Clark County Veterans Advisory Board

0:00 [MUSIC] - Please, this other one. - No, I know. [BLANK_AUDIO] Yes, Mr. Chair, I'm gonna give an invocation. Heavenly Father, thank you for seeing us over our meeting as we make our deliberations and decisions for veterans in our local community. Also, I'd like to ask everyone at this time to please keep in your hearts and

0:56 in your minds about the recently lost six veterans that we have that are currently on active duty back in the Middle East. May the Lord be there to guide their families in their loss, and that may we all continue to support our military no matter where they're at around the world in the job that we have asked them to do. In the Lord's name we pray, amen. [BLANK_AUDIO] And that's up to seven, thank you. Okay, roll call of board members, 40 in eight. Mark Lacy. [BLANK_AUDIO] American Legion Post 14, Gene. [BLANK_AUDIO] Earl Edwards is also, okay. So Earl Edwards along with Mark Lacy for 40 in eight. Okay, so Mark Edwards is here. [BLANK_AUDIO] Okay, thank you Patrick.

1:56 Mark's online with us, thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO] American Legion Post 14, Gene Kucher. [BLANK_AUDIO] Okay, American Legion Post 44, Jim Bowman. [BLANK_AUDIO] Darren Wertz, American Legion Post 168, Board Chair Bob Nichols. [BLANK_AUDIO] American Legion Post 176, Michael Gibson. >> Here. >> Jonathan Frederick. [BLANK_AUDIO] American Veterans Post number six, John Lovejoy. >> President. >> Vanna Spratt is excused. DAV Chapter 4, Board Secretary Bruce Moss here, Roy Day. >> Here. >> Roy's online. Korean War Veterans 321, Primary Patrick Locke. >> Here. >> And Earl Edwards is down as an alternate.

2:52 VFW Post 4278, Thomas Brant. >> Here. >> He's here online, Debbie Proctor. >> Here. >> VFW Post 7824, Greg Gilbertson. >> Here. >> Vietnam Veterans of America 512, Greg Witsett. >> Here. >> Nick Herbert. >> He's in the hospital. >> Okay, thank you. Members at large, Brian McGillis. [BLANK_AUDIO] Brian is absent. Tanya Work is excused. Michael Langsdorf, he's excused. Lloyd Bowman. >> Here. >> Board, Vice Chair Buckmar. >> Here. >> Larry Smith. >> Here. >> Clark County Representative Abby Malloy. >> Here. >> Clark County Representative Michael Torres. >> Good afternoon here. >> Thank you, Mike. Assistant Senator Judy Russell. >> Here. >> Sonya Wood.

3:49 [BLANK_AUDIO] >> She's here too. >> Yep, here, sorry, I couldn't get my mute off. >> Okay, you're here as well. I also have a, we have a guest speaker today as well. Ashley Taylor is with us in the audience. I, and I also see one more other person back here. [BLANK_AUDIO] >> That's Emily. >> I know, I know it. >> Okay. [BLANK_AUDIO] >> All right, and Emily from the budget office is with us and she will be speaking during the course of the meeting. Mr. Chair, you have a quorum. >> Thank you. Anybody wanna give a motion for approval of the minutes of the last meeting? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved and seconded. Those in favor?

4:49 >> Aye. >> Those opposed? Motion carried. Now I've moved items four and five up to the next items, and we will do the committee reports after them. So Ashley, are you prepared to speak? >> Yes sir. >> Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO] >> Hello everyone. It's nice to see some familiar faces. I see Deb every once in a while, a new friend in the past year. So hello everyone, Ashley Taylor. I am an Army veteran, VFW member, a district commander over on the Oregon side. Deb tries to recruit me over here to Washington. Also a Legion member, Anna Elk.

5:49 But I'm here today to talk about my role with the VA in Portland. The VA, I am with the suicide prevention team specifically. And everything y'all are doing is suicide prevention because it's connecting veterans and building care coordination through awareness of resources. And so I'm just gonna share a little bit about how that's supporting the national strategy. And I want to introduce myself and to be a continued resource for you guys. So next slide, please Abby. So here's a map of our veteran integrated service network. This is the VA's regions. Currently we have about 20 regions, but somehow it goes up to VISN 23. Don't ask me, you know VA math is crazy. But so I am from the Portland VA, which is that green section on the left there. We cover 20 counties in Oregon and six counties in Washington.

6:46 So we do cover the six southwestern counties in Washington. And I'm happy to support Clark County. Next slide. So before I get into the crux of the presentation, what I'll be talking about, I'll be talking about suicide and this can be an intense topic for people, especially if we do have lived experience with suicide ourselves or family members or friends. And I just want to honor that and to be a support for y'all. And also I'll be sharing data about suicide, some statistics about veterans and suicide, veterans and suicide in Washington. And I want to hold some space that these data points are shared in numbers, but these numbers represent people. They represent veterans, our family members, our communities, our workplaces, and so just want to honor that as well. And also the data is not complete. Data is often far behind.

7:44 So the data I'll be sharing is from 2023 because it's typically about two years behind because it takes that long to compile it, to collect it and compile it. But and then the meat and potatoes, if you will, about what I'll be sharing is how we can all continue to play a role in preventing veteran suicide. And again, how I can be a support. Next slide. So I often get asked, why does suicide happen? Why do people take their lives? And from what we know, so I have been working in suicide prevention for about 15 years. I got out of the Army in 2010 and I fell pretty much right into working in the mental health space, but not in the clinical side. I've always been a fan of the advocacy side, like helping people get whatever resources they need, because there really is no shortage of resources for veterans. There is a shortage of veterans accessing those resources.

8:42 And so I've learned a lot over the years, and my favorite thing that I've learned is each and every person's individual experience and connecting with them. Everything is so unique that us veterans go through and what we have access to, you know. And so I just share that about a little bit of the background of what I've learned on suicide and how we know this. So suicide is a complex issue with no single cause, because we all have our own stuff that we bring to the table, our own experiences. And so what we do know, though, the complexity part that leads to a suicidal crisis is hard. But what we do know is that everyone has risk factors, but everyone also has protective factors. And I'm going to share some examples of what these are. But what we can really focus on to support the risk factors is maximizing a person's protective factors, which is stuff that we all do as supporters in the veteran world

9:41 every day. But that's what we know. So the hard part is why people die by suicide, but the easy part is focusing on what we can do to maximize those protective factors to save people's lives. Next slide. So here's some examples of what risk and protective factors look like for anyone. So I always like to say the risk factors, right, like everyone has the potential to have risk factors in their life, the ebbs and flows in life, if you will. We all sometimes have hard times and sometimes have easier times. But this is what makes it complex, is that's going to look different for everyone. Their level of risk, their unemployment or employment status, their relationship issues, their access to lethal means is a big one. Their access to legal and financial challenges. And so this is going to be at some level for everyone at any given point.

10:40 But what we hope is that when a person is at high risk, we can all band together to support that person. And how we can support that person, including ourselves, so how we can support ourselves when we know we're at greater risk is to protect ourselves. We can protect ourselves by accessing the needed care and resources. We can encourage people to access care and resources. We can focus on our mission or purpose. We can build all of these protective factors up by kind of do it as a scale. If we can help our people build our protective factors, then we're going to save a lot more lives. Next slide. So here's what suicide and veteran suicide looks like across the country. On the left map is veteran suicides. On the right map is suicides for every population. And we're pretty on par. The darker colors have the higher rates of suicide.

11:39 So I wanted to ask y'all, what are some thoughts that you see of why those areas with the darker colors may experience higher rates of suicide? Any theories? Rain. Yes. I think we've seen this, weathered ... Drugs. Absolutely. There's a lot of space between people in a lot of those states. I think that's rurality, right? Like access to resources. So when we're thinking of protective factors, when we're in rural spaces, we might not have as much access to rural spaces. I am currently working on a project to overlay where there's VFWs in American legions to see if that's ... We know that's a protective factor, but I want to be able to prove it. Something I'm working on. But yes, so rurality is a big thing, access to resources.

12:34 Also something that stands out to me is, and I'm going to preface this, what I'm about to say is, I am a proud firearm owner, but when we talk about suicide, we have to talk about lethal means safety and access to firearms. Something that stands out is California, Illinois, and Virginia, New York have some of the highest gun restriction laws, and they also have some of the lowest rates of suicide. However, what throws a wrench in that is Texas, because Texas has basically no gun restriction laws, and I can say that because I lived in Texas for eight years and I carried guns everywhere, and so did everyone else. But something that Texas does really well is they talk about guns. They have the conversation of being safe with firearms, and that's something that Texas does really well. Am I saying that's why their suicide rate is low? No, absolutely not, but it's just interesting when we look at the data.

13:31 We also know, and when we go back to Oregon, Oregon is a high gun owning state, and I'm going to share some tips and what the official stance of the VA is on how we can support veterans with our firearms. Next slide. The latest data report that was released a couple weeks ago, but it's a 2025 data report with data from 2023, showed that 61% of veterans who died by suicide in 2023 were not receiving VA in the last year of their life. This is why I'm so grateful that my job exists at the VA, because I work strictly with our external partners, because it's not a VA issue. Yes, it is a yes and no, right? But it's not only a VA issue, I should say, because majority of veterans are not receiving care at the VA. Only about 30 to 35% of veterans as a whole are enrolled in VA healthcare, and that's not saying that they're even utilizing that care.

14:31 So it takes all of us, right? It takes a community, and the VA has realized this in the past five years. That's how long my position has existed. I've only been there for almost two and a half years, but that's why, because it's not just about the VA. It's about all of us as a whole. And our highest age rate was 18 to 34 year olds. Next slide. Oh, something before, Abby, before you go to the next one, something that's often aligned with suicide is mental health issues, which absolutely sometimes that's true, right? Two things can be true at once, but what we have seen in this latest data report was the most frequently identified risk factor was pain. So it had really nothing, it could have been in addition to mental health, but it was people want the pain to stop.

15:26 So if we can work on those protective factors in accessing care, but we know that sometimes veterans have a hard time asking for help. Next slide. If we could go to the next slide, I won't talk about that other state over there, I'll talk about Washington. So Washington, this is the latest suicide data from 2023. So on that top chart over there on the far right, it says the national suicide rate is 18.2. So when we talk about veterans having the highest suicide rate, this is why. So Washington, so nationally for any population it's 18.2. For Washington, which pretty much aligns with the national veteran suicide rate, it's 36.4, which is the highest out of when we break down other populations. Yes. Oregon's is even higher.

16:24 Washington has been doing a lot of work on suicide prevention. I'm going to share some different levels of work that's being done at the national and state level. Am I saying that's why there's, you know, it's not at an increased risk as a national suicide rate? No. But Washington is doing some great work for suicide prevention and veterans specifically. Now when I talked a little bit about the firearms, here is why we have to have the firearm discussion on that bottom chart there. I know it's kind of small, but I'll kind of walk you through it. This circle is the method in which people die, attempt suicide, and then end up dying by suicide. So on the far right there we have national suicides and how often people use a firearm to attempt suicide, which firearms are the most lethal means because it will end in a suicide upwards of 95%.

17:20 And so nationally people use a firearm about 50%, veterans and veterans in Washington use a firearm about 70%. Because what do veterans know? We know firearms. So again, I'm leading to how we can be safe with our firearms. And that's why we have to have the conversation. Next slide. So what is VA doing about this? Next slide. We are doing a lot, thankfully. And thankfully not all by ourselves, with all of us in the community. So currently we're operating on a national strategy for preventing veteran suicide. It's a 10-year strategy that started in 2018 and takes us through 2028. So there's work being done on the next strategy. And part of it was to increase not only the existing clinical work, but to expand on that and to create this community-based effort. So my role is part of that strategy to really work as a whole, not only with our community

18:19 partners, but also with the DOD. So 2024 there was a VA-DOD clinical practice guideline that was released in 2024. And then also there's a White House strategy. And all of this aligns with the national strategy for preventing suicide for every population. We do know stuff that works. We know that getting more awareness of the crisis line works. We know that decreasing access to lethal means works. We know a lot of this stuff works to save lives. And so we just want to get it out there more. Next slide. This is where I talk about that full public health model with the community-based plus the clinical-based. This wasn't always happening with VA. It was this latest strategy that made this happen. Next slide. Here's where we see the different levels. So at the national level, we have the strategy, but I coined myself on LinkedIn. It's not an official. I don't have a trading card or anything.

19:15 But I call myself a veteran mental health street fighter because I like to be at the street level with my people. Because there is a disconnect with what's going on at the national level. And then they're like, yeah, this just exists. Just why aren't more people accessing it? I'm like, well, it's not that easy. Because how you think it works is not how it actually works. And so I like being with my people. So I like being with my people. But there is a national level, a national strategy. And then there's the state level, which is called the governor's challenge, where every governor has accepted to take the challenge to support the national strategy to prevent veteran suicide. And so there is work being done. So if anyone's interested on more of this, I'm happy to come to your organization, set a meeting, anything we want to do to hear what Washington is doing at the state level. And then at the community level, we have my role there with the community engagement. And we have just basic outreach and education. And there is some stuff for rural veterans. Washington doesn't have any of these chapters.

20:13 Oregon has two. So this is kind of how it breaks down and how we all work together. Next slide. So what can we all do? Next slide. One, number one, knowing the veterans crisis line. Sending people to -- this is -- I get calls all the time, Ashley, what do I do? I have this veteran. Call the crisis line. Like this resource operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week for veterans in crisis. Is a crisis automatically in risk of suicide? No. A veteran could just be so overwhelmed, doesn't know what to do, is waiting for appointments, is short on their housing stuff. Call and talk to someone so that it's not so overwhelming because you don't have to do it alone. And also what's really important about this crisis line is that the person in crisis doesn't have to be the person calling. It can be our friends, our family members.

21:10 It can be any of us where we encounter someone and we just need guidance on how to talk to someone. So this is the number one resource. It actually has the biggest budget of the VA, of the suicide prevention teams, I should say. So it's a great, great resource. And what's beautiful about it is that it's not just for veterans. 988 is the national crisis line for anyone, youth, friends, family, anyone. And then there's an operator that answers. And if you press one, then it goes to a contractor through the VA for the veteran's crisis line. And those operators are specially trained to talk to the veteran and military population. And they have the potential to be linked to the VA for any follow-up care. Some facts about 988, because I get some myths out there of people who may be hesitant to call. There is no geo locator on 988 like there is for 911.

22:09 So you can call it anonymously. So I get this fear, I'm going to call it and cops are going to come to my house. No, it's not going to happen. If you say your name and they can look you up and then call 911 and you allow that assistance, yes. But a person can call it anonymously. So that's always an important thing to note. Next slide. Next is secure storage. So I love having, Deb's heard me talk about this, this like gun storage check, like where's your firearm? Is it on top of the refrigerator? Is it in your nightstand? No. If it is, please, well, make sure please that it has a cable lock on it because we, well, we want our firearms to be secured and not only from ourselves. This is an official VA standpoint. The VA is not in the business of quote unquote taking guns away. We are in the business of empowering veterans to be safe with our firearms.

23:07 We actually have a national partnership with the national sports shooting foundation. We go to shot show every year for any firearm enthusiasts. We are proponents of safe storage of firearms because it's a reality that we have firearms. So we want to be safe. In most states, it's a law that firearms have to be secured. Again, from ourselves, from kids, we don't want firearms being stolen. And I get asked a lot about quick access. I still need quick access. There is a lot of handy dandy tools now. My husband, who is a concealed carry owner, we also have an eight-year-old at home and I'm like, you can't just leave your firearm in the nightstand, right? Like that's pretty dangerous. So he, we got this lock box that bolts to the side of his nightstand and it has a thumb print and you just put your thumb on it and it bolts open or flaps open and then he can go save the day from all the things. So I'm a huge fan of secure storage.

24:04 Also, we give out free cable locks and the thing I love about our cable locks is they come with the crisis line card that has information about the crisis line because it's just the reality. We want people to be safe. We want to create time and distance when we're at high risk. That's important to know. So all of your organizations, if you are interested in some cable locks, I will be sharing my information. I can order you them for free. Even if you are interested in being a holder of firearms, I know some places are like, like if you have FFLs, we can even potentially find funding for a gun safe. Like this is a big focus of suicide prevention. So just let me know if this is kind of planting these, these seeds for, for later. Next slide. Also, I always like to throw this out there cause a lot of people don't know that it exists with the VA. If a veteran is enrolled in VA healthcare, there is a 24 hour nurses line.

25:02 This is not for emergencies, not for, you know, crisis situations, but just if you wake up in the middle of the night and you know, you've had a stomach ache for six hours and you want to talk to a medical provider, you can call the VA 24 hours a day and talk about what's going on. This is operated at the VISN level. It's actually the operator is out in Walla Walla, but they'll connect to every VA in our area. So you can call directly or you can even call the Portland VA's number and it, it doesn't say like, Hey, this is a 24 hour crisis or nurse line. So I always like to say that that's what it is, but it'll say if you're having symptoms and you need to speak to a medical provider, press three. That's what this goes to. This 24 hour nurses line, a great, great resource. Next slide. If there are any veterans that you work with and I, all of y'all know this, but it's really easy to get enrolled in the VA. Just I always encourage people, there's multiple ways we know that, but I do encourage people

26:00 to go online and it's just va.gov and get started with the VA right there. Next slide. Next line. That's Oregon. There also is a financial resource thing that rolled out from the VA. So if you have veterans who are having financial issues, this is a great resource that's championed by the VA. It's basically a clearing house of all these different financial resources to help veterans earn money, save money and protect their money. Really great resource. Next slide. Also our apps. I love sharing our apps. I know all of us love our technology, but these apps are free to download. Something that I love on the bottom left there is the safety plan app. There's nothing like being prepared, right? If and when the time comes when we are affected by thoughts of suicide, it's always good to have a plan and the VA has a free app.

26:55 What's beautiful about that app is it's created by the VA, but if you download it and go on it, it doesn't scream veteran at you, so anyone can download it. So if you have kids or family or anyone who's at risk for suicide, I encourage the use of any of these apps. They're not just for veterans. Next slide. Also something important for an awesome gathering like y'all to know is that our team is able to ... which is in the tragic occasion if there is a veteran in our community that dies by suicide, even a veteran family member or anything, we want to support y'all. We can offer debriefing sessions, clinical sessions. We can offer just sounding board sessions of what do we do, how do we talk about this as a community, how do we talk about it in the media, how do we move forward with this. We can support y'all if and when that tragedy does happen in Vancouver, in Clark County.

27:55 Next slide. And lastly, here's our team. I can share my ... well, I can share my ... Abby, you have my email, right? Please, if anyone needs it to share, we do have a team line. This can be used for anyone. If anyone has questions for our team, this is not an emergency number. This is just ... it's checked all day during business hours. I'll get questions. I have this veteran I'm working with. They're not in crisis, but I have X, Y, and Z happening. Not basic resource referral, but aligned with suicide prevention in crisis. So just give us a call and we're here for y'all. I didn't mean for that to rhyme. So how I can help is providing trainings for your organization. I can come to meetings and talk about whatever you want me to talk about with the VA. It doesn't only have to be suicide prevention. So just please hit me up if y'all ever need anything.

28:51 Thank you. Questions? I have a question. You didn't mention anything about Agent Orange. How does that play into suicide? For risk? Suicide itself. Having the effects of Agent Orange or knowing you're going to have Agent Orange or knowing you're going to die from it. Absolutely. I would say Agent Orange and stuff that comes from exposure to Agent Orange would create a heightened risk factor. So it would be great if we knew that and then built up whatever protective factors we need with increased screenings, increased, you know, more access to prevention care. But absolutely that would increase that risk because there could be more issues there. There's so much information out there about Agent Orange and its effects and so forth. And we seem to be, you know, just about every year learn something else a little bit different. Yeah.

29:51 And I love to see, you know, like with the passage of the PACT Act that things continue to get expanded for what care we have access to. Yeah. So that way more veterans would utilize it. Yep. That's right. I had a question or a comment, I guess, or both. Do you have, do you work with the state of Oregon and Washington Department of Veterans Affairs? Yes. Yeah, because the reason why I ask that, because back in September we had a couple of folks come down from Olympia and gave us training on suicide prevention. We had about 25 or so members and that was great training for about two hours. So if you work with them, you know, I'm just throwing it out there for everybody. I have the contact information from the WDVA, I'm sure we can get the Oregon DVA as well. So and it was good training. But the other thing I wanted to mention is, you mentioned the va.gov login.

30:47 That is a big problem with older veterans getting logged in because they have to go through this idmelogin.gov process and it's a frustration. So I know it's not your topic, but you take that back because that is a big frustration. People don't understand it, especially, you know, the older veterans that are not very computer literate, so. That is a huge thing and I've been hearing a lot about it and some of our rural clinics, they actually have walk-in hours for people to come in and the staff will help people sign up for idme. So our Portland or Vancouver campuses don't have anything like that, but if we had a request for that from our community partners, maybe that's something I could help set up. We could do like some clinics. I'll request it right now. Okay. Thank you. We get a lot of questions about it, a lot of them. We do. I know. I'm actually, and I help people even in my own community, I have a meeting next week to help someone.

31:43 But, you know, getting idme is not only for VA, like Social Security uses it, it's really a huge benefit, but I like the idea of setting something up that we could. If you create your one password, it'll work for multiple sites, but people don't log into it enough to remember what their password is and they go back to get their password set and then their account's all messed up and they just, they get frustrated and they just stop. I know. And then they come to us and ask, well, how do we, well, do you have, you know, so. Yes. I'm here for, I hear you and I'd love to get something set up. Sure. Sounds great. Yeah. And Jim Bowen has his hand raised online. Is it possible for Abby to get a copy of this presentation and distribute it to all the members? Yes. I'll send it out with the follow-up materials. Thank you. Thanks, Abby. And then Ashley, I had a question for you. So this is kind of going back a little bit in history. Yes, the VA has all of the staff members assigned across the region to help out veterans.

32:42 But also at the VA Hospital Portland, there's also a mental health program called Day Treatment. I don't know what it's called now, so veterans would be referred to their providers to kind of interact with other veterans from a social standpoint. And then of course, the C5 ward, which we all know everybody gets referred to over there to get them stabilized in their mental health. So yes, there are other stuff that is available at VA Hospital Portland for the mental health needs of the veterans. Yes. And something I'll talk about, this is a new legislative thing too that's with suicide prevention. There was this passage, not to get confused with the PACT Act, but the COMPACT Act, which was passed a year after PACT Act. But it allows veterans, even if they're not enrolled in the VA, if they have an emergent suicidal crisis, they can go to any non-VA clinic emergency room to access care. And then the COMPACT Act will pay for that care.

33:39 There are still some qualifiers of veterans still has to meet certain veteran eligibility. But I love if they do meet veteran eligibility, they don't have to be enrolled in VA healthcare. That's unheard of. And how a person acts as it is through our team. We get notified with anybody who goes into any emergency room, we're already looking at it that way. But if a veteran gets a bill and they know they were going in for suicidal care, instead of, you know how if a veteran goes for any emergent care, they have 72 hours to call the VA? For COMPACT Act, if it's for an emergent suicidal crisis, it expands on that and it's 180 days. So, it's kind of removing that financial burden. I don't want to go get care because the ambulance is going to cost, you know, four grand or whatever. This takes that away. So, it's good to know, yeah. >> I have a question about, you said they have to meet certain standards and I understand that.

34:36 But at the same time, a lot of these veterans don't want to communicate with the VA anyway. And then if they have an emergency and they know, okay, I can go to the VA, they don't know if they meet the standards or not. And what are the standards? I mean, because a lot of people, you know, dishonorable discharge or whatever it might be, they don't meet the standard. But they still need the help. >> So the thing is, is to go get help regardless. Sometimes there just might be a financial cost to that. But if they do meet that eligibility, which is through Congress, has nothing to do with the VA, you know, Congress determines who can utilize the VA and who can't, expanding on that definition. The basic thing is that two years of active duty or completion of a Title X, which is a federal activation for National Guard and Reservist. Or if a person served before 1980, then at least one day active duty.

35:33 So that's why it's so hard because the rules have changed over the years. Yeah. >> The eligibility explanation is 70, 7-0 slides long. It's very -- but we just say still go and get care. It's just you might have to pay for it, but you're still going to get care, you know. But if you are eligible, then the VA will pay for it. >> Yeah, something else, you know, you have the hotline and so forth for people to call. But if they're in that circumstance committing suicide or considering it, personally, I wouldn't care about calling anybody. I don't want to sit on the phone and talk to somebody. I want somebody there, you know, is there any way -- and I know that's going to be expensive and so forth, but a lot of times it's the personal care.

36:26 If somebody calls in or the family member calls in, can someone get out there and meet the need personally rather than just over the phone? Because over the phone, it's just under the voice, it doesn't really make any difference to me. I don't care. They don't know who I am. They don't care about me. So the only possibility then is like taking an emergency or something. Okay. So there's no personal outreach after that fact? >> Well, not from the VA. The VA doesn't -- that's something I definitely -- it's a great idea to bring up to your congressperson to request like additional services. The VA does not offer that right now. We just have the crisis line, which is staffed definitely by people who care. But a lot of counties -- and I'm pretty sure Clark County through law enforcement -- so like calling 911 would be the difference of someone -- like 988, you're talking to someone on the phone. 911, someone's coming to you. So that would be the difference.

37:25 And a lot of county like sheriff's office also have mobile crisis teams, which this wouldn't be a VA thing or veteran specific thing, but they have people who respond. In addition to just law enforcement, there'll be clinicians who respond in the need of mental health support. >> Yeah. If I called, I wouldn't want a cop showing up on my door in uniform with a gun. I've already got one. >> Thank you, Ashley. >> Well, thank you. >> Thank you, everyone. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Next is Emily. Emily.

38:08 >> Thank you, Bob, and I'm happy to take these first couple of slides. Before we get into the full discussion about the work session, just to provide a little bit of context and information for you all, so as you know, the work session is scheduled for Wednesday, April 29th, starting at 9 o'clock a.m. To allow for open discussions and questions, please plan on limiting your presentation by the Veterans Advisory Board to the council to no more than 20 minutes. There will probably be some other agenda items during this work session as well, so we want to make sure that there's plenty of time for discussion with the board and the council.

39:06 Any presentation materials and handouts that you want to share are due to the council by April 22nd. I will help submit these for you, so please make sure to have all materials to me by Friday, April 17th, so I can compile everything and get it over to the council in time for that deadline. And just so you all know, any presentation materials and handouts that you share at this meeting will be posted online on the county council website and available for the public to view. Some recommendations going into this work session is that the VAB has really clear goals and talking points going in, that you choose a designated speaker or speakers to represent you, and that you prepare data to back up any requests that you have for the council. And then on this slide, I just have some discussion questions to kind of try to help guide this conversation today.

40:03 The three main questions are, what are the Clark County Veteran Advisory Board's main goals for the work session, what does the board need to prepare for the work session, and how does the board plan to present to the council? And I'll pass it back to you, Bob, for any questions that you all have and how you all want to frame this conversation. Okay, thank you, Abby. So hi, everyone. Emily Swetzig again from the budget office in the county. I'm just here to help support both Michael and I, and Abby have been familiar presenting work sessions to the council, but I think the idea today is just, however you guys want to proceed, if there's things we can do to help support any questions you have or any need that you need. I do think we should mention that there was some recent news I heard about this morning

41:00 that, and I'm looking to Michael because we were talking about it earlier today, the House Bill 2442, it was signed by, but it's on the governor's desk still, but that is the House Bill that talks about having a separate, the potential of a separate veterans levy and the minimum rate, and I don't have a whole lot of details on that because we just looked at it this morning, but that is something that I think will be relevant to maybe how you frame the conversation with the council for the 29th. And I'll jump in. Michael Torres, Program Manager with Clark County Community Services. I don't have anything new to say than what Emily has just mentioned. It is ESHB 2442. We do know that, as Emily said, it's up for signature. It's passed the House. It's passed the Senate.

41:57 It's up to signature with the governor's office. It will really, my understanding right now is that it will force the levy to the minimum rate, and the council will have to decide whether it's a subordinate levy or if it's a standalone levy. That's county council decision. And going into the discussion on April 29th, it will probably be good for the Veterans Advisory Board to have a good understanding of what that bill actually does because it will probably shape a lot of the conversation.

42:46 It will impact the fund balance moving forward, and it will help determine what the fund balance is with the projected expenditures we have so far. But that's what we know right now. I think we have a lot to learn about the bill. Mike, does that mean, when you say minimum rate, does that mean by law or by the RCW one one-eighth cents, or does that mean an adjusted rate? I am hesitant to answer because I do not know for sure. I believe it would be the RCW minimum rate, but I do not know for sure yet, Bob.

43:42 This is too new as far as information goes to me. Okay, thank you. And I would just mention, I did invite Jordan Bogie. He's our policy analyst in the county manager's office. He does a lot of our legislative review. I just talked to him this morning. He was going to try to join, but he had a conflict. I don't know that he's joined yet. Abby, do you see him online at all? So he may come on before we get done with the discussion. He may be able to provide more detail, but we'll definitely follow up through Abby with Jordan Bogie. It's B-O-E-G-E, I think. But we will do some analysis internally and definitely work with Abby to distribute information to the board about what we're able to clarify for you guys.

44:38 Michael is here, and other people here on the board have asked questions about him and what his department does for us. So now's your time to ask him. I have a few questions and some initial comments. So the purpose that I've seen here with the discussion is to ensure that the Veterans 1019 Fund is actually adequately funded to support the legitimate programs of the Veterans Service Center and all other contract programs, current and future, for the full program year. And that the budget review process be reviewed and updated as necessary to provide adequate

45:38 documentation of the county's budgeting process to include detailed calculations that arrive at specific budgeting numbers. And it is our conclusion that the Veterans Fund has been underfunded for several years, and it is our intention to review the structure to the system to understand why this has happened and to correct the structure of the system so that the program is adequately funded in the future. And this is not laying blame on anyone. We seek to execute the RCW 7308 in such a manner that the veterans of Clark County, Washington are served with the honor and respect they deserve.

46:35 My first question is, what is the county's definition of the term "budget"? I don't know if you can respond to that or if that needs to be ... I'll defer that question to the budget director of the county. So in general, the budget is a strategic financial plan. It takes into consideration the services and the priorities set forth by the council. And it is a plan. We develop what we want to do or what we need to do, and we allocate funding to accommodate that or to enact that. And do these budgets typically have contingencies for anything, or are they just supposed to

47:30 be, whatever the number is, is the final number? It depends. We have many hundreds of funds that we manage within the budget office. I'll try to move so I can address you, but it depends. 1019 is its own separate fund, and it's managed differently than the general fund is managed. Okay, so typically, my experience in putting budgets together, I've come out of the construction industry in particular, we typically would have contingencies for different things. You're doing something that has a lot of variables in it, and in order to adequately allow for all of the variables, then there's contingencies put into a budget that can be used for those.

48:26 And I don't see anything like that in this. In the past, it appears to me that the service center in particular has put budgets together, and when those budgets have been reviewed by the city council, they've been told that they need to modify it and reduce certain things. Now, if a budget was put together that they thought was going to meet a certain need, and then they're told that it needs to be dropped down, is that part of a budgeting process that is not looking at all of the contingencies or whatever might be part of how the operation actually works, in fact?

49:25 Emily, I think I can jump in here because I think I directly know what you're referencing. Two things. In terms of contingency, well, first let me say that the statements you made at the beginning I think are shared. You know, all the county staff, I've been here 10 years. Every conversation I've ever had with anyone in the county, whether it's county manager, whether it's program coordinators, Emily directors, like I've never been in a conversation that has been ... that has not been about how do we support, how do we accomplish, how do we help the advisory board, the assistance center achieve the goals that you want achieved,

50:20 and do so in a way that is in compliance with the RCW and with county policy. Every conversation I've ever had has been very much about accomplishing and supporting all those things. Regarding contingency, there should be policy about a minimum fund balance that would serve as a contingency, and we do not have that in defined policy for the Veterans Assistance Fund. Staff does believe that there should be formal policy in place, and that will be set. I think it's going to be developed this year, and it will be approved by the ... established and approved by the council.

51:16 What that means is that there will be a fund balance that we will not go below. We're going to keep some funds in reserve so that if there are significant changes in revenue or fund balance, the contracts that are executed in a contract year can be fully supported. That does not mean that whatever that minimum fund balance reserve is, is available for new contracts. It's not additional budget capacity. It's a contingency reserve. That is going to happen. That is not something that appropriately I could decide to arbitrarily set a fund balance. That's something that needs to be county policy-driven, and I think that should be part of your conversation

52:16 with the council in terms of what is an appropriate minimum fund balance, what you think it should be so that the council can hear that. The second part where you're talking about disapproving budgets or requiring reductions from the assistance center, the only conversation that I'm aware of where an assistance center proposed budget was asked to be changed, I think was about two years ago, and it was an informal conversation that I had with Judy. It was not a reduce your budget or reduce your service.

53:10 If you look at the history of the Veterans Assistance Center budgets, they had been underspending their proposed budget significantly year after year. And about two years ago, we received, I saw a budget proposal. It was informal. It's not come up to the board yet, but they were intending to propose a budget that was, I want to say, about $100,000 higher than the year previous or the existing year, and they were already underspending. They were going to finish a year underspent, I want to say, by close to $100,000, maybe two. And the conversation I had with Judy was not cut services, cut your budget. It was, Judy, does this budget reflect what you're actually expecting to spend?

54:09 And because your budget, it's not a good thing to continuously be underspending what you are proposing. Your budget needs to reflect your best projection of the service needs and expenses and expectations you have for that year. That was advice. It was not direction. And the advice I gave her was pencil it out again. Give us your best guess. And Judy was concerned that if she did that and there was something that was not anticipated, she would end up overspending her budget. And what I told her at the time was I don't think you're going to based on the history

55:04 we have seen and the expenses that we know, but if it gets to that, like we will help you do a budget modification. Like I'm not asking, being made very clear, I'm not asking you to cut anything, I'm asking you to predict what you think you need. And if it turns out that you're wrong and we have to do a budget modification to increase the budget, we will do that. Like I'm really not worried about it. And she did that. She penciled it out again. She came back with a budget that was about $100,000 less than what she had originally intended to propose. That's what came to the assistance advisory board to approve, and it was approved. And the assistance center still underspent that year by $30,000. So what she came back with was adequate to meet her needs.

56:01 That is the only instance that I'm aware of where there's been any conversation where the county has come close to, and I don't even consider that coming close to asking for any kind of cut, but it's the closest thing in any kind of conversation that I'm aware of that has taken place. So what about this particular year that they requested? They had like $77,000? Are we talking about this year, I mean 2024? This past year. Right. The $77,000. Are you talking about the fourth quarter, the last month of the county year, '26? Yeah. Right. Absolutely. I mean, this is a long conversation, Michael, and I wouldn't tell you, pick on you for ... Well, you've been around here a long time, but there's a couple of points in there, and

56:57 let's make notice of the fact that Judy is online and we're not going to ask her to step into this. Sure. I think that would be inappropriate. Do you agree? Oh, yeah. I don't. Okay. Well, back when these folks were on Columbia Street, they under-executed routinely every year, largely because of the limitations of the facility. If you recall, just to get into a little piece of history here, that was when Kathleen, the county manager, asked Larry Smith, myself, and Mike Burton to see what we could do about finding a new facility so that we could do the right thing by our over 30,000 veterans in the county and increase the services. We did.

57:52 As a matter of fact, my neighbor, Albert Angelo, came up with the current facility, and since that time, although there may be a smaller sample size, they have over-executed, if you will, just to make my point, that is to say that the contract dollars ran out before the veteran services requests were fulfilled. To the tune of last year, in the fourth quarter, around December, or let's just say December, about $77,000 was applied from the not-for-profit side of the CCVAC. So you're well aware they have the service side with the contract stuff, but when they

58:47 ran out of money consecutively, 2025, 2024, they applied their own money, which is traditionally used for veteran services that don't meet the framework of the services provided by the county's contract. They're a broader nature for people that may not qualify, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So I think we've passed your era of under-execution. I've heard that term too many times. That gone. That's gone. These people have a facility that is allowing them to expand their veteran services almost on a daily basis. In this case, we see where the river met the road in December, the last month, you didn't have enough money on the contract to do it. Over the years, they've probably, I think, supplied $150,000 over the last couple of years.

59:47 I think that we're in a period of adjusting both your site and our site to arrive at a budget figure that matches the veteran services that the county wanted. The county wanted the new facility to increase veteran services, and since we have that new facility, we have yet to fulfill 100% of the veteran services. Right, Emily? And I was just going to suggest, and please feel free to not follow what I'm going to say, but I feel like we're coming to a point with this board to say, not only what's happened in the past, but what needs to happen in the future. And those are the kind of conversations that I think the council, and I'm not speaking for them, but I think that's what they're hoping to hear is, what do we need now? And what do we need now that you're in the new facility?

1:00:43 What services do we want to provide that we haven't been providing, and what's the opportunity? I do think with this new house bill, if everything goes through, and as it sounds like it's going to play out, there will be more money coming into the fund based on what we've been talking about you guys wanting to accomplish forever. So I think we might be there. We'll finalize that, and if that is met, then the potential for our current situation where costs are exceeding revenues will not be an issue. It will be what in addition to we want, I say we, you guys want to provide. And I think it's helpful, and I don't know, Abby on the spot, but there was a public records request where we showed the, I think the 2025 budget that community services had provided, and it shows like the beginning fund balance for the year, it shows the revenues we expect

1:01:40 to bring in, and then the expenses that the board has approved for this fund, and then what the remaining fund balance is. I think looking at that expense side is really important to think about framing the conversation for the 29th work session, maybe saying here's the things we currently do, and if the money's going to come in and cover that, what do we want in addition to that, sorry, this is really not working, but what do we want in addition to that, what's that going to cost, and who's going to be served, what's the data behind that, and I think that's either the gap or with the additional money if there's any left over after, you could plan for. Kind of a framework, hopefully, for the future. I just hope you and Michael understand, as you and I have had this conversation, that you and the county can't have it both ways.

1:02:37 You cannot have a low levy rate and fulfill all the needs of veterans in the county. That dog don't hunt. I think that problem may have been solved. I think that may be a non-issue for us moving forward. We'll get the details about exactly what this legislation is going to do and the money it's going to generate for these services, but if that problem is solved, what do we need to do from there? And I know we've talked about there's a lot of support services that we think the Veterans Assistance Center could provide that it doesn't right now that maybe could be funded by them. That might be a place to focus on. I'll put my oar in the water for mechanical and structural changes as well. When you pass $118,000 out of the general fund to the 1019 fund, since 2019 with no inflationary figures applied at all, that's a little disingenuous. I would say that that is the state of a lot of situations within the county.

1:03:35 It's not isolated to that particular line item in your guys' budget. Our general fund, all of our services, contracts, except for a few mandatory increases are carried forward flat year over year because available resources are just not there for us to keep increasing those without considering priorities. As you and I have discussed, I just think there are some structural issues there that need to be tended to. When you look at that budget that was suggested in December for the Assistance Center, it just didn't float. And I understand there's concern about that. I think now's the time to think about what's needed this for 2027 so that we can budget it and put that financial plan in place so that the expectation is there. And that's what we're all about in here. Because I mean, that latest document that the Assessors put out on the Veteran Advisory

1:04:32 ... Matter of fact, their last paragraph actually tasked the Veteran Advisory Board to get closer to the budgets, to shift our priorities. You can see we're really energized now since we've been kind of tasked by the Assessors. And I would just reiterate, we can ask for, you can ask for more money and it will be a consideration of what's in available resources, like any of the other things that the county's trying to do. If there's $5 available but we need $20, that's a conversation of where would that additional funding come from or if we even can come up with it. But I think we can talk about what you guys ... The RCW state, this is a minimum we're talking about, that .01125. It goes up to 27 cents. So what has to be done to raise that levy at the county level?

1:05:30 I would say that's the conversation you want to have with the council. You need to say, "We want this much money for these services," and have them consider that. It's their decision. So if we put together the budget for the year and have contingencies in there for different items, then that would be, the contingency would be like a guaranteed max. I mean, I used to do construction projects. We'd have a contract for a guaranteed max with contingencies for certain line items, and if those line items went over the base that they were decided to be, then it flowed into the contingency. Is that something that is a structure that's acceptable? I think that could be considered as part of the Veterans Advisory Board's recommendations

1:06:27 for how the funds are allocated each year. If you have your three contracts, we have some administrative services for staff that support this work. Besides that, there's no other expenses there. So if you wanted to put a line item in for contingency, I think you'd want to define what that's for with clear parameters and what it could be used for, but I don't know how much will be available for that. You'll have to look at the numbers when they come in. Okay, so how is the calculation? What is the specific calculation of this number to get to a dollar amount? So if we said right now we're at something like 0.0073, it's below the minimum, right? I'm not the assessor's office. What makes him nervous about the assembly is that he quoted isn't going to fund this year's budget.

1:07:27 I do think that we've come up with a plan for 2026. We were able to get the council to approve the estimated gap of $30,000. So that's there. You know, mid-year, if that's looking like it's going the wrong way, we can talk about that again. But the idea is to start planning for the long term, starting in 2027. And again, if the levy rate has been established by the legislation now to meet the minimum and it's going to be a higher amount, we need to really backtrack from what you think you need to spend and figure out if that's going to cover that or if there's a gap that needs to be requested from the council. You know, that's one of the reasons why I wanted Judy to present her budget to us by August so that the councilors in their September meetings could adjust the funding.

1:08:25 It didn't happen. >> And I would just say so everybody's really aware of the county budget process, and I don't want to step on DCS's toes because I know there's a way that that budget's reviewed and I think it's more towards the end of the year, but the county budget process, the deadline for funding submissions is July. So those conversations, those determinations, and again, it's like forecasting the future, right? You have to forecast for 2027 what you need and submit that number and work with DCS to look at that number by July or early July so that you can get into the queue with everything else that's going forward to the council for those December hearings. That's when it starts is August and moves forward. >> Well, if we do that, then Judy's got to swag everything from June to December. >> For this year? >> How? >> Is that what you're concerned about for 2026?

1:09:24 Her budget, she's got to swag everything from June to December on how much they're going to need. >> Could I, I think just to make a suggestion and hopefully help frame a little bit, you might want to think about for the discussion on the 29th of April, the council, is you're really talking about two issues here. One is how does, what is the revenue that goes into the Veterans Assistance Fund? Like the levy rate, right? That's policy. You know, that is, that's the piece that I think you really want to discuss with the council is what are you advocating for? What do you think, to what extent and how should Veterans Assistance Fund get a certain amount of money in there, right?

1:10:22 And whether it's solely levy or it's levy plus some general fund, you know, that's policy. The assistance center budget operates, that's technical. That's not policy. The assistance center budget should be operating within whatever the Veterans Assistance Fund is. And you know, I think that when the assistance center brings budget proposals to the VAB for the next year, you know, the VAB should really be asking the assistance center like does this budget request reflect what you are expecting to spend?

1:11:17 And that budget request should be within the limits of what the fund can sustain, right? If the fund needs to, if the fund limit needs to change to be able to support a different assistance center need, that's policy, right? And that's the percentage or ratio as opposed to being in the levy. And that is policy. That would be the county policy discussion. So if you want the county policy to be like hey, we don't want, you know, any conversation of formulas below the levy rate and stuff like that, you can ask the council to consider that and it will be up to the council, you know, to decide.

1:12:09 Now, once that policy is decided, it is up to the county and county staff and the different departments to execute and function within that policy. So the assessor's office is only going to execute based on that. And what community services does is we support the VAB and we administrate the fund as it exists. So, you know, what community services has no power to do is to magically add funds to the Veterans Assistance Fund. Not asking for magically asking for more funds, but in the situation where the budget has

1:13:04 been set at a certain place, then there are so many variables in that they need to be accounted for, but it seems to me that the service center is somehow compelled to not allow for certain things because they, I don't know, they can't be particularly justified or something, or that it's being asked to not project something in that sense. I mean, they've got, there's just a tremendous amount of variables, as you can imagine, right? So there's got to be a span of something there, you know, they have no idea if they're going

1:14:01 to get 50 people in or 1,000 people in today, right? So there's got to be some kind of variance there that allows them to be able to service those people if there's a surge in something. And that's got to be in the budget, yes. But if it's, when it's put into a budget, if it comes back to them that says, well, it doesn't appear that you're going to do this and you need to reduce it, then what kind of a thing? If she's saying this is what we need, then she's saying that's what we need. Why is it being turned down in a sense or being suggested that she reduce it? Why would you suggest she reduce the budget if she thinks she might need that?

1:15:00 So I don't, I'm not aware that suggestions to reduce the budget, other than the one time that I outlined, I'm not aware that there have been any suggestions to reduce a budget. But any budget, I'm not talking about the assistance center, you know, any organizational budget, it needs to be based on some kind of projection and calculation that ultimately does need to be grounded in what you're expecting in services, and you know, any organization with a budget needs to be able to kind of defend the rationale behind that. And so that's what I would ask, not just the assistance center, but any budget that you get to consider, ask those questions. So going into, they've got a new facility that's over twice the size of what they had

1:15:55 before, we're going to be increasing the amount of services going. So setting up this new budget coming up for 27 is going to be challenging to say the least, but there's definitely got to be some projections in there that may or may not be reality in the end, right? So what is, what's going to be looked at as far as how these projections are going to be dealt with in this whole budget process? I think that's largely going to be up to you as advisory board when you get this budget. We will do that. Yeah, because it sounds like, based on what Buck said, we are empowered now as a board

1:16:54 to assist Judy with the budget and to project as best we can going forward, and it sounds to me what I'm understanding, Emily. We need to start earlier than later, so we should start now, for sure, leading into July, and we're empowered, that's what I'm gathering from this, we're empowered to assist going forward. This is a, you know, we're in a new building now, or the assistance center's in a new building now, so we can't necessarily, you know, like my mom used to say, you can't, there's a reason why the front window's larger than the rear window. You can't, you can learn from the past, but now we're going forward, we're in a new location, we have to move forward, and I think this is the year to do that, and we need to start sooner rather than later. Absolutely.

1:17:50 I would like to just remind the advisory board, you know, the assistance center is its own independent organization, and they have a governing board. You know, it's really, which I sit on, but it is really the responsibility of each organization to present, you know, to develop and present a budget that they can stand behind, and that comes to you as advisory board, and the way you can help them with their budgeting is not in the creation of their budget, but when they bring it to you, to ask those questions that verify that it's, that the budget is sound, and I would say that's how I would read your task here. And for the minutes, for the minutes, we just might note, though, that the entire evolution

1:18:49 of a new facility with new services and things was at the behest of the county. All right. We were asked to go find a new facility so they could increase services, so I mean that's kind of a footnote in all of this, that this isn't something that the assistance center dreamed up. They were told we're going to increase veteran services in this county, and by gosh, you'd be proud of them. They really are, but that costs money, and it's difficult to predict given the infancy that they're in in the new facility. I think that's always true with new initiatives. I was just asked Abby to bring up this forecast, which I think you've all seen, and I think this is your starting kind of place to consider with what you need in addition.

1:19:43 If you look at the pink section, which the expenditures, we've got a small portion or a portion going for administrative support services from the county staff, but the bulk of this is the contracts, and the bulk of those contracts is the Veterans Assistance Center, right? So when you think about that cost of what's being provided now, that's where I'm hoping that you might think about jumping off from that point and starting to talk about what else do we need and what is that going to cost? Because this right here is what the existing kind of structure is, that structural deficit that's currently happening now because the good problem of having a great new facility and being able to think about providing more services is costing more than what the revenue is bringing in, but with this potential legislative change, those might equal out or even benefit the fund slightly. We'll see what those numbers play out to be, but as you see currently, we're bringing in

1:20:43 about a million and we're spending about 1.2, so that's why that fund balance has been going down and why we were looking at supplanting the 30,000 and potentially even more for 2027, but I do think if you guys look at those contract areas, think about the Veterans Assistance Center, what it is that you want to request financial support for, that's going to be something that can be considered by the Council, as well as the levy raid and any additional funding. I just have a couple of things. First of all, Jim Bowen has had his hand raised online for a while, so I'd love to give him a chance to speak and second of all is just a reminder about the intent of this discussion here which is to prepare for the work session with the Council and really discuss as a board what you're hoping to get out of that conversation with the County Council and what materials you might need to prepare and if there's anything that you need from County staff to help prepare

1:21:40 for that conversation, but first of all, go ahead, Jim Bowen. Thank you. It seemed to me like there's two issues that we need to address in this meeting. The first one is the issue with 2026 ending balance. If we have to go ahead and fund January and February and part of March with that balance, that services can't be provided, what does that mean in 2026? It's one thing we can solve the problem with the 2027 budget going forward, but the most important issue I think that we need help from the County Council is how do we get through 2026 and we haven't really addressed that. That's accurate. I think I can answer that. That 57,000 is a positive number, so you're fully funded for what's been projected for 2026. There was that $30,000 infusion.

1:22:37 If that current budget of 1.2 million plus the 30 is not enough to fund the services that are existing, we need to talk about that right away. If it's something that you're wanting above and beyond that, that budget process is really for future conversations. That's not something for this year because this year's budget has already been adopted. So my understanding is that carryover, that $57,000 has to fund the Veterans Assistance Fund through January and February until the property taxes start rolling in. It's a cash flow issue. I don't believe there's a cash flow issue, but we could look at that. At this point, I'm not aware that we will have an issue for January or February of 2027.

1:23:30 There does need to be a fund balance for us to be able to pay the previous month's invoices. That should get us through that initial, that beginning of the year. The decisions that get made for 2027 fund balance will absolutely be important in supporting whatever 2027 budgets come out for the assistance fund. Well, but for the last couple meetings, I think I have heard that we had to keep a level of several hundred thousand dollars on the December 31st end of year in order to fund January and February contract.

1:24:24 I don't know the amount, the specific amount we would have to maintain, but we absolutely need to have money in the bank to be able to pay the bills when the bills come. So having a zero fund balance to start the year with would absolutely be a problem. I think that the projected fund balance of $57,000 will be sufficient to maintain the cash flow that we need until the revenue continues to come into the assistance fund. But having said that, maintaining a fund balance of $57,000 is absolutely not sufficient to be an adequate reserve fund. It doesn't give you any room for contingencies as has been discussed.

1:25:24 I think that the county would generally like to see at least three months worth of, like three months worth of expenditures in any fund to consider it an adequate fund balance. So your point of the fund balance that we are ending 2026 is alarming is absolutely correct, and that is why we have that work session on the 29th of April, and you're going to be engaging with the county council about policy of what should be the revenue that's going into the assistance fund, you know, what do you want to see as fund balance, what is an appropriate fund reserve level to maintain, and meet the service needs that you are expecting

1:26:22 to see moving forward. Well, the post script, I'm full of post scripts, but we were out of money at the end of last year. The not-for-profit pitched in $77,000. That's a concern of the board. We don't want that to continue to happen, and if that's a conversation for the council, we would like your advice on how to present that, because we cannot continually ask the not-for-profit to pitch in the dollars that they use for other veteran needs in the county. They don't sit on it. They don't, you know, they spend it. So that's one of the big problems with this session that we're looking for help on is how do you get around? You carried $288,000 forward.

1:27:19 You can look at it right there in the upper right-hand corner. $288,000 was sitting in your coffers to be carried forward for this year while the not-for-profit went out and had to pay all of your bills in December. There's something fundamentally wrong with that system, and that's what we need to correct. And I would just say I don't disagree with you that that's a problem, but as Michael mentioned, operating within available resources, if that amount had been able to be given, we would be in an even worse situation instead of asking for a $30,000, you know, urgent request from the council. We would have had to increase that, and that $57,000 would be reduced. We would be looking at maybe starting in the red for 2027, and that's just not good financial practice, right? That's a red flag. Right.

1:28:17 But I do think, you know, asking for help and getting back, I know Abby's trying to keep us in the rails, I think talking about what is it, you guys talking about what is it that we want in addition to what is already being allocated out of this fund, and not just a dollar amount and not just a revenue amount, but what those services are. Can we articulate those if it's the Veterans Assistance Center developing, you know, something that you can present like, I don't know, give me an example of a service that you guys want to provide that isn't being provided out of there. I think we talked about maybe some additional staffing. It's increasing, one of those is increasing the officers, the certified officers that help the veterans. There's something like 500 cases backlog right now. And that requires more certified service officers to get those cases moving.

1:29:15 And that's unfortunately up to the different organizations to provide those service officers. And if we're going to pay them, then we have to contract that. And right now our contract is for two service officers with the WDVA, they're the only two. >> So how many more do you need and what would that cost and, you know, if there's a 500, how would you break that up? Is that three additional staff? Is it two additional staff to take on that caseload? And what's that dollar amount? And then that can be an ask, right? This is what we want for this specific service. >> And that needs to reflect in the new budget that's coming up. And that's what we need to work with Judy on. >> Correct. >> Yep. >> Can I jump in here for a minute? >> And aligning all of the support that goes with it.

1:30:14 >> Yes, Judy, go ahead. >> So I just want to say that I understand that the major focus here moving forward needs to be this bill 2442. Once we can get that levy increased to the minimum amount, then there are lots of things that we could do here at the center and there are lots of things that we want to do. One of the major things that we want to add money for is a mental health counselor and a case manager on site. We have so many veterans who come in here who have mental health issues. If we had a mental health professional on site, we could help so many more of them moving forward.

1:31:04 So I see our direction or the veteran advisory board's direction being first and foremost with the policy, with the counselors, getting that levy increased to where it should have been all along. If it had been 1 1/8 all this time, we wouldn't be having this shortage issue. That's my opinion. >> I was just going to mention, Judy, I do think you're right that that's a major consideration. I think some of that's addressed by what's already happened with the legislature. We're going to be able to pencil that out. But I think in order to really have a solid conversation for 2027 needs, we need to look at that mental health counselor, we need to look at that cost and write up kind of a justification or some type of narrative about that. So once that levy is increased and if there's more money coming into the fund, the fund is in a structural deficit.

1:32:02 So we may need that just to maintain what you're already doing. I think you're going to have to ask for these additional things as separate considerations, possibly on top of that levy being increased, and I think you should prepare for that. We can look at what the money is going to be and we can calculate out what that's going to cover, and then whatever it doesn't cover is going to be a separate request for more. And that's the conversation. That's the great opportunity, I feel, that you guys are going to have with the council on April 29th. So I know it's kind of accelerating those conversations, but that kind of information will be really helpful for them to consider as they kind of take into account everything that's going to be competing for these general fund dollars. And if I can just add to that, I also wanted to address Buck's question earlier of how can we avoid a future situation where the assistance center runs out of their contracted funds and has to pull money from the nonprofit side. And I think the best answer to that, which is what we've been talking about, is accurate

1:33:00 budget forecasting. Just for some context, for 2025 the assistance center original budget request was $883,000. That was contracted. Throughout the year they received an additional $21,600 modification in, I believe, April. And then again in December they received another $25,000. So if we can go into a calendar year with accurate budget forecasting that will get them through the year, then we shouldn't have to face issues of needing to find additional funding towards the end of the year if services aren't being met. So a lot of that modification to that budget was because of the additional rent in the new building from August moving forward. That's right. Our rent went from $4,400 to $10,000 a month.

1:33:56 So that was the original $21,600 modification. The second modification where we asked for $50,000, we were given $25,000 to finish out the year, and it turned out that that was not enough. So we do as accurate forecasting as we can based on what we know and what our burn rate is. We never know how many veterans are going to come through that door. So basically when I do a budget forecast, it's an educated guess. So believe me, I would like to be as close to my budget as to what I'm going to spend as possible because I don't like running out of money. I don't like having to ask the nonprofit to pitch in money. So I'm in a budget as close as I possibly can.

1:34:51 But again, it's based on prior knowledge of how many veterans we've seen over the years, how many veterans are increasing to come in, how many new veterans are going to come to access our increased services. So it's basically a guessing game is what it is. And I do the best I can with it. Over the last 12 years, I've tried to budget as close as I possibly could. So that's why there were two modifications in last year's budget. Thank you for that context, Judy. And I think we all absolutely recognize that the move is a unique circumstance. But just thinking about projecting for future years in terms of this request for the council and what our recommendations are.

1:35:47 The budget for this year, that $851,578, wasn't that number knocked down from something higher than that? There were two choices as part of the annual budget adoption. The council, as Michael's talked about, there's policy level decisions that they make. And they had a choice to do a proportional rate to the general fund levy or do the flat rate. And they chose the proportional rate, which is that $851,000. Okay, so that affects then that levy rate that is mandated by the state. That's where I was asking for how these things are calculated. And it seems that there's variances in there.

1:36:41 And I'd like to see what the process or procedure is for calculating the actual dollar amount from what the mandated ratio is. So it turns out that the mandated amount is a different number than what actually happens. And through some sort of calculation, they come up with this final number. And with what you're saying that they decided to use one system over another, well that affects that mandated amount. Yeah, not a system, it's a choice. There's two different... Yeah, but it affects what we're doing then. It certainly does. And that's, again, I think, I understand that the levy rate's been a huge point of something that you guys have... It is.

1:37:40 I understand that. I want to acknowledge that. But I think that's part of the conversation about asking for more from the council. I think that's what we need to do. So we need to understand how this number is calculated then. Was the information that Abby forwarded on helpful? Not completely, no, because it didn't show how the process works to come arrive at that final number. Okay. And there should be some kind of documentation that shows that, or else, how did they arrive at it? Well, I know there's, I haven't read through the materials lately, but that's not how it really works. But there are definite formulas. Yeah, and I'm sure it's complicated. The Department of Revenue actually provides all of the guidance that we follow, and that's, it is very complicated though, I'm not the one who does it. Yeah, I'm sure. But what is it?

1:38:38 It would help us to know what that is so we can figure out how that reflects and how it affects what we're doing. Well, beyond maybe getting into the details more of that, which I think we can talk about, I don't know that we can make that all happen in order for you guys to be ready for the 29th work section. So we can follow up, we can try to ask additional, if you have specific additional questions, I would look to Abby to maybe guide us on how we would follow up on that question. Yeah, so just to make sure that I'm understanding what you're asking, Patrick, in the document that I shared from the Assessor's Office, they did outline how the basic levy rate calculation is computed, and that is tax district budget divided by total taxable assessed value of the tax district.

1:39:33 And they also outlined how the levy rate is based on estimated budget. That didn't work out. So then we need to get somebody to go through that calculation with some numbers and see how it works out, because it doesn't add up to the same thing. So that's why I'm saying the process isn't clear of how they arrive at that, and I would like to know what that process is specifically in order to get from the levy to a dollar amount that comes on this contract. How did they get to that? I'd like to see exactly how that is processed and calculated, because it's not clear in that document that you sent. So Abby, can we get that for our next meeting before we meet with the counselors?

1:40:33 I'm happy to follow up with the Assessor's Office and see what documents they can provide. When I shared the request from the last meeting, this is the document that they came up with for you all, but I'm happy to see what other... It would be good if they did a pro forma on a calculation. Take a number, and for instance, what we're doing right now, take that and run it through that process, and let's see what that end number comes out to. Sure, yeah. I'll reach out to them for sure. I do want to highlight that the gist of this document was to inform you all that Washington State has a budget-based system, which means that levy rates are ultimately calculated based on budgets, and I know you all understand that the ultimate task is to come up with budget needs for the next few years, at least for 2027, and advocate based on those budget needs. Yeah. I've gone through the whole system there.

1:41:32 We're going to have to move on here because our time expires at four o'clock. Can I ask you one more? Yes, sir. And we would need... I just have one question for you both, and first, I'd like to thank you for coming in. I have enjoyed... Emily, I enjoyed my time with you. You are one of the most gracious people that we've seen on this staff, and we thank you very much for coming in, but I'd like to know... I'd like your recommendations on if you were in our position, what would you do to prepare for the work session? Well, from my perspective, which is totally just me, I would tell the story of what you guys need. I think more than anything, I think we can talk about the technicalities, the calculations, and ultimately those decisions do go to council. I think this new legislation might change that conversation a little bit for all of

1:42:32 us. I really hope so. In a good way. Because that would be great, because that means more money for you guys to do what you need to do. But I think... And I think most of the counselors have come and viewed the Veterans Assistance Center, and I think everybody's very supportive, but this is like the business case. This is the story. This is what we're experiencing. This is what we need. And working with Judy to try to talk about what you guys are hoping and envisioning for that Veterans Assistance Center, and give them some options to say yes to, or no to if they don't have the resources, but if it's the new mental health counselor, if it's these additional staff for the 500 overload, tell those stories and the impacts and the meaning of that, because we can provide data about the financial management and what's there. We'll explain that and talk with you guys all about those numbers. I know we already do, but I think the council needs to hear what you want and what you need moving forward. I absolutely agree.

1:43:30 And I think I'd add, part of the story is have an explicit vision of what you want and ground it as much as possible, like don't make it abstract. Make it grounded in ... my term, reality, but what I mean by that is if you're talking about the assistance center, or if you're talking about the Veterans Service Officer contract with the DBA, have your vision of we want this number of Veterans Service Officers. We know there are 30,000 veterans or whatever, and they have these needs. We want to provide this level of services, which means that we need to have an overall budget of the assistance center of X that supports these specific things, and for that

1:44:28 to happen, the assistance fund needs to be Y. And I think the more explicit ... and there's a difference between explicit and precise, right? Like everything, budgeting is forecasting. Forecasting is not going to be precise, but you can be explicit in terms of what your vision is and what you want, and that will help the counselors. That will put meat on the bones and be an ass that they can kind of like wrap their brains around, and I think that'd be very helpful to everyone involved. Well, thank you. I think I understand. We appreciate that comment, but just we keep doing the footnotes. Remember, this wasn't our vision, the VAB's vision. This was the county's vision for increasing services, and now we're trying to get a handle on what do they want. But you guys have the voice to tell the story, I think, in the best place for it. And we have done that.

1:45:27 I did that a little with you, as a matter of fact, and I've done it with Counselor Young as well. You got to kind of tell a story here, you know. And I think you're paving a good pathway. I think this work session, you're going to be talking to the decision makers directly. You know, it's important to understand that this is not the same facility. It's in 10,000 square feet. It's expanding. It's growing. We're providing, I think, better services, getting more volunteers there. So it is a growing center, because as more folks find out the services that are provided there that they have expanded and they're much more effective, there's going to be more folks showing up, and it's going to cost money. This whole process is like changing a tire when the car is moving. But it's a good problem to have, wouldn't you guys agree, that this is a very positive thing. Very good problem. And that's part of the story, Larry. Yep. We have increased what we'll be able to provide.

1:46:24 This is what we would like to provide in addition to. That should be all part of the story. We're empowered to do that now. Okay. So. Let's move on now. Thank you, Emily. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mark. Just wanted to let you guys know just before we break that there are some deadlines, I think, before the next VAB meeting. So if there -- can we go over the deadlines just one more time? Yes. Go ahead. Okay. So it is after the next one. So we -- I will be here next month as well. And if there's anything between now and then, if you'd work through Abby, if we can try to help collaborate, if you have ideas, if you have questions, I want to help you guys as much as I can to be a really great conversation with the council. Okay? All right. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Mike, appreciate your time. Thank you. Okay. Next item. Committee reports.

1:47:23 Appeals? No appeals? Judy? I need a beer. Oh, yeah. Judy? Yes? Any appeals? No, there were no appeals. Okay. Greg, policies and procedures? Well, actually, Mr. Chairman, I do have a lot of appeals. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get a lot of appeals. Okay. Greg, policies and procedures? Well, actually, Mr. Chairman, I do have something this month. Okay. March 4th, I met with Judy, well, myself, Patrick, and Lloyd, Policies and Procedures Committee. We met with Judy, Sonia, Mark, and Dee at the VAC, and we've come up with about a ... Judy gave us some guidance, and we got about a dozen or so language differences from one word to maybe a sentence or two. Nothing significant. That was last week, so Abby's working with

1:48:20 Judy to get the right language, and it'll be sent out for board members review within the few days, I guess. Abby's nodding her head, so we should see that soon. Sorry about that. So anyway, I just wanted to say we did meet, and we're working on it. Okay, Greg, thank you. It's a great meeting. Yep. Noggin. No nominations, right, Bruce? Not at this time. All right. Budget workshop? Budget workshop. Okay, we've obviously had quite a few conversations and done quite a bit of homework and different things. One thing I would suggest right now is that we have a meeting with the budget work group within the next week to really start discussing

1:49:14 some critical things and get that whole process laid out and identify where we're going with it and what we're going to actually do. And who's in your group? Here's a buck, myself. There's about, what, six, seven? Okay. Yeah. Hi. So, primarily, so who is primarily responsible for communication? Are you doing that, Buck, or do you want me to do that? Yes, I do. We'd love for you to do that. Please. Okay, so I'll get an email out then and we'll get something set up within the next week here and start laying out exactly what we have to do. All right, thank you.

1:50:06 But I agree 100% that essentially there needs to be a business plan put together, right? And the business plan needs to provide a compelling story as to who is the service center, why are they there, and what are they going to do, and how are they going to do it. Right. And we need to put that together and create that story into it, and that will produce the financials that are needed to put together for the budget. Okay, Patrick, thank you. Anything else? If not, we'll move on to contract reports. Hey, Abby, that's you, isn't it? We can just gloat. Yes, thank you, Bob. All right, yeah, I'll go through this quick. The assistance center

1:51:06 had 570 visits for essentials and food with 743 sack breakfasts and lunches, 83 food boxes, 5,019 total pounds of food provided, 497 and a half volunteer hours totaling over $20,000 in value. There were 58 veterans served in January. That's actually incorrect. I need to update that because that was a miscalculation, but in your fund reports, it shows the actual amount of services. 47 male veterans, 10 female, one widow, and zero others served, 16 denials, zero subject to appeal. The free clinic served one veteran in January. Services totaled $516 in value. They billed 741 to the fund. For fund balance, January revenues were over $150,000.

1:52:01 Expenditures were about 5,000. The fund balance at the end of January stood around $478,000, which was $148,000 increase from the previous month, and I believe that's because we collected a good amount of our property taxes during that month. Questions? Thank you, Abby. We just believe you. Judy, what do you got for us? Just a couple of quick things. Our gala is Mash Parade based on the TV show, Mash, and it's coming up on June 20th at Aylin A. That should be fun. You can come dressed up as your favorite character, and the other thing is we just hired a part-time CSO. He was a volunteer and now he's going to be working starting out two days a week, and we'll see

1:53:00 how that goes. We're hopeful that it's going to go well. He's very good with the veterans and very organized, so I think that will be a great addition to our staff. That's not going to help you with the backlog of veterans' claims, though, is it? No, no, no, no. That's a completely separate thing, Bob. Right. That's a completely separate contract. It's a completely separate thing. Right. I understand. I just wanted to make it clear so people understood. Yeah. No, this is for financial services through the vet fund. Right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Old business. Sorry, Bob. I actually had one more slide from the fund reports that I forgot to share. The 2025 year-end fund report shows 2025 revenue was $962,577. 2025 expenditures was $1,156,432.

1:54:00 This was a net decrease of $193,854 for an ending fund balance of $329,653. So are you saying that the delta between the expenditures and the revenue was covered by the not-for-profit? No, so that the difference between revenue and expenditures was covered by existing fund balance from prior years. Prior year. Okay. Old business. There's a lot of us. New business. Just to let the board members know, I've asked Abby to attach information about the Clark College veterans when they're using their benefits through the VA and stuff. It's just something you can quickly look over at your leisure at that time. Okay. Next open forum. Committee 250 is being hosted by the Clark County History Center in Vancouver. If you're

1:54:59 interested, talk with the staff over there, and they're looking for input ideas before the 4th of July. Okay. Free Vietnam veterans luncheon at the VFW post 7824 on Vietnam Veterans Day, March 28th. Free to be Vietnam veterans from noon to 2. There'll be a flyer I'll get to Abby, and she can send it out to the group. Your post? Thank you, Greg. My post, yep. And? 28th of March. Jim Bowen has his hand raised online. Can I just ask a process question? It seems to me like we ought to have the draft, a draft presentation or a pretty detailed outline of what we're going to present to the county counselors by the next meeting. Is there someone who's going to put that together? How's that process going to work? Yeah. Yes. That's exactly what we need, and that's what we're going to do. We're going to get a meeting set up for next week to start that process.

1:55:57 Okay. Continuing open forum. I've got one thing. Just a reminder. April 22nd, CMAQ will be honoring and recognizing high school kids going into the military service. April 22nd, 630, and that's at Skyview High School. And the reason I'm bringing it up, I just cannot tell you the importance of it right now, especially with the war going on in Iran. I talked to a couple parents that have high school kids that are going into military, and they're uptight because they don't know where this war is going to go, and their kid's going to go off into the service, and in four or five months, the library will be over there in the Mideast someplace. So, and it's nice to get a lot of folks in that Skyview auditorium where you can thank the parents and thank the kids and so forth so that those parents and kids know that we have their back. April 22nd, 630, Skyview High School.

1:56:55 >> Okay, thank you. Any other open forum? If not, I'll entertain a motion for adjournment. >> So moved. >> Second. >> It's moved and seconded. We adjourn. Those in favor? >> Aye. >> Those opposed? Motion carried. >> Aye. >> Opposed? Motion carried. [ Music ]