remember, so you wouldn't want to communicate with everyone.

Yeah. Okay. Violation, but you can—. Sounds like we have to stick with the 3. I'm not pushing for anything.

Okay. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're new, but I was also trying to create the space, which was good. Khalil.

Well, Alvin can correct me, but I thought Austin could send a matrix to the board members and then so I can have some ideas. Chuck could send them to Austin. Yeah, someone who's not on the board, so it could be me or Bill or Susan or Suzanne or Nolan, depending on who or if anyone should play that role. But we could collate responses or thoughts and then share them with you, Trevor. It just can't be you communicating with board members.

Not sure. Anyways, so if board members are interested that aren't on and would like some type of role and would like to explore it, let me know. Otherwise, keeping at the 3 will just ensure that we are being fully compliant. So just to share. Okay.

And then Trevor, you might consider, or maybe Bill has already done this, but talking with Jessica Willoughby from the mini— mini attorney's office, because when we were intending to hire the ED prior to me staying on longer as a contractor, we spoke with her, or I spoke with her about executive sessions and how that might apply in hiring decisions, and there was some nuance there. So you just might want to circle back with her. Thank you. We'll do that, make sure that we're being compliant and following. Okay, thank you.

Anything else on the search?

Okay, uh, the 26th Budget. Um, so just update on the budget process, um, and then Austin will go into communications support. So we had a meeting, was it last week, with the mayor? I think it was last week, right? Yes, sorry, I've been traveling, so the weeks have been blending.

So, yeah, just as a reminder for the board as well as the public, uh, as we finalized our budget and approved it in August. The next step was to share it before the 2nd of September with the Mayor's Office Administration so they could look at it. We were also being proactive in wanting to meet with the mayor to get their thoughts and opinions, and again, wanting to be in line. So if they wanted to make changes or wanted something else, that one, we could either bring it back to the board, we could talk about it, but making sure that as we are working then with the assembly and so forth, that we're as much as possible in step together in showing of support. So we had that meeting last week.

Austin and I met with the mayor and her team. Bill was involved, Suzanne, OMB was there, blanking on the name. Thank you. I think that was— and Nolan was in the room. So we shared our proposal and you all received an email, and Austin already outlined that the mayor's office also let us know of some of the constraints that they have.

And really the big conversation was around the $2 million related to ASD. Again, just to remind folks, ASD, from the time the alcohol tax was being issued, was receiving $2 million for pre-K, preschool. That was something that was advocated very strong by actually the Alaska Children's Trust. When we got that fund passed, that one of the key preventions can be early childhood, and so one of the easiest ways of investing in our need here around childcare and just support was supporting ASD. So that's what happened.

When this fund, the ACE Fund, was created and we were starting to put out that money, it was when we came out with our first budget and we had some surplus of dollars. It was at that time that the school district funding came over, which allowed some more money in the alcohol tax to be utilized. That came over. We've had that conversation. We had the Mayor in, we've talked about it.

We were hoping to see that money go back over to the Alcohol, that was the hope, and some of the previous conversations were alluding to that, that that was a potential, but as they have been working on their budget, that's not what's going to be able to be happening. So they have shared that some of the projects that they have been doing, and it's mostly around on the homeless side, and if I'm misquoting anything, please do correct me, that, that funding, uh, bringing over would actually limit, uh, some of the key projects that they've been implementing around the homeless because they also had some funding changes of who is and is not investing in that whole, uh, process. So trying to manage that as well as managing, uh, this fund, and we do have some surpluses there that they wanted the $2 million to stay with the ACE Fund. So that's where, uh, we talked. I did share my disagreement with that, but I also understand where they stand, uh, and so forth.

So what we agreed, Austin and I, because ultimately we can only recommend as a budget, and I do appreciate they heard and they agree, but also how do we manage these.

2 Things that they would love for the $2 million to still be back there. And that's having more, and it's trying to meet both needs. That what we said we would do is go back to the budget and look at, all right, what is the priorities from this board? What really stood up? Uh, and what didn't?

And also do a little bit more of a deep analysis of where with some of the current funding we could expect some additional funding coming over. So surplus, as well as what could maybe be decreased. So from that, Austin, do you have it handy by chance? I don't. Are you able to pull it up?

I have it. Oh, great. Oh, you have it, but we can't share it on the screen. You would not be able to do that. As Austin works to—.

So you're talking about the updated document, the alternative that we sent? Yes. Okay, because I just don't want to misspeak. I don't have a copy in front of me. Yep.

And just making sure. Okay, so, um, I know the first thing that we were able to reduce, we met with Alaska Family Services, who is managing the stipend program for child care workers. What was the current number out of that? What would be the value that was needed for the year? And what space would be needed?

Because it's been open enrollment for allowing growth as people know more about it and start applying. So we worked with them and came out with a number and saw that we could reduce that. I think we reduced it by 750,000 down to 1.75, but as we get it up— Austin, if you can see it on your end, that's great. We can't. Interesting.

And I think this happened before. You did it. Same thing. Weird. Okay, it says you're sharing a window and there's a red line all around the document.

Bizarre. Yeah, and it's blank on our end. Um, I'll walk through it. Diana, Diana, would you mind sharing it? I don't know what's going on with my Teams.

Great. Um, and Austin, make sure as I'm going through this Yeah, or even I'll let you send it to her. So we were able to drop that. The number one thing that did not see any change was the stabilization grants that go right to providers. That remained at 2.4.

That was the highest priority. We heard that from the public comments. We also heard it from the board. We did not change that. We reduced our pilot in capital down to— is it 1.4?

1.35. Thank you. 1.25.

Again, we saw that as an opportunity to reduce. It's one-time dollars, and it's not like any of the ongoing. We did keep the $500,000 for The new project of—. Sector worker retention bonuses. Thank you.

The retention bonus, which isn't going to necessarily happen because we agreed that what we need to do is research, would that actually do something? What would that look like in determining the value of it? But we kept it as a placeholder because there was enough support around it, and we did eliminate the $100,000 for the potential grants for home-based care and setting that up. Trevor, just one edit from what you will see in the budget later today on this is we took all of the changes except the Mayor did want to invest in that new startup fund. Okay.

So she moved $100K from the retention bonuses into that startup fund. Okay. So it's $400K and $100K. Thank you, because that was going to be one of my questions to the administration. Is there any other changes?

That's the only— perfect timing. All right, thank you, appreciate that. And then the rest was expected dollars that we are going to see coming over for, uh, unspent dollars from this year. And we also reduced, just so you know, we reduced our $590 $1,000,000 that could go towards administration down to $500,000. So with all those changes and the rollover dollars or unspent dollars, uh, we kept the budget amount the same.

Um, but those are the changes with, of course, the addition then of the $2 million for ASD.

Am I missing anything, administration or Austin, that we talked about? I think you've got it. I think we've got just a little bit of additional color commentary, which is, as Trevor mentioned, the unique time press conferences when we reveal the general budget and the overall story we can give you a preview. It's just not enough to go around. And so part of this change is just motivated by needing to keep the wheels on in a lot of different places.

And, you know, if we had more, we would be able to do more, but that's right. Yeah, and I would just add to that because there obviously was interplay between the alcohol tax fund and this.

What you will see in the alcohol tax is the mayor wanted to invest more money in being able to provide shelter for families. Really, I mean, we cut it off— it has traditionally been cut off in the summer, and this summer we have seen many families living in cars, in parking lots around Anchorage, and She wanted to make sure that we got those kids back ready to be stable as they approached the school year. So we put out of just 2025 more money into that program and going forward into 2026. She also wanted to make sure that we had more stability for families next summer. So that's one of the pushes that was on the alcohol tax, which left us very little flexibility to be able to move the ASD funds back into the alcohol tax.

And also, it has been a priority of hers to have year-round stable shelter, which is— this is the first time we have in the administration has done that. And so that too takes up more of the alcohol tax so that people are not going in and out of shelter when they close in the summer.

Thank you, uh, Diana, can you just enlarge that just a little bit? That's great. Questions, comments from board members? First, we'll start in the room. I'm not seeing any hands up, I don't think, on screen.

Uh, Khalil, so just, I have a couple questions. Like, I haven't seen the overall budget, not as familiar, but In the big picture, I mean, how many millions are going to these projects that you're talking about? And like, of that, how much, like, how many million is going to the hotel rooms to help shelter people? Like, just for me to understand the big picture for that. Under the alcohol tax, there is roughly $15 million altogether, but there's different buckets within that.

So, A piece of that is going to domestic violence and prevention money. And then there's also the shelter piece is about $7 million that comes out of the alcohol tax. And then there's some other programs such as the 24/7 mobile response team. There's an additional $500,000 this year going to the 3rd Avenue Navigation Center. For better coordination between APD when— or frankly, the fire department too, when people need to get off the street and start going into supported services and hopefully transitioning into housing.

So that's the alcohol tax. And then there's also a chunk that is under the Anchorage Health Department for under the general government operating budget and the hotel rooms. The only remaining contract that is those non-congregate hotel rooms is for the Alex Hotel, and that budget actually was changed so that we have funding with our, again, very restricted pots for the winter months for non-congregate. The congregate shelter is still funded year-round, and that non-congregate is roughly $3.5 million. And so, okay, cover the $15 million from the alcohol tax, but then if you total, like, the sheltering costs in— for a non-technical term, like, the general fund, basically, I mean, like, how much total?

Just to help me understand, like, I would say there's, there's about $20 million, which is $10 million less than we spent last year on community safety, but that's not just shelter. That is shelter. Plus, again, funding for STAR and AWAKE to deal with domestic violence. That's funding for APD and AFD for their mobile crisis teams. That's money for the Hope Team that's going into camps every day and trying to move people into services and shelter, but not actually paying for a shelter bed.

The entire community safety budget's about $20 million, and last year it was about $30 million. And part of that, if you're wanting to be like, why are you cutting $10 million for community? Part of that is because we are moving— the goal is we are actually moving more people into housing. And so in another section of their budget, there is money for housing. So that's the micro units, hopefully bringing on additional micro units and more recovery residences, as well as assisted living housing.

And what's the number on that other housing? And I apologize, I know I'm not using the correct MOA terms, but so there's the $20 million, and then, like, how much of this other housing is there? Uh, I don't know that number off the top of my head, to be honest. Um, I'm just trying to get a lay of the land. Yeah, it's— I would say it is my— uh, it's probably in the several million.

I would guess, but I have to go look through the budget book again to get a full number. So, I have a quick comment because I want to also let other people speak, but I don't envy the positions that you are all in. I recognize that you have extremely difficult balances to strike, but I do want to express concern that my understanding is that the voters, you know, passed this to have it as a new additional pot of money for these targeted purposes. And I think what happened last year and what's happening this year doesn't match that intent. That it's basically taking $2 million.

That's not a new amount of money going toward these purposes. You know, it had another source. And then in the process, I mean, last year we had these same conversations and our understanding, both in conversation and in writing from the mayor's office, was that there was a commitment to not do this again. And then, you know, we find out about a week and a half ago. And that was kind of surprising to the board members, you know, that it's happening again.

So I guess my concern is like, the outcome doesn't match the voters' intent, that there's additional money. And the process also kind of surprised me a little bit, you know, that we had this commitment, we relied on it, and then here we are again. Um, so I just wanted to share that it is concerning, and I, I think that there should be a way for the budget to match, come closer. I didn't expect that the mayor's office would just, you know, rubber stamp the budget. Obviously, I, I'm not that naive, but this is a pretty significant shift from what we worked on, which was largely we're trying to rely on the public's participation throughout the process.

So I just wanted to kind of share, you know, where I'm at on it, and I appreciate that you all are working tirelessly on a very difficult situation, but I hope there's a better outcome in the future.

I would love for there to be a better outcome in the future. I would love the municipality to actually have the resources that it needs to do all of the things that the public wants us to be getting done, but we don't. And you will hear that very clearly from the mayor, is that we are— we have underfunded the municipality for decades, and everything's coming home to roost. I mean, we are not able to pave our roads, we are not able to provide basic services because of the way that our revenue streams are structured, and The alcohol tax and the marijuana tax are great because they are additive, but they are not nearly enough. So when the public writ large is asking us to have more police officers, more firefighters, paved roads, plowed roads, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, we're trying to meet those.

We have shaken all the coins. Out of the couch cushions and there are no more coins. And we would love to be able to either have ASD pick up that $2 million or fund it somewhere else so that it didn't come out of this fund, but we don't have that option. Jesse didn't immediately agree to that. I'm sorry.

But I think, clearly, we hear you. I think we should understand exactly where you're coming from, and I'm hopeful that we can figure out a better solution next year. And maybe it's a good time to sort of tease the better solution. We have talked to Austin and Trevor about this, but, you know, I said there's not— there's not enough. The pie has shrunk and the needs have gotten much greater.

We're not the same city that we were in 1985, and yet people still think that we should operate under a budget that is essentially our 1985 budget. Less than the billion dollars that we should have gotten from the state of Alaska. So we— the mayor's been talking about making another run at a sales tax, and one of her priorities that she wants to address within a new sales tax structure is how we make Anchorage affordable for families and for residents across the board, and she believes a key piece of that is child care. So we started again talking to Austin and Trevor about what that could look like, and you'll hear more about that too. And I guess to further tease it a little bit, I mean, I think not only do we feel like there's not enough general government revenue to let us do things like not take the $2 million out of the marijuana tax, I think we've also heard you in the white paper and you on the board say the amount of money that is dedicated to this purpose through the marijuana tax is not enough to make the systemic change that we want.

So that is all going into the soup, and I think we're going to have probably many more conversations with the board about that bolder vision in the coming months.

Anything else from board members? Chuck? Yeah, I would just love to understand the ASD classrooms piece from a— just so I can talk about it if anyone asks me, like, What does that look like in the grand scheme of the preschool budget? Like, it's—. I'm reading it essentially as like operation support, just different set of preschool classrooms.

Uh, like, how many students is it? It funds 8 preschool classrooms. Um, it targets high-risk families. Those that are experiencing, um, risk factors. It also funds a teacher expert to support those classrooms.

It, under that umbrella, has for families that might not get into our programming because we don't have universal— we have 34 classrooms total, and each one caps out at 17. So I have a waitlist of, I think, 700 right now.

We have a program that we offer online to families that don't get into our program. So we purchase a program called Waterford and offer that.

In addition, it covers health and safety supplies, teaching supplies, field trip money. A quick and dirty math from what you said, about 100 pre-K slots? Uh, well, can I suggest maybe formulate an email, get it to Austin, and she can share it to the board? And we're actually planning that, uh, Jess would actually do a presentation of just what's been going on at ASD and so forth and making sure. But we can get you that info.

Okay, great. Can we stop sharing screen, please? Um, Thomas, I see your hand up. Uh, normally it's only board, uh, discussion. When I can, I allow the public, and I'm saying that just so the public knows.

But if you have a quick question, but if it's in-depth, we'll have to pause it. Go ahead. Yeah, mine was just, Trevor, as you were speaking, because we didn't see the document on the screen, is everything that you were sharing about the proposed budget, was that in the column saying '26 proposed budget'? And there just, there was some, in particular, you said, I think one piece that there was $100,000 that was going to go back in instead for the Home Startup, I think, and I didn't see that in that piece. So there, I was just a little, I was trying to track my notes as you were listening and we didn't have it up on screen yet.

So just if you can go back to the proposed budget and is that everything that you were sharing, is that the budget that right now is moving forward? What we will actually do is, that's what we were proposing, but actually what the mayor will come out with was something, is going to be slightly different and that's what you're hearing. Once the mayor releases that, we'll actually take that budget and put it out to the public. So you'll see it on our website. So you'll actually see what the mayor is proposing versus what we are, because we're not that deciding body, and that's what will go before the assembly.

So that's what we'll do. Okay, thank you. That helped clarify the question then. Absolutely. Kevin, I guess I would just want to comment and support was said before that I think this was sold to voters as additional resources.

And to the extent that things are being shifted to cover projects that were already happening or replace other funds to free up money, um, I think it leads to potential challenges in the future if we're going to ask people for more money. Like, we're going to go back to the voters and ask them for more tax dollars, and they could say that the last time we voted for child care, you shifted it, put it into other things. I think that complicates the city's position in the future. Especially when the most recent sales tax proposal didn't even make it to voters. Um, it got stopped in the Assembly.

And so I'd be concerned just from the, the viability of this program and support from this program when we promised something and then we underdelivered.

If we go back and ask for more, it's a harder ask. Everything—. The only thing I would say though is if you look at this $8+ million budget, um, it is all child care. That $2 million going to ASD is child care. So as you see, if the voters were expecting child care, they, they are getting child care.

And there are many other On the other side of the alcohol tax too, there, you know, those are additional expenses that I would say, I mean, I would say making sure that children are housed is also critically important. And so when you're trying to make all the pieces work, we hear what the voters said, but the voters, I mean, Voters have said many things since the alcohol tax was passed as well. And so I would say what is— what I mean, the marijuana tax, but what you see this $8+ million going to is what the voters wanted. I appreciate your perspective on that. And the other thing I would just ask is, to what extent are we talking with our statewide leaders about some of these issues too, particularly the housing crisis?

That's not an Anchorage-only issue. I mean, it seems a bit like we're also trying to take city resources now to solve statewide problems, and that is just not possible. I mean, we can all talk about the Alaska disconnect, the issues with the way Alaska has structured its finances that leads to permanent budget issues that can't be solved. But are we talking— like, I would just be interested if the administration is talking with the governor's office, the Anchorage delegations, to point out just the situation they've put our municipal government, our school district, everyone in. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER_ARKOOSH] Yep.

We are. We actually have a meeting on Monday with the Anchorage delegation. We have been talking to, well, we've talked to the Governor's Office, but we've also talked to different parts of the state administration that overlap with housing to try and bring more dollars into Anchorage and be more creative about how some of those funds are spent. [Speaker:JULIE] And so the answer is yes, we will within our legislative proposal that goes to the legislature, probably somewhere around December, you will see a number of things relating back to housing, both from a capital perspective, but also legislative code changes that would be very helpful to us. So I would say, stay tuned, and we would love your help talking to your legislators when they go to Juneau in January or even before and make sure that they're aware that there are things that they can do to help Anchorage.

And I agree, there's no shelter in the Mat-Su Valley. There are many places around the state that do not, that we are taking some of the burden on And people, you know, come to Anchorage and then can't get back home. We recently, thanks to a very generous resident of Anchorage, there was a pregnant woman in a camp who he helped her get back to Texas because she finally decided that it was time to create a safer environment for herself. So there are people coming from all over the place. If you read the article about the man from lower 48 that was in a shelter and took up art and is now stable enough that he can get himself back to the lower 48.

So yeah, we definitely communicate that we take on a lot here.

All right. Anything else from board members? Thank you. And yes, not only Anchorage, but even the state, and there's a lot going on there on a financial level as well, as we know. And then, uh, you add the federal.

So let's, uh, keep rolling. Uh, Austin, communication support update. Yeah, sure. Um, so for a little while I've been exploring, um, some ways to get a little bit of communication support, um, thinking of things like brainstorming and strategizing how best to communicate out certain ACE Fund opportunities, like applying for RFPs or ensuring that ED positions shared far and wide in an appealing way that gets gets public attention and design and graphic support. So as you know, you know, being able to have a graphic that accompanies text that we're sharing out with partners on social media or otherwise is really effective.

And right now I'm the one making those and I'm not a professional design person and I don't think it's the best use of my time. And so just trying to brainstorm, you know, how that support could happen. I've asked other members employees of the Muni. I had the Assembly Comms person create a graphic for me once, but I've sort of just been borrowing from other people and then using my somewhat limited skills. I've also just been thinking a little bit long-term for you all that I think at some point it will be helpful to maybe have an annual report that you're producing, or one-pagers about the programs and how effective they are, and how you're meeting metrics associated with the strategic plan.

And all of that takes some level of graphic or design support. I think the person could also be used to, you know, provide a handout to the public about how to engage in the budget process and provide public testimony, that kind of thing. And, you know, even potentially digital ads if we're trying to, you know, sponsor, get out the word about programs that we have, and especially in harder-to-reach populations. So I've been talking with the mayor's office for a couple months. They have a contract with Thompson and Co., which some of you might be familiar with, so local communications outfit.

And I've been asking them if we can use They sort of have an interesting setup. The municipality has a contract with Thompson Co. in general with a not-to-exceed amount of that contract over a certain course of time. And so I've been asking if the ACE Fund could use a piece of that. And to be more specific, I got a proposal from Thompson Co. and then we whittled it down to make it less so that we weren't taking too much of the, the mayor's office contract, but have a contract right now for $40,000 for a lot of those services that would be billed on an as-needed basis. And I think at a pretty reasonable hourly rate, and I'm just waiting to hear from the Mayor's Office if it's okay for the ACE Fund.

We would pay for it out of our administration portion of our budget for 2025 and 2026, but we can only do that if they have room in that contract to allow us to use it. So I don't know, Suzanne, it sounds like you're the person who's giving the yay or nay on that, and if you can't right now, that's okay, but if you, if you know that we could use it, then I could pursue getting that support, especially as we're going through budget season.

Yeah, I think my answer is yes. I'm trying to remember what the overall cap is on that contract in '26. I can forward you that email. I think it— oh, Bill, go ahead, maybe you—. Sorry, if you've got better details, I was going to say my understanding was that it was the 3-year cap, that a lot of it had been consumed in the early years, so there was just a question about capacity left on the contract.

I think there's about $96,000 left, and it was through maybe next fall, so it is, it is a chunk of it. So let, if, you know, if it needs to be reduced, I think we're okay with that too. And I don't know that we would even use the full amount. I just want to have someone to partner with me to create these things to get out the word better. I've been doing my best, but I think it's just hard with everything else going on, and I want the public to be following along.

So Let me know if that doesn't seem right, or if there's another way. I mean, we could pursue our own RFP or something, right? I was— we were just trying to use that when I was talking with Barry. I'll let you, Austin, follow up offline. I'm just looking at our time.

It's more just knowledge to the board of what you're doing on the comm side, and we'll update folks. Yeah, and just making sure the board supports that as well. I think that was part of why Trevor wanted to bring it. Yeah. Any questions on that?

All right. We're going to do just updates on program. We have operational funding. We have Linda from THREDD here. So please join us at the table and provide an update.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] All right, thank you everyone for having us. I'm Melinda Myers. I'm the Chief Operations Officer at THREDD, and with me is Jen Clark, our Director of Professional Development, and we are here to give an update on the operational grants that we are providing to programs. And so I think Jen is going to do an overview of just kind of where we're at, at this point in time. Yes, thanks, Melinda.

So all programs have been paid. So all checks have gone out. Well, there's one check going out today, but otherwise everybody's been paid for a total of $2,300,548.

So the programs that were paid, there were 7 ACA-accredited daycare.

AMPS, 11 licensed school-age programs, 17 non-relative providers, 77 licensed child care centers, 85 licensed family child care homes for a total of 198 programs that were paid. Um, we were asked to give an overview of the formula funding. So, um, we are confident in our approach to formula funding. We've had years of experience determining similar broad-based grants. To child care programs with varying amounts of funding.

So we applied a proven methodology to determine the formula driven by wanting to ensure the maximum support for all those that are eligible. And so the way we've done it in the past and how we did it this time is to take the pot of funding and identify the number of licensed slots and then massage the money to maximize usage. For the camps and non-relative providers, we decided to provide a flat funding amount as there's not a way to confirm or verify the total number of children that they're serving.

And then for the add-ons, such as Learn and Grow or providing, receiving child care assistance and those things, we did one flat additional amount if they were providing one or any of those additional services. So, the flat funding amount for the ACA-accredited programs, if they were serving 1 to 99 children, was $6,280. If they were serving 100 to 199, it was $11,280. If they were serving 200 to 299, it was $16,280. And for those providing care for 300 children plus was $21,280.

So, um, all of those were 1 except there were 4 that were serving children between $100 and $199. For the non-relative providers, we provided a flat funding amount of $500.

And then the formula that we used for the licensed slots was $271 per licensed slot. So if they're licensed for 1 child, they get $271, 2 children $542, you know, all the way up. So there were 7,501 slots for a total of $2,032,771 to licensed child care programs. And then For the additional amounts for meeting any of the, the additional add-on services, the ACA accredited day camps and the licensed child care centers received an additional $1,227. The licensed family child cares received $727, and the non-relative providers received $200.

Um, so the rationale for that was that the MOA license programs have health and safety requirements and monitoring throughout the whole year by licensing. And MOA licensing, um, licensed facilities have 2 inspections a year with required follow-up to remedy any non-compliant findings. ACA day camps have to have a new certificate every 3 years. They're only open for shorter amounts of time than a licensed child care. They don't have licensing inspections.

We can't validate how many children they are serving. The applications were self-report, and the rationale was that the camps would get more than the non-relative because they serve more kids and do have some standards. It's just not as many inspections. The non-relatives do have to fill out paperwork with licensing, but they're not required to maintain or update anything. They don't have health safety licensing requirements or inspections or any other monitoring.

They're only ever visited if a complaint is filed and we can't validate how many children they're serving. And we didn't ask for any proof that they're open or accepting children in our application. And even if we did, there's really no way for us to verify that information.

We could have verified if they have an exemption, but it's a one-time verification, so we don't know if they're still in that situation, if they're still serving children. But we did not ask for proof of exemption. Um, and then for the bonus categories, there were 5 different bonus categories that we asked about. And if we had paid each one individually, the amount per category would have been very small. So that's why we went with the, the bulk number, um, if they were providing any of those.

So that's kind of an update on the funding. Do people have questions?

It would help, um, probably if you've got this all written out that we got it to Austin, because I couldn't write down all the numbers and look at all that kind of stuff. So that kind of stuff always is helpful when you come. We have like a one-pager or something to be able to share with the board that can always— that way we can follow along and actually see. But any initial questions from the board?

Other updates? Well, just where we're at in the process, our next steps, um, we are developing a survey in partnership with some of the board committee members, and so we are working to finalize, finalize that survey that we plan to put out in November and then collect in December and then report out in our January final report. Right.

Anything else?

Well, thank you for coming down in person for the quick and short presentation. Really do appreciate it. But yeah, if we can get those numbers and stuff—. Totally. I know it's a little bit before your final report, but I saw everybody writing things down.

It would just be helpful. Totally, right? We can do that. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Always good to see you both. That would be great. Get the number down for the notes either. Um, can I just make one comment, which is that I think while the board committee and I were working with THREDD, and they developed the formula, and then we gave a lot of feedback. One thing I would like to see if the contract is continued or this program is continued, it looks like it will be potentially with the mayor's proposed budget, but is ensuring that if, if we have things we're trying to focus on, like providing infant care or being registered with Learn and Grow or providing care during non-traditional hours, all of those things that we wanted as bonuses, I think giving a small bonus for any or all of them is not the way to go because it doesn't incentivize each of those things.

And we had a list of 4 or 5 of them. One was providing care to special needs kids. So I— they've already heard this feedback, but I would like to see hopefully next year that there is a bonus for operations that do that per thing.

Right. One of the things I'll connect with you on, Austin, is what we need is kind of a formal process of and not just how we're evaluating, but how we're going to formulate all the feedback on how to improve our systems and process that can then be shared with the board and about implementation and so forth. And we'll need to dedicate some time to that. Okay, thank you. Uh, is Emily with us?

Do you know, Austin? I'm not seeing her online. Yeah, she's supposed to be. But I don't know. Well, I have an email update that is a little old, but I pulled it up just in case she's not here so I could share that with you all.

But it was, yeah, do it in a minute or less, that'd be awesome. Yeah, so they received 79 applications, they approved 65 of those so far, that includes 112 children that are covered. A couple families were denied for not meeting certain employment requirements, and some applications are still pending, and I think that's, that's the biggest update. So we haven't seen a big increase in applications, and as Trevor mentioned, I worked with Alaska Family Services to see, sort of understand where there might be growth in the program or not and what benefits are provided now or could be to develop a reduced proposed amount for the 2026 budget.

Great. Let's just do a quick update on the pilot projects and capital, if there's been any changes. Again, I'm just being conscious of time. Yeah, so there are 17 out of the 20 projects that were approved by the Assembly are under contract with AHD and are progressing. I believe that Val is asking for a midway report in October to see what has been done, and I know that some folks are requesting reimbursement, and we're also looking at trying to get a final report report in January after projects are done so that we can learn from the experience getting funding out, but also celebrate these amazing projects that people are working on.

Just so you're aware, the 3 of the 20 that are not yet under contract include 2 capital projects that total about $161,000 and 1 pilot project that's about $155,000. So looking at about $300,000 of the $2 million that is not yet under contract, and the delay in these 3 contracts is a combination, I would say, of 2 things.

Has been primarily working on it, but now I've been more involved recently to try to move us forward. One is difficulty obtaining insurance, and that often takes a long time either to try to get it or then get a waiver for certain insurance coverages. But also, we have had a lack of response from some of those folks, and it might take a month or 6 weeks to hear back from them, which with the short timeline we have, we just don't have time to get projects done if, if that's the rate we're going. So we Kim, Rash, and Val and I have all been trying to work with those 3 awardees so that we can make sure that they get their projects done, but we'll— I think it's a jury's a little still out on whether it will be able to happen. I reached out to the evaluation committee last week or a few weeks ago just to give them a heads up and see what we should do.

You know, say none of those 3 are under contract, which we do with that remaining $300,000. I think we— AHD recommended, and I agree, and I think the evaluation committee agreed too, that it it would just be too difficult to move to the next projects on the list because there just isn't time to get projects done. And, you know, it's October now, so by the end of December, we've been exploring with the 3 that remain, you know, how could we get this done? Could you buy materials and even pay for labor up front, even if you're completing some of the actual work in January? So we're trying to be really flexible, but just running out of time.

I guess just a quick note that in future years, this process We hope to improve this process and also hope that the— if we go in the same process, that the whole selection process happens far earlier so that people have more time to get their projects done. But most all, I mean, 17 out of the 20 have been able to move forward and are actively working on their projects. Great. Any questions on that? None.

The survey, is there anything you want to share that you haven't shared in your emails, Austin, on the survey? Well, I just like the public to hear it too, so just quickly, we're collecting a survey for feedback. I designed it so it's primarily questions about the pilot project and capital process, 'cause I know that we've heard some feedback that both BidExpress was challenging, insurance requirements were maybe onerous, and then other issues, and we want to hear about those. I mean, we are within the municipality and there's only so much we can do, but I have reached out to Bill and others to say, you know, what, what can we do once we get this feedback? Make changes for next year if this is funded, of course.

I'll put the link for the survey in the chat, but it's available on our website, and we've already been receiving responses. It also includes a couple questions about the strategic draft, the draft strategic agenda, so if members of the public have feedback on that, please feel free to share it, and some general questions about the THREAT and AFS programs, but kept that really limited because they're both planning to do a survey during November. And I think that is it. Great, thank you for making that fast. Um, just folks in the room, please help yourselves.

Uh, we're just going to move along because I'm going to try to get us done maybe a little early, although we're behind, um, as always. Uh, we have, uh, Erin here with Professional Growth Systems. We should all remember her, we spent a couple days with her, and just updating on the strategic plan. So I'm going to turn it over to you. Great, thanks Trevor.

You bet. Austin, I don't know if you want me to try and share the document or we should send it to Diana. So you can try to share. You can share it. I'm surprised my Teams is behaving as it is, but I thought that was a one-time thing.

All right, can everybody see that?

Excellent. So after the retreat that we had at the beginning of September, We took all of the feedback that we gathered from those 2 days, synthesized it, and then we worked with Georgina, Chuck, Trevor, and Austin to finalize where we had left off at. So we had some really strong working drafts of our purpose statement, our values, our vision, and what we hadn't really gotten to, what had started the work on, was the strategic initiatives of what the group will actually be working towards over the next 1 to 3 years. For today's purpose, because we are looking for public feedback and comment and some more additional comments from the boards, we're not looking to approve this document, but just get alignment and agreement, agreement on this is the right direction that we are supposed to be heading specifically towards the strategic initiatives, because those are the work that's to be done and that we haven't really discussed with the board yet. And so if we can focus our area there, that will be the most effective use of time.

You will have time to comment and provide email feedback to Austin on specific word changes that you might see in the purpose statement or the values. So if I— I'm going to ask for permission because I know Trevor is trying to get us out of here on time or early, but if I think we're getting too far into the weeds of the wordsmithing of the sentences, I might kindly suggest we keep going to make sure we can hit— we've got 5 strategic initiatives that we really should look at more in depth. So with that, I know we'll look at it today. It's going out, it's already on the website, I believe, for public feedback. And then the goal will be to approve this at the next board meeting in November.

Austin, anything to add for the next steps? Just that I've sent this out to all of the participants who joined us on September 4th and 5th and asked for their feedback as well. It's on our website. I also shared it, you know, Bill and others from the administration have it, and I have shared it with the assembly too. And Trevor and I will be presenting to the assembly on October 9th, both about this and about the budget.

And can I just, just quickly say that for the survey, I shared that out with everyone who completed an application, whether they were funded or not, for pilot projects and capital. So all 48 people. So we try to get their feedback. Sorry, Aaron, but wanted to say that. No, that's a great point to add.

Thanks, Austin. A little confusing if you got one and you got, you got turned down.

Um, so we'll go ahead and start. We'll walk through the document as it is now with the purpose statement, go through the values, the vision, and then with that, that's our frame of work for understanding the direction of where the board is going. So the purpose statement as it stands now, and again, if you want to wordsmith it, take down notes, you should have this also in your email, is to strategically invest and collaborate so that children and families have access to high-quality sustainable child care and early education. So this is slightly different than where we left off during our retreat at the beginning of September, but I know a lot of care and dedication went into each and every single one of those words that was placed there.

Are there any questions or comments on the purpose statement without getting too specific on the details?

No, but just for the record, Board Member Jessica has joined us, just so— I just saw her joined. Thank you. Perfect. I'll keep us moving for the sake of time into our core values. So again, this was the activity where we brainstormed the values and then we collected and collated those based on the number, and we had you vote with stickers on which ones were there.

So the bold words are your main 5 keywords that we want to remember while we're making decisions and taking action as a board. And then there are some more descriptive words after each one of them, just to round out and really emphasize what those words mean to the board. I'm just going to read the bold words. So, child and family centered, strategic, collaborative, fair, and transparent. Those were the major themes and values that came out of our retreat.

Are there any questions or comments on the core values?

Excellent. Hearing none, I'll keep going. So this is where we took, um, all of that work and said, in 3 years, where do we want to be as a board? So in 3 years, the Anchorage child care sector will be stabilized and positioned for sustainable growth with evidence of positive impact on families and the community. And there's several bullet points for the vivid description.

And so what that vivid description is, is they don't necessarily have to be quantifiable in number, but paint the picture strong enough so that we know, did we reach that visionary goal, or have we missed the mark somehow? So we should be able to look back at this in 3 years and say, yep, we did that. Yep, we got that done. And here's the stories or the information that we need to verify that that was achieved.

Do you want me to read all of those vivid descriptions, or you guys feel pretty good?

Okay. Any questions or comments on the vision itself?

Any questions or comments on the descriptors?

This is Trevor. My only question would be is, and maybe this is later, is in 3 years, how do we know that we've achieved that? And because.

I think that's what the administration and assembly and even the public, and quite frankly myself, is like, 3 years, I want to know what does stabilization look like, sustainable growth, and even evidence of positive impact. And when I even look at the vivid description, I'm having a hard time of— we'll use the word measurement.

That's a great point, Trevor.

That's going to be the key thing that both the administration and the assembly will want. I think this board is— we have to measure what we're doing, um, and how we're going to do that and then report that out.

Do other others on the board agree that maybe the vivid description needs a little bit more description or quantifiable expression.

Jessica, you think we talked about that in some regard, that where is like quantifiable—. Made up a word—. Where is the problem and how do we know that we've reduced the problem? We would have to start surveying now, but we don't even Yeah, my data of preschool, we have Threads data, but that's not all the data that's out there, right? Yeah.

In case you have a nut allergy, the macarons in your salads are made with almond flour. Oh, okay. So, thank you. You're welcome.

I think some of that too speaks to how we design programs in the future. I mean, you can do things to try and get at a positive or negative effect by, like, randomizing who gets more promotion to apply for programs and stuff, because then you can see a difference in participation rates, differences, you know, changes in their capacity over time. So maybe we can think more of not just having data, but more of an experimental approach in how we do things.

This was a big conversation during the retreat on the second day and focusing in on data. And is it the board's role to be the one who combines all the data, or do you find those and then evaluate it? And I know one of our strategic initiatives, without jumping too far ahead, is establishing metrics to say, are programs being successful? Do we need to do something different? How do we make sure what we're doing is effective?

So, it— because you guys are in the unique situation of just standing this up and creating it and not having all of that data already set and knowing what those measurements are, it might be a little bit more challenging to put those hard numbers in a vivid description and wanting to commit to that without having a baseline already, which is why I think we haven't necessarily done that for this document. So keep that in mind as you think about it. If that's something you want to do, you can certainly go back and rework this to the point where you feel confident that you could go, in 3 years, I know that we've demonstrated positive impact on the number of available spaces because— we've increased it, there's less of a waitlist. Yeah, and I guess that point is like, we got down to the nitty-gritty of like, Is it that we've decreased it and we've added 1 extra spot? I mean, kind of ridiculous, right?

But stabilized— what does stabilized necessarily mean for Anchorage? Does it mean that there's only 50 people on a waiting list? And that seems pretty great. And which waiting list are we looking at? Well, I think putting in somewhere in this plan that Data is limited.

That's one of our challenges. And that in our first year, we want to help address that. But looking at partnerships, so it's not about this board, but we do have some like administrative resources that could go towards this. There's data, but I also know there's other sources of data or other people working in data. Like as I'm looking over here at THREAD, they have specific kind of data, finding out what data they have What data do they wish they have but don't?

How can we have in that partnership? But there is— we just need to be working towards that because we won't know it's stabilized. Like, how do we know? And we also will have to figure out at some point, what do we mean by stabilized? Yeah, that's much.

Wait a minute.

And I'm sorry, it was a month ago, but is this where we were also talking to Don and That whole idea of like, we have all these community entities, we need to be working hand in hand. Yeah, because I think if I remember, Chuck and I even got talking about it, it's just like, oh, like a stabilization that we're not losing any slots. Yeah. You know, I initially said, oh, we're not net zero loss of providers, but that you could lose a big provider and gain a smaller provider, but you've lost slots. So us trying to figure some of that stuff out, and I don't— we can't get that resolved for this plan, but within this plan we need to talk about those are the things we have to do in year 1 to set us up not just for the 3 years, but just future measurement and data.

We lack data. And, and I don't know what the barriers may be to data because I know they exist and what that all looks like. But anyways, just thinking of time, we just need to include that. And I think that will help us when Assembly Administration is also looking at this because they're going to ask us, well, how many providers are there? How many slots are there?

How many? Great question. We don't always know. We maybe know on the license. It's going to always be hard to do the unlicensed.

But anyways, owning it and looking at how do we strengthen that will be a key thing for us.

I think keep that in mind as you go back and review this. If you have some additional bandwidth or thoughts to put towards that vivid description of how we could say that, jot a note and maybe meddle on that for a little bit.

So we are going to jump into the strategic initiatives. So I mentioned there's 5 of them. This was the big groups of work that the small committee came up with after the retreat, and it's based on all of those inputs from the external assessment, looking at the internal systematic issues. And so some of these are a 1-year objective, and we'll will be achieved in 1 year, some of them are longer term. And so there are breakdowns.

If it's longer than a year, there's a 1-year target. So in the first year, are we on track to meet this strategic initiative? And then there's a longer term measurable outcome to kind of address that 2 to 3 year goal, what should success look like?

So the first strategic initiative is to continuously evaluate and strengthen ACE Fund programs and systems to ensure effectiveness. Sustainability, and responsiveness to community needs. And so it's a lot of words to just kind of throw up there. So we have descriptions and why these are important under each one. And so essentially this one is what we were just talking about.

It's establishing, establishing clear metrics to evaluate all those programs. So what data do we need? How do we know it's being effective? Ensuring that we're reviewing that process and improving the grantmaking process with that. So that it's most effective as possible moving forward.

So this includes some of what Trevor was talking about, partnering with outside programs, engaging with the public, ensuring that we get that data collection and collaboration with the administration, and then just using all of that to really take time to evaluate the programs. So, in 1 year, the target is to work with partners to identify metrics and evaluation tools and begin to evaluate the effectiveness and accessibility of nascent ACC/EE fund programs and establish a dashboard to communicate findings to stakeholders. I'm going to go ahead and open it up for questions or comments on the first initiative. Is this in line? I mean, it sounds very similar.

We were just talking about it. I feel like this is—. We feel good about this one. Mm-hmm. That's what we're— your pasty belts are already here.

This is maybe the most important thing, especially given just the climate that we're all living in. I think being accountable is going to be the most important thing.

Excellent. It sounds like there is some agreement across the board there, so I'm going to keep going to the next one.

The second strategic initiative is to finalize the ACE Fund investment strategy. So this comes from the enabling legislation that requires adoption of an initial investment strategy for the development, implementation, and expansion of child care and early education programs in the municipality. The board.

Board must review and update the investment strategy every 3 years. So this is work that you guys are going to have to do anyway, but really taking the time to strategically align it to what the goals and the programs are. The 1-year target for this is to develop that initial investment strategy and present it to the Anchorage Assembly in 2026.

And can I just add something, Erin, to that? Yeah. This requirement is a little amorphous. It just comes from code language in the enabling legislation that the Assembly passed last summer that established the board, and it said one of the board's responsibilities was to develop— it says something, I could pull the words up, but, you know, develop and recommend an investment strategy for 3 years. I assume they mean recommend it to them, but it doesn't say if they need to approve it, so it's a little confusing.

I think one thing Trevor and I could bring up with the assembly next Thursday is that we plan to put together an investment strategy and maybe tease that out a little bit. But I think it's also probably up to us and what we think we want to do. And Trevor and I haven't talked offline about this specifically. There have been so many things going on. But, um, is this a separate document?

I assume it is. We haven't talked about the timeline for that. So this is sort of the first part of exploring it, but we know that it's in the code and we need to do it, whatever it is.

Any other questions or comments on this one? Fairly straightforward.

Moving on to the third strategic initiative. This is to identify the resources required to support a thriving and sustainable early childhood sector that meets family needs and develop a plan for progress. And what we mean by that is to conduct a comprehensive community assessment to identify current and future child care and early education needs in Anchorage and develop the tools and implementation plan necessary to address those needs.

And what the 1-year target for that is, is to complete the community assessment by identifying and collecting baseline data, engaging key stakeholders, and producing a summary report that outlines the community's most pressing needs. So, again, that goes back to that establishing metrics, understanding the current state, really painting the picture of what it's like with the data for those that are really data-driven and driving that forward to then say, this is the gap. Here is how we need to continue to resource and fund this.

Any comments or questions on this one?

Hey, you guys are fast. Moving on. Strategic initiative number 4 is to support sector collaboration and coordination, and it's to evaluate the ACE Fund's role in supporting existing or creating new opportunities for sector collaboration and coordination. This one's a little bit softer. I remember a lot of conversation in our retreat talking about the fragmentation, feeling like there's a lot of resources, but maybe people don't know where to go to find them.

And just trying to create a more cohesive, less fragmented part of the industry. And so this is kind of the answer to that, because that was one of the really big— if you remember, as John so lovingly called it, the wheel of death. This was one of the big areas that came out in both groups. So the 1-year target for this is to identify the ACE Fund's role in facilitating collaboration and coordination in the sector and outline, outline a plan for future action. And again, this one's not as hard of a concrete, this is what it's going to be.

It's more exploratory. This will also have a lot to do when, I'm sure, when you bring in your executive director and how they integrate into the community and understand the different roles of in the organization. Keep in mind that collaboration and coordination can take a lot of time and energy, and as a board, you have limited resources, right? You don't have a full staff that can go out and go do all these things. So that's why this one's a little bit less concrete and more open to evaluation and understanding what can you do versus how can we partner effectively.

Any comments or questions on this one?

All right, moving on to the last initiative, and this is to strengthen leadership capacity by hiring a dedicated executive director. This one's very straightforward. This is something that you guys are already in action of doing, but is mission critical for you guys to move forward because this is such a key role. And it's easy to say, we'll just hire someone and bring them in, but there's a lot of time and energy that goes into onboarding them, making sure that they're aligned, making sure that they're ready to really take this in the direction that it needs to go. And so this isn't just hiring someone, but it's also making sure that they're properly onboard, trained, and positioned to lead, not just kind of giving them the keys and say, good luck.

Right? There's a lot of background that goes into this. Um, any questions on this one?

So we did stop at 5. Um, one of the main things that we always push, and I think Kevin even mentioned it in the retreat, if I'm remembering correctly, was you want to deselect some. There's a lot that we could do, but how much time do we have to do it well and to do it correctly? And really make the most effort for it. So 3 years is a very short period of time to get a lot of work done, and so we wanted to focus in on these really key initiatives to set the fund up for success over the next 3 years.

Trevor, Austin, uh, Chuck or Georgina, anything else you want to add in the crafting of these?

Um, this is Trevor. There was a lot of work put into this one. Just want to say thanks to our facilitators for it and everybody that participated. I was thrilled to see the level of public that was involved and that we were all there. And thank you, or the majority of us were there.

And then the committee afterwards, we really worked through this. There's a lot of discussions figuring out what we were doing, um, and laying this out. So what I really want is you as board members— we have to own this. So if there's one thing that you can read, um, and go through and comment would be this. Uh, it's very, very important.

I want to make sure that we capture what you were hoping and seeing, um, and hearing from the larger group. Because we're going to be using this, and this will be an important transitional document for the new Executive Director when we hire, because they're going to be really doing a lot of this work in leading it with our support, less of us leading it and just their support. They'll be taking a strong leadership. So please take the time and really go through this and make recommendations and push back if we're missing something or it's it's just not flowing or whatever that is. I really want a good solid document that we as 9 members can really stand tall on and be able to move that forward.

That was impressive, by the way, for the committee. I knew that would be a lot of work, so good job. One of the— on the first or second page where you list the vivid description There's a reference to the workforce, obviously the pivotal role that plays in kind of creating stability. And I liked that. I thought that was a theme from that 2-day session.

To me, it wasn't clearly visible in those strategic initiatives, but maybe there's a way to fit it in with one of those themes. So that's just something I noticed. And then another thing that I remember from all the conversations from the 2 days was broader policy issues and funding sources of the state. And then also the fact that the Assembly asked us previously, are there other policy changes at the city that we could make to kind of facilitate our goal, us achieving our goals? So those are just two themes that I don't want to overextend us, but I just wanted to flag those.

Those are in the back of my mind from that session, and they might fit in with collaboration, but I just wanted to mention that I thought those were themes that we could keep on top of mind in those strategic initiatives. But overall, I really like the vivid description, and I thought you all did a good job incorporating the massive amount of information. So I liked it overall.

Thank you. Any other comments? Anything else that we're missing? I think Cleo made some great points there.

And our goal will be at the end of each year, we look at where we're at, what may we need to modify, because anything happens in a year, right? And, uh, and can disrupt the trajectory that we have, and we have to pause something because we have to focus on something else. That always happens. So do know that this is— really want, and that will be a piece of it, and would love to even talk with Aaron and John about, is How do we now take this document and make it part of our monthly board meeting, or is it—.

Like, how do we use it and make sure it's a living— I'll say truly a living document and is moving through and that our staff plus ourselves are utilizing it. So that is also one of my goals. So after you guys take time to review this and we get it finalized and maybe add in some more language about the workforce and policy into one of the collaboration pieces or one of the initiatives, see how it maybe fits in.

And we approve it at the next meeting, then the next step would be to really put out a detailed implementation plan of, okay, here's our strategic initiative, now how do we get there, right? What's the first step or the key milestones that we have to take to make sure we're on track to achieve, you know, that 1-year target and the measurable outcome? So we build off what Trevor is saying and say, okay, we've got this initiative, And now we're going to break it down into an actual project plan. And these are the things that we need to be hitting. We usually do it quarterly, but you could do it monthly.

And a lot of it could depend on what the executive director, how their preference is. But we recommend at least quarterly opening this up, reviewing it, seeing where you are and making adjustments, because every strategic plan that you have, there's always going to be a bump in the road and something's going to shift your trajectory just a little bit. Usually it's pretty small, sometimes it's big like COVID, you know, you never really can tell. So it's a plan built to be flexible and adjust as you learn. And some of the things that these are exploratory in nature, some of them, so like the collaboration is evaluating how you want to be collaborating.

So you might try something and innovate and then realize after the first or second quarter, that's not really effective, we're not getting the collaboration that we want and pivot your plan for the second half of the year say we're going to try this because the results weren't there the first time. So we really do want it to be a working document once we get to that implementation plan, but we didn't want to start building that out if there were things that we felt were missing or were inaccurate that the board didn't want to continue to push forward. So that's really that next step is making sure that everyone's aligned on this so that way we can go build out that detailed step.

Other questions or feedback?

All right, so Austin, have we— has there been a specific process that we have given to the board to see this document and send you their feedback, or— and did I hear right that it's out to the public already, or can you just update? Yeah, let me stop sharing screen, please. Yeah, it's out to the public. It's on the top of our website, and I've sent it to various people as well— partners, people who were there for the 4th and 5th, Assembly members, etc. The survey, we're taking feedback until October 22nd, so I would say that's a good timeline for getting feedback from you all on this document.

We'll need time as the small group, or at least Trevor and me and Aaron and John, but Georgina and Chuck too, if they have time, to take that feedback and then try to put something together to bring forward to you on November 6th as a final document. So yeah, I would say by October 22nd would be great if you could provide any feedback. So it's about 3 weeks from now. Can I ask you just to do one extra thing, Austin? Actually send a specific email to all board members with the plan and asking for feedback.

And if you love it, I want to hear that feedback all the way to what you recommend to change because great for the public, but I also really want— I would like to see 100% of the board responding back to Austin where you're at with the plan. It would be just very helpful. So I already sent an email to the board with the documents. Would you like me to send another email that has a deadline in it? Would that be helpful?

Yeah, let's just bring it to the top of everybody and what the expectation is. I'm going to do that next week. I'm actually out of state with family, so I'll do that next week though. Okay, appreciate it.

Anything else for Erin or us?

Wow, you guys are looking at a lot of time. I figured there's no way we're going to get out of here at noon. John is the chatty one between the two of us. I'm like much more just like, get to the point, and he will continue to talk, so time to wrap. I agree with you, but we won't tell him that.

No, no. I know we hurried through. We do have really 10 more minutes before the 12 o'clock. Was there anything, Austin, I pushed you a little bit, was there anything else that you wanted to cover with folks that you didn't have a chance to?

I don't think so. Yeah, thanks everyone. Anything from the board?

Um, all right, hearing none, um, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

Thank you, Chuck. I'll second. Thank you, Kevin, for the second. And I'm going to guess, uh, nobody opposes. All right, thank you.

Have a great, uh, Thursday, everybody. Thank Thank you, Jessica, for joining us from wherever in Europe you are. I was very, very impressed. Hopefully you're enjoying yourself. And again, everybody enjoy the beautiful fall day here in Anchorage.

Take care. Thanks, everyone.

Bye. Thank you, Erin. Yeah, I was worried that I was maybe cutting you.