Clark County Veterans Advisory Board

0:00 (upbeat music) - All rise. - All rise, please. - Pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Bruce, will you give us an invocation? - Yes, I can, Mr. Chair. Let us bow our heads. O sovereign rule of the world, thank you for being here with us during our deliberations for our Veterans Advisory Board. May we be able to foster support for our veterans in our community and to help them out where it is needed. And also, Lord, would you please keep our troops in mind as they are serving overseas with the possibility of being in harm's way

0:59 and making sure that we keep peace around the world for the jobs that we do. In God's name we pray, amen. - Amen. - Thank you, take your seats. Meeting is in session. Roll call, Bruce. - All right, roll call of post. 14A, Bob Brennan. - Here. - Mark Lacy. - Here. - American Legion Post 14, Gene Kucher. - Here. - You're here, thank you. American Legion Post 168, Board Chair, Bob Nichols. - Here. - American Legion Post 44, Jim Bowen. - Here. - Darren Wertz. American Legion Post 176, Michael Gibson. - Here. - Jonathan Frederick. American Veterans Post 6, John Lovejoy. - Present. - Banis Pratt is excused.

1:57 DAV Chapter 4, Board Secretary, Bruce Moss, here. Roy Day. - Here. - Roy's online. Korean War Veterans 321, Patrick Locke. - Here. - Earl Edwards. - Here. - Marine Corps League 826, Steve Sludgers. He is excused. VFW Post 4278, Thomas Brandt. Deborah Proctor. - Here. - VFW Post 7824, Greg Gilbertson is excused. Stuart Bowerd is excused. Vietnam Veterans Chapter 512, Greg Whitsitt. Nick Herber. - Sorry to interrupt, this is Steve Gill. Can you guys hear us on your end? - Yes, I can. Nobody here from VVBA 512? All right, members at large, Brian McGillis will join us shortly. Board Vice Chair, Buck Mar. - Here. - Larry Smith. - Here. - Lloyd Borman. - Here.

2:56 - Michael Langsdorf. - Here. - Tanya Wark. Clark County Representative, Abby Molloy. - Here, and Brian McGillis just dropped in the chat that he's here now. - Okay, I appreciate it. I'm gonna go ahead and just mention some names we have in the back. We have Judy Russell here from the Clark County Veterans Assistance Center. We have Michael Torres, who's the supervisor of our fund, and our last person off to the right, your name is? - Laura Leisick. - Laura Leisick. Did I get that correct? Okay, other than that, Mr. Chair, you have a quorum. - Okay, thank you, Bruce. I'll entertain a motion for the approval of the minutes from last meeting. - So moved. - Second.

3:55 - It's been moved and seconded. Those in favor? - Aye. - Those opposed? - Aye. - Motion carried. Committee reports, chain culture, any appeals? Okay. Policies and procedures, Craig, he's not here. - I've been asked to go over the policies and procedures, and I think Judy Russell might also interject a little bit, too. - Okay, please do. - Okay, so everybody should have received an email from Abby with some changes to the policies and procedures. As soon as she gets it up on the screen, we'll show you what changes that were primarily made and submitted from the Veterans Assistance Center with Judy Russell and staff. A lot of it is just, we're gonna go quickly through it 'cause a lot of it is just changes in the policies and procedures to make sure we stay within the letter, within the letter of the law.

4:54 Can we scroll down to page four? 'Cause that's the starting point where I see some of the changes and stuff. So we'll do that. I'm just gonna quickly go through this because we're gonna be under time constraints with our board meeting for the rest of the two hours and stuff. So down at 2.3, we have a little bit of a change. We've taken away hospital and query for showing VA honorable, VA dis, ID along with honorable discharge, if I'm reading this correctly. Like I said, that's just a minor change. 2.6, we wanted to add to make sure that bank statements, and SSI determination letters, there's other requirements, also need to be shown so we can report the income of the veteran to making sure that they qualify within the means of assistance.

5:54 There was some other, they also included the food delivery services as a part of that as well too, under 2.6. Scrolling on down, we're gonna go down to 3.4. Looks like we're changing a little bit here. It says this $1200 is an additional assistance, is available once per veteran. I think we've kind of had some back and forth issues over the years about making sure that we provide the veterans just that one time. We're not always going back per se, asking for more money. We just want to try to keep it as consistent as we can under the RCW. Section 3.4.3, the assistance is available once every 12 months, coming from the second month's rent. Here again, like we said, we just want to try to make sure

6:52 that we're telling the veterans that once you've used something through the year, you can't get another reset until you reach the next year. 3.4.5, we've struck out. It looks like if a veteran can verify in a 12 month painting for maintaining their housing. Scrolling on down, we're at 3.6 for food assistance. What we're trying to basically tell the veteran is that if you lose a food voucher, a replacement can be requested after 90 days. You don't have to keep giving them something, coming back and saying, well, I lost my voucher, can I get another one back? It's like, well, you're gonna have to wait after 90 days. 3.7 for transportation assistance. You must have supporting housing voucher

7:51 if you want to go look around for an apartment in the community so that we can count that towards your transportation assistance. Scrolling on down to 3.11.1. Auto repair's been kind of a back and forth thing, depending upon how much money is being spent with the fund by doing this. Within the next 30 days or attending school or maintaining employment, can we give you something for auto, you can't get it in between the 30 day window, it has to be past that point. I know the auto repair, that veteran's request is a little, you know, cost of the fluctuating for that. 3.11.4, assistance for a 12 month period. We've struck out circumstances and it says for any medical or legal reasons. So that just provides more of a reason

8:50 for assistance with regards to this section of the policies and procedures. Homeless veteran fund, section four, 4.1. If the veteran has an other than honorable discharge and provides required document per RCW 73.04.005, they may receive a housing assistance. So let me remind the board about this. If we have a veteran in our community that has another than honorable discharge or BDC, they cannot qualify for certain funds under the federal VA. However, they are eligible for housing assistance as just being the status of a veteran, even though they're not going into federal, they're going into local. We've had conversations about this in the past that we wanted to recognize these types of veterans with that type of discharge.

9:49 And if you have any more questions, you can ask Judy, but the state law pretty well defines that an other than honorable or BDC can qualify for housing even though they can't get federal benefits. 4.1.1, it is mandatory that you have to have insurance when your, renter's insurance when you're renting an apartment or a house. That's a mandatory requirement. I know a lot of apartment complexes in Vancouver are telling its tenants that if you don't have renter's assistance, you gotta get it. 4.1.3, furniture costs are only provided under the HVSF. Storage, we're kind of going back into 3.1.1.3 when it comes to storage and that, 3.1. Yeah, the veteran has storage, $750 a month for 12 months,

10:47 so that's kind of a, once again, a kind of clarification. 4.1.8, after passing inspection for a house or apartment for rent is not ready due to landlord issues, a rental agreement must be provided for the voucher. So there's times where veterans are given a move-in date, that move-in date's not there because the landlord says they need more time to get the dwelling ready to go for the renter, they need to verify that with the assistant center because that's, we can't cover that extra cost because of that. That's basically about it, it's just a lot of the sections of the regulations were just to do clarifications for the policies and procedures ordinance, making sure that everything's following through correctly, 'cause over the last several years,

11:45 what was either struck out or added was just to try to make sure that we have all that verification information in for the veteran who's requesting relief. And if anybody has any questions, Judy's here, but I think what we've made changes to this is pretty well self-explanatory, just cleaning it up. Mr. Chair, I want it back to you. Thank you, Judy, do you have any thing on the increases that are automatic because of cost of living? - I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. - The cost of living increases. - Do I have anything on that? Yes, I think, well, you're talking about the budget? - No. - No, I'm talking about this year's cost of living increases that's gonna affect your budget.

12:43 Policies and procedures, I think. - So there won't be any increases in the policies and procedures from what the policies are now, because all this has done is just clarify some of the rules, make it more black and white instead of gray on the policies and procedures, because we are getting new CSOs, and the gray area has always been an issue. So there is no financial impact in any of these changes. - Okay, but what about just the cost of living increases for this year, what is that affecting you? - So there has been no cost of living increase included in this at this time. If we get to the point, right now we're only four months in, so if we get to the point where the cost of living

13:42 is having a huge effect on our budget, then we will ask for a supplemental amount of money. But at this point, we're not far enough into the year yet to see where we're at. - Okay, thank you. - Sure. - Bob? - I got a question. The last page shows attachment A, shows housing assistance, it shows 2025, but it doesn't show that it's been upgraded since January 23rd of 2025. Are we upgrading that at all? That's attachment A. To the policies and procedures. - I'm happy to update the last page of the policies and procedures with the latest guidelines from HHS

14:40 when we enact these changes to the policies and procedures, if that would be helpful. - Okay, thank you, Abby. Does that answer your question? - I'm not sure. They last did it in 23 of 2025. What about 2026? - According to Judy, the cost of living has not caused any increases. - No, that's not what I said. - I don't think you said that. - That's what I understood. - What I said was we aren't far enough into this year's budget to know if that cost of living increase is going to be detrimental to the amount of money in our budget for 2025. And as far as these 2025 amounts go, Michael, we never get the newly published ones until around this month of the year, about four months in, we get the new year. - Are we going to then modify

15:39 what's now known as attachment A, housing assistance to our policies and procedures? Will it be updated? - Yes, I can update that for you all. These numbers come from HUD and from HHS, so I will check if the updated numbers have been published and add them to this document for you all. - Thank you. - Any more questions, yes? - So there are a bunch of limits in paragraph three for all the different items. Are those, and those haven't changed, are there some way that those limits are determined or is that something that the advisory board could recommend higher limits in some of those cases? - Judy might be able to answer that question. - Did you get that question, Judy? - I did not hear him. - I can't hear-- - Turn your mic on.

16:35 - So if you look at 3.4.1, 3.4.2 and on down, there are limits in every one of those categories and we're not recommending any changes to those limits. Is there some rationale for that or some process where those limits are determined? - Those are the policies and procedures that we've been working with and we do update them occasionally. Right now, these are the ones that have been passed in the last policies and procedures. The reason we did not update them is because, again, we're not into this year far enough to see exactly what the year-end monies is going to be. We typically have our busiest months in October, November, and December. So right now, I've just billed through March. So by the middle of the year,

17:33 we'll know if we need to increase any of these. But right now, we don't know. - Thank you. - Any more questions? If not, we'll move on to nominations. Bruce? - Nothing at this time, Mr. Chair, thank you. - All right, thank you. Budget Work Group, Patrick? - Yes, the Budget Work Group over this past month, we have had meetings with the Budget Office, went over procedures and policies and looked at how things were calculated. We also met with the County Assessor's Office, reviewed their process as well, and got a tremendous amount of information from that

18:31 and looked at a lot of different elements of the process and procedures. So we understand quite well how that's being done, and we're taking that in consideration in our particular jobs here. That included a lot of clarification of the services and the amounts of money and how they came about those. We also have been reviewing the HB 2442 to see how that is going to affect things and what the options are that the county has and how we're gonna be dealing with those things. And we also realize that we have a lot more work to do and we are busy at it. - Okay, thank you, Patrick. - Mr. Chair, point of order. Did we need to make an approval of the policies and procedures? - That's next on the agenda. - Okay.

19:28 - Okay, for the changes in the policies and procedures, we need a vote from the board to approve those changes. Those in favor? - Aye. - Those opposed? - Aye. - Motion carried. Policies and procedures changes are approved. Abby, work session. - Sorry, what did you say? - Work session preparation. - Oh, yes, all right. So just a few quick reminders about the work session. It's held on Wednesday, April 29th, starting at 9 a.m.

20:26 All presentation materials and handouts are due to me by Friday, April 17th. I am happy to help format these and submit them to council for you all. I recommend aiming for a maximum about 20 minute presentation to allow plenty of time for questions from the council and discussion. And also just a reminder that all materials that are submitted will be posted online for the public to view. Next, we have a contractor budget request as requested by the board. First up, we have the Free Clinic of Southwest Washington Veteran Dental Services Program. Rebecca, are you online to walk us through your request? - Yeah, I'm here and it's good to see you all. I'm the executive director of the Free Clinic. What we're requesting is unchanged from the past many years. So we're requesting another 24,900. This covers personnel costs in veteran dental services. So the way our program works,

21:24 a quick recap is we have a part-time dental coordinator. When we receive referrals from the Veterans Assistance Center we get these individuals coordinated for dental services, whether that be extractions or fillings or dentures. So that's what falls under the dental services category. If they need dentures, for example, we'll send them either to TriStar Dentures or Evergreen Dentures and the cost of those dentures we invoice for and get reimbursed through this program. So you can see that our six-year projection, we're not anticipating that to change. This has been a really consistent kind of program for us and I don't foresee seeing to ask for more or less money for this program. Let me know if you have any questions. - I'll send out the PowerPoint with all of the information after the meeting.

22:17 - Anything else? - Yeah, from the looks of what you have there, you're not planning on any inflation taking place over the next six, seven years? - You know, I would expect that to happen. That's the nature of things, but I do still think for the services we're providing, we can do it within this amount still. I really don't expect anything to change drastically enough that we would go over that threshold. - That's not a good budget. - Really? - Does that answer your question, Patrick? - That just doesn't look realistic to me. - But it's good.

23:15 - You can't, I mean, inflation is outrageous at this point. If you have a budget in 2027, what's your budget for this year, for 2026? - It's the same. So we've historically underspent this fund a little bit and that's why I'm anticipating that we wouldn't go over.

23:45 - Are the materials going up in cost? - I mean, probably. I'm not super familiar with the particular costs of all the materials that we use, but probably. I mean, if you guys are concerned, I can certainly up the budget, but I do think what I'm proposing is within reason for what I expect. - Have you been to a dentist recently? Would it be possible if, for some reason, we did go over these amounts? Can we request more money? Is that gonna be a big hassle? - I don't think she needs any more. - Oh, here, sorry. Sorry, I'm not at the mic. My question is, if we do spend over these allotted amounts of money, is it possible to go back and ask for more money to go into the fund, or is that gonna be a great big hassle?

24:42 - Was that a question for county staff or for Rebecca? - Yeah, for Rebecca. - I wouldn't have that answer. - So, for the six-year projection, this is really just an estimate for our future forecasting. They'll still come to the board every year with their actual budget request each year, so if the free clinic is concerned about needing additional funding to provide these services, then they can request a higher amount when the time comes to make that formal request to the board each year. - How is that going to affect everything else, though, in the whole fund? - So, we'll have to-- - We're supposed to be planning for this. I mean, that's one of the things that we, with this whole budget thing have been looking at,

25:42 and it's been stressed to us to make these projections accurately based on things like inflation and things like that. - Yeah, I absolutely hear that concern. This is the free clinic's best projection of what they'll need to continue operating services, and that's what they've provided to us at this time. If things change in the future, we can adjust projections and have those conversations as needed. - That's a good answer. (mumbling) - I'm getting egged on, Abby, to make a comment here, but is it true or not true that the county does, in their six-year projections, build in a certain factor, what, 3.5 or whatever?

26:39 - That is what we typically use to estimate contracts that have increased expenses every year. The free clinic contract hasn't had increased expenses for the last, I don't know, four or five years. They've maintained a consistent budget and been able to continue services, so it's really based on contractor projections and what they anticipate needing. - Okay, so if they're underspending their budget at the end of the year, this is what you're allocating to them. What happens to the rest of that at the end of the year? - It remains in the Veterans Assistance Fund for the next year. - Okay. - I think your points are well made there, Patrick. - I have a feeling we're talking about small numbers here. - Yeah, I understand. - I have a question for this, too.

27:38 Are 100% disabled veterans able to go to the free clinic and get services, or do they make too much? - Say again? - Are 100 disabled veterans that get the full 100% disability, are they able to use the service, or do they make too much? - Well, generally, 100% disabled veteran gets free dental care through the VA. - I understand that, but I've also heard how hard it is to get in there, so (laughs) I'm paying for my own insurance right now 'cause I just don't wanna deal with it, but Ebby, do you know that or not? - The requirements for receiving services through this program is that the veteran earns under 250% of the federal poverty level, that they're not eligible for Medicaid, and that they don't have any other form of dental insurance. So if a veteran meets, and they're Clark County residents, and the honorably discharged veteran. So if they meet all of those requirements, then they'd be eligible for services. - 100% doesn't qualify, then. - 100% makes too much money.

28:37 - Are there any other questions for the free clinic, or should we move to the next contractor? - Next contractor reports? Or budget requests, I'm sorry. - All right, next we have the WDBA. - Okay. - Good afternoon, this is David Puente, the Director of Washington Department of Veterans Affairs. Here with me is Steve and Chris. They're gonna be providing the update on the request that the board is asking for. So I'm gonna turn it over to both of them. Thank you, good to see all of you again. - Yeah, good afternoon, I'm Chris Colvin. I'm your new Director of Veteran Services, Counseling and Wellness. And just happy to be here this evening. And we're gonna pass it on to Steve here who runs this program, our veteran service offer program.

29:35 And he'll give you the brief. - Thank you all, my name's Steve Gill with your Washington Department of Veterans Affairs. I think I've met some of you in the past. Thank you for allowing us to join you virtually. We're just up the road here in Olympia. As you see on the screen is the estimated six year budget proposal that we provided. And Abby has a copy of that for you all. I know it's probably really small on your screen, but there are a few assumptions built into our estimate. This is based on our subcontractors estimated cost. Many of you may know we do subcontract this veteran service officer work to Vietnam Veterans of America, who is an accredited nonprofit veteran service organization and who actually employs the veteran service officers there in Vancouver. Vietnam Veterans of America also has a larger statewide contract with us for some veteran service officers in other parts of the state.

30:33 And they've been a long time partner of ours. So our budget is based on their estimated cost. There is an 85% budgeted for the subcontractor with a 15% indirect rate for WDBA just for our cost of managing that subcontract. That aligns with our federal de minimis rate for grants and contracts that we received. And this does include a 4% inflationary adjustment beyond 2027, 'cause we of course do assume there's gonna be some inflation. If we're lucky, it won't be 4%. But we know that cost of living does go up over time. I won't go through all the numbers, but just to highlight, we've been partnering with Clark County on this work since 2018, really had the full-time VSO in place or two VSOs subsequently since 2019. And veteran service officer services

31:31 are really a foundational part of the work we do. And I have another slide that talks a little bit more about the return on investment over the past three years. I'll cover this really quick and then open it up to questions. So we just took a snapshot of the past three years. One of the things that we really look at is the number of VA disability claims. And this is VA disability compensation and pension benefits. And we can see it's been a little over 200, 225 claims in the past three years filed by those subcontract veteran service officers there in Clark County. They also help with lots of other types of applications for federal veterans benefits. That might include VA healthcare enrollment, employment benefits like the veteran readiness and employment program, formerly known as book rehab, housing or adaptive vehicle grants, clothing allowances, any type of application for federal VA benefits.

32:29 But we really track compensation and pension because it's kind of the bread and butter of what veteran service officers do. On the upper right there, you see the disability payments, the federal VA disability payments that were made directly to veterans and their families as a result of those claims that the veteran service officers have filed for the past three years. And it's been, 2025 was $4.5 million paid directly to veterans and their families as a result of those disability claims that were filed by the veteran service officers. And you guys know what that means for them in their quality of life, their financial economic security. And the fact that folks spend that money in the community on mortgages, rent, food, utilities, and really improves quality of life. We cannot measure the dollars that they don't spend on things like co-pays for healthcare provided by the VA or the money that they save on tuition

33:27 because they're able to get education benefits. We can't measure the money they don't spend, but we can certainly measure the benefits that they're paid directly. And then the bottom slide is just a comparison of the percentage of VA, I'm sorry, the percentage of veterans in Clark County receiving VA disability benefits and how that compares to the state and national average. This is our apples to apples comparison that we like to look at. We look at Washington State compared to the national average. And then we look at it by county to see how our partner counties are doing. And what we're trying to do is ensure that every county in our state is meeting or exceeding that national average. Clark County, as of federal fiscal year '24, the most recent data that federal VA has published is at 30%. The state and national average is about 33%, but you can see that that's gone up consistently over the past three years. And I've been in this line of work for many years

34:26 and I've been tracking this since 2009. Back in 2009, these numbers were around 12 and 13% respectively. Now we're 30, 33%. So you can see the gradual increase nationwide, not just in our state, of veterans receiving VA disability benefits. And by the way, the average VA disability payment is over $1,900 per month. That's average. As you guys probably know, some of those veterans, especially those hundred percenters, they're gonna be four or $5,000 a month if they have dependents even more than that. And then there's those 10% service connected folks that are gonna be less than $200 a month. I just give this data as a little bit of a snapshot in the return on investment and also a little bit of apples to apples comparison, just that some of the stuff that we looked at and we're tracking this across the state. I'll wrap up there and open it up to questions. - I believe if you follow the RCW that we're governed by,

35:25 you cannot charge us more than 10% administrative costs. So why are you charging 15%? I will be happy to take a look at that RCW if you can share it with us. I'm not familiar with that. - I also-- - Are you familiar with that? - Bob, I don't think that that is a clause in the RCW. If we look at the other contractor budgets, the assistance center also, their administrative costs are over 10%. - Bob, I'm gonna ask you a question, okay? I've got one question of you, Mr. Gill. I talked to David Panetti earlier this year. At that time, your VSOs had told us that we are, as of January 1st, 2026, we have 554 veterans in Clark County

36:23 waiting to get to them. In fact, they were even working on people back in August of 2024. What's it take for us to get another VSO in Clark County at the Veterans Assistance Center where people are used to coming? - Yeah, that's a good question. Ever since the PAC Act passed in 2023, we've seen the demand for VSO services higher than it's ever been. No matter where we go in the state, one thing that we hear is we need more VSOs, right? So we can provide an alternative budget for three VSOs it essentially is gonna increase by a third, if you can imagine that. Because Vietnam Veterans of America, their cost is the same per VSO. So that kind of increases everything by a third. And that's an option we have. We could talk about scaling up and adding a third VSO. I do wanna mention that WDBA, we also fund VSOs,

37:22 it's actually more than a half VSOs employed by the Veterans of Foreign Wars over at the VA Medical Center campus that are funded with our dollars. And they increased that by half recently. So they went up from one to one and a half VSOs over there to help meet some of that need. And I did check in with them last week, both VBA and the VFW on current wait times for an appointment or a couple of weeks out. Those are for like initial intakes or intent to files. As you know, those intent to files, establishes the date of the claim for VA purposes. And then they're scheduling followup appointments further out to allow the veteran time to collect all the evidence they need to file that claim. So that wait time of just waiting to get the appointment and the demand for VSO services is something that we are keenly aware of. And let me tell you, we're asking for funds at the state level, and we're keeping our partners informed

38:19 and giving them options for scaling up VSO services, if that's something the board would wanna do. Mr. Giro, if I could say it a different way, we have two VSOs in Clark County at the Veterans Assistance Center. They're both doing a great job. But the problem is, is that they'd have to take a bunch of time screening the people before they get into the system. And when we're still working as of January on claims back into 2024, the state is not helping us enough. Thank you. - Okay, we've heard that, thank you. - Okay, I have a question, Patrick Locke. What is the amount of your contract that goes against this levy for 2027? - Go back a slide if you would.

39:18 And it's the first year in that slide that's a little over $143,000 in 2027. - Okay, and that is for two VSOs? - Correct, that's for the two VSOs employed by Vietnam Veterans Assistance Center. - And your expenses that go against that. - Those VSOs are only part-time. They are not full-time. - They're full-time. - They're full-time. - Okay. - Bob, I think they're full-time, but the combined salary of those two is under 100,000 this year. - Yeah, so this is 27. What is your 26 budget? 25 was 100,000.

40:12 And your 26 was what? - The 2026 budget is currently 134,520. And that has been, that amount or lower since 2021. - Okay. Okay, so you're going from the 134 to 143. - Correct, yeah. - Okay, and that's for the same two. So if we're talking about adding a third, that's gonna increase that number then. - Correct, yeah. - By about half of what that is. If that's two. - Yeah, roughly. Yeah, and I actually have those numbers in front of me. I did the math in anticipation of this question.

41:12 The 2027 estimate for three veteran service officers would be a little over 190,000 a year in 27, and then 198,028. And then the same assumption applies, a 4% increase beyond 25%. - Okay, so then this is gonna be modified. - We can submit a modified budget. In fact, I sent a draft over to Abby already, focused on the same assumptions. - Okay.

41:47 - Okay, so we're gonna, this is gonna be, Abby, this is gonna be in our packet that you're gonna send us? - Yeah, I'll share all of the slides after the meeting. - Okay, and you're saying then that this is gonna be modified to reflect three VSOs going forward in 2027 and beyond?

42:17 Is that accurate? - Yes, that is accurate. - Okay. - Judy, did you ask something? - So just for the information of this group, we are training right now another volunteer VSO who will work under the VVA girls, ladies. Those two are full-time. He will be part-time, but he will be trained, and he will be doing, returning phone calls, doing intake, and trying to get that list down. I'm not saying we don't need another third full-time. We could actually use four full-time. But at this time, we are training someone to try to help with all the paperwork and the phone calls. - Do you have a name? - I do. - You're there with us online.

43:16 - I can't share it at this point. - And then Mike to Mike there. Got a question for Mike. Mike, if I remember correctly, under the RCW, it's a 10% administrative cost for all contracts. Am I correct? - I'm not sure of what the maximum admin rate is in the RCW. - I believe I'm right at 10%. I don't have it right in front of me. - Do you know, Amalie, there's been a lot of change at the state and federal level about what the maximum admin rates allowable are. And for example, at the federal rate, it's changed to 15%.

44:16 I think that's what it is. So I think this is allowable, but do you know? - I don't, but I would say I know for another fund that we manage, the Mental Health Sales Tax Fund, we are doing 50% admin rates for contracts. But we'd have to look at this to verify for sure. - So we'll verify in the RCW. But I do not know that 10% is the maximum rate. But I would say, and going a little bit off topic, that this is just advice for the VAB in general, I think looking at the six year projections, it's really important. Consider what the budget, in terms of approving, you're looking at the next year's budget. That's the amount you're approving. You're not approving the next six years. But what you do want to do is see what is the impact

45:11 of that current approval, how's that going to affect the VAF balance over the next six years. And I think after we've gone through the three proposals, the three budget proposals that we've gotten for the VAF, I think Abby's gonna show you all three of them together and the projections of what that impact will be for the fund as a whole. In terms of the WDVA budget, what we have right now is a contract as shown above for two VSOs. If you are requesting that contract to be modified to a third VSO, it's definitely gonna have

46:10 a significant impact on the dollars that are available in the assistance fund and it will also impact what the conversation you want to have with the council regarding what the levy rates and the fiscal support going into the fund will be. Is there anything you'd like to add to it? Okay, that's all. Thank you. - Bob, I think we, for the record, should show that Emily is a budget officer in the back of the room for people that don't know her. She's very knowledgeable. - Okay. Any other? Abby? - Are there any other questions for the WDVA

47:07 or should we move to the assistance center budget request? - Tell me, what is it gonna cost for three VSOs next year? - 214, 215,000. - Abby? - This is Steve Gill. The estimate for next year is a little over 190,000 for three VSOs in 2027. - Okay. And I have a question for WDVA folks at all. American Legion and Disabled American Veterans in the State service officers, any comments or what on their services? - Yeah, I can comment on the American Legion. The American Legion is one of the non-profit veteran service organizations that we contract with statewide, Disabled American Veterans is not. Disabled American Veterans, as an organization, their state level entity does not have accredited

48:06 veteran service officers, it's only their national level entity that has accredited service officers. The American Legion has accredited folks at the state level and they're part of our state contract. - Okay, thank you.

48:26 - Hmm. - Okay, anything else? If not, we'll move on to contractor reports. Abby? - I think next is the assistance center's budget request. - We got one budget to go. - Okay. Getting ahead of myself. - Okay. - Judy, why don't you take my chair? - So our request for 2027 includes, as you can see, two new personnel. If our budget for 2027 did not include them,

49:22 then our personnel costs would have gone from 207,000 to 214,245 dollars, but those two new personnel would increase our personnel budget by 222,000 dollars. That is for a full-time mental health professional and a full-time caseworker, and that includes their benefits and their payroll taxes in that 222,000. Everything else has gone up by three and a half percent because that is the actual amount that we spent in 2025 over the 2026 budget.

50:23 Do you have questions? - I got one question. Emily, how much do you anticipate us raising? - Michael, I'm gonna talk about that next when we go through the six-year forecast for the whole Veterans Assistance Fund and the impact to the fund balance with all of these requests. - Emily, how much do you anticipate we'll be raising if they use the alternative so that we have a separate levy? - Right, that's what Abby's alluding to, is we've got a six-year forecast that will show those updated revenues coming up right next, okay? - Okay, Abby, you're still on. - Were there any questions for the assistance center about their budget request?

51:23 All right, then I am happy to share the impact to the fund. So I'm gonna pull up a six-year projection spreadsheet that Department of Community Services finance staff put together based on these budget requests. There's a lot of information in this spreadsheet, so I'll do my best to explain it all, and I'm happy to take any questions at the end. All right, let me make sure this is sharing online as well. Okay, great. - Before Abby starts-- - Can you make that a little bit bigger, kind of do a control slide or something so you can actually read the numbers?

52:19 - And before Abby starts, I'll throw in to please remember, this is a forecast, this is all estimate. We do not know what collections will actually be. Things can change in terms of expenditures. This is everyone's, with the information we have right now, best guess, and things can change. But with homework done, right? I mean, we always, yes, it's a guesstimate, but it's founded on what we know. - Thank you, Michael. All right, so this spreadsheet is similar to budget forecasts that you all have seen in the past, like when we talked about the 2026 budget forecast. It shows the forecast year along the top and budget categories along the left-hand side. The budget categories include expected revenue in green

53:17 with a few different categories here, expected expenditures in pink, including Department of Community Services, salaries, benefits, and operating expenses, as well as contractor budgets. For 2026, there's that budget modifier of $30,000 that was approved by the council. And then at the bottom, you can see for each year the projected ending fund balance, the minimum fund balance per policy, which is to have a three-month reserve, the projected available fund balance for new requests after we include the minimum fund balance, and the projected difference between ongoing revenues and expenditures. And anything that you see in red down here at the bottom indicates a negative value. So we've already talked about 2026. This includes what we expect to receive in property taxes with the current levy rate and the funds

54:14 that have been allocated into contracts. For 2027, you can see here at the top in gray, this around $89,000 is what we expect to have left over from 2026 to get the 2027 contract year started. Then for property taxes, this has been adjusted to reflect the amount that we would receive once the Veterans Assistance Fund is bumped up to that minimum levy rate of 1 1/8 cents, which I believe will be required per RCW 2442. So you can see that in 2027, we expect total revenue of a little over $1.4 million. And again, we don't project investment earnings 'cause that's really hard to predict. Then for 2027 expenditures, again, we have Department of Community Services costs and the contractor budgets that you just saw for this request or for this spreadsheet,

55:14 we have broken out the assistance centers new staffing requests. So you can see what the costs would be to continue existing services with their current staff and what the additional costs would be to add new staff per the request for that mental health professional and case manager. So with all of those expenditures included, including the new staffing requests, we're projecting that by the end of 2027, we'd be looking at a negative fund balance of a little over $27,000. However, oh, and you can see that that negative fund balance would increase each year by roughly $150,000. So expenditures are exceeding projected revenue. What I want to show you all is that if the fund, if you all determined

56:12 that you wanted to continue existing services, I'm gonna have you save all questions till the end if that's all right. So if you were gonna continue existing services through the assistance center without adding those new staff, if I delete, oops, this line here, let me enable editing.

56:39 So to continue existing services that we have in the current contracts, the fund projected revenue is sufficient to cover those expenses. And you would see that at the end of 2027, the fund balance is positive around $194,000. This does not meet the minimum fund balance per policy of three month reserves, but that fund balance would increase each year and we would meet that minimum fund balance by 2030. So all of that to say the projected fund revenue could support continuation of existing services with annual increases for inflation and cost of living with the requests that we got from our contractors. However, funding for additional services such as new staff at the assistance center would have to be requested by the council during the upcoming work session.

57:36 - I'd also add, this does not include three VSOs in the DBA contract, correct? Like this-- - That's correct. This includes two VSOs. - This projection is with the current contract service level of two VSOs. - But isn't what you're showing, the line you took hidden out, showing what would, it would, I'm sorry, I can't talk, it would increase by with a mental health professional in the VSO? - Not the VSO, that would be the additional cost for a mental health professional and a case manager at the Veterans Assistance Center, which they included in their budget request. I don't have what it would cost to add a third VSO in the spreadsheet at this time, but I could add that after the meeting. - Okay, well, I don't understand how one mental health professional costs us 200 and, I can't read that, 22 or 272,400 and whatever it is.

58:34 - So Judy can explain her calculations there, but this request is for two new full-time staff, a mental health professional, and a case manager. - Okay, still a lot of money. - All right, I'm happy to take any other questions at this time. Yes, Michael. - If I've taken my figures correctly, I could be wrong. For 2027, it sounds like the state will want 193,000 to get two more people, VSOs. Dental will be 24,900. Clark County Veterans Assistance Center is going to need $1,318,830. How much is community services gonna charge? - You can see in cells J2424, J25, and 26, they anticipated expenses

59:32 for Department of Community Services to manage these funds, including staff salaries, benefits, and operating expenses. - How much is it? I can't see it. - Let me do a quick-- - It totals down there at the bottom, Abby. When you total those three, I think it was about 95,000, but it was a little small. It's Alyssa at DCS. If you highlight those three again, and then look down at your bottom right, does that say 93,965 or 95? - Yes, $95,965. - Which is a total then of about 1,631,000, right? - It has the total expenditures right there, 1.5 million, 158,268, so that's with DCS and all of the provider contracts at their ask for the budget. - One, five, three, six. I agree, but then you head on community services, that's another 95,000. - That includes community services.

1:00:30 - Yeah, so you see if I highlight this cell, sorry, I'm muted. If I highlight this cell, you'll see that it's a sum of all the community services expenses, as well as the contractor budget requests. - Doesn't work out.

1:00:56 - Maybe I read it off wrong. I thought they said for us to get three from the state, it's gonna cost us 193,000. - We'd have to plug in that updated number there for the WDVA to get the updated amount. - And I can actually plug that in real quick. I have their budget for three VSOs, which would be 190,875,72.

1:01:24 - Make that a negative number, Abby. - Negative, okay. - Good job, there you go. - All right, so that obviously increases the fund deficit. So if we were to add a third VSO, then we'd be looking at a negative fund balance of a little over $75,000 with, and this line at the bottom shows the difference between projected revenue and expenditures each year. So the difference between revenue and expenditures would be about 165,000. - So how are we gonna sell this to the county counselors? It's not gonna be me, but it's gonna be you. But how are we gonna sell this? - Well, that's the question. - I don't know, Abby, if you wanted to continue the agenda somewhat, but what my colleague here,

1:02:24 Michael, is asking is the question for all of us to decide. For example, I'll just give you a for example that you can mull over before we get to those kinds of conversations. The large Harney Street facility was approved by the county manager on the premises of increasing veteran services, I won't speak for Judy, but I'm fairly familiar with it. And to me, it is pointless to continue having the reputation of being a food handout place with 10,000 square feet. I mean, that overly simplifies it. It seems ridiculous now that they have matured down there and to hear them adding services and adding people

1:03:21 to partner with them to not continue to try to dig into the number one stated veteran need in this county, mental health. So I just throw that out for all you big brain people to think about, 'cause we were gonna have to discuss that. Thank you. - Any other question? - It seems to me like, if you look at the two additional people that are in the assistance fund request, there needs some additional rationale. What are these people going to do? What's the shortfall that they're trying to resolve? Why is that needed? You've gotta have that level of detail, otherwise they're gonna blow it off.

1:04:15 - I mean, I don't know that this is the time with our county friends here to discuss that, but I mean, that's the core issue. - Yes, Mark. - Yeah, I had a question on that slide. If you can bring that back up. - The spreadsheet. - The question is, you show a revenue projection, but it's not clear how that projected number is arrived at. Could you go over that calculation? Or would that better be discussed offline? - Yeah, Alyssa, are you still online to explain that one? - I was about to jump in, it's Alyssa again. So with the new sales tax that has been approved,

1:05:10 it would change the property tax levy rates to at least the minimum levy rate amount, which is, if you can click in that cell, please, the 1.3 million. So what I did is I took, if that rate, if that sales tax would have been approved for 2026, the amount that Fund 1019 would have gotten would be about $1.3 million. So I took the $1.3 million plus 2.5%, 'cause that's our projected increase, the projected growth for the property taxes. So that would be my forecast at the minimum levy rate for 2027, if that's what the counselors were to vote on. Keeping the levy at whatever cent it is on the dollar, it would be approximately that 1.34 million.

1:06:08 - And what is the property valuation that that's based on? - I can't answer that. That would be an assessor's office question unless there's someone else in the room that knows how the assessment happens. - There is, at least Emily and I, sorry, there isn't Emily and I, we're just looking at each other. This is Michael Torres of Community Services. And that is a question for assessor's office. You know, again, these are our best, with the information that we have, this is our best estimate of what the revenue into the fund would be. So that's poverty tax, leasehold excise tax, payments in lieu of tax, and the transfers into the general fund that the council has approved on an annual basis to this point. So from what we know, I think it's a good estimate

1:07:08 of what we will have going into the fund for 2027. - And we also get interest on the funds that comes in. They've been sending it in every year. - Correct, and the interest when we finalize, like when 2026, when we're done with 2026, any interest and investment earnings, I then put into the documents that you see as the fund balance. And those monthly reports that Abby gives you, it shows you the actual interest and investment earnings that we're collecting that are going directly into the fund balance. I just don't put those numbers into the budget because they're volatile and I can't predict what those are going to be. - And I would just add that that interest earning is based on the cash balance in the fund at the time that interest is calculated. So if the fund is spent down,

1:08:06 those interest earnings will be less. - Are there any other questions about this spreadsheet or funding forecast? - Okay, Abby, I guess we move on to contractor reports. - All right, thank you, Bob. So this is the February 2026 contractor reports. I sent the full reports out over email as always, and you should also all have printed copies of those.

1:09:04 So for the Clark County Veterans Assistance Center, there were 575 visits to the center for essentials and food, 783 staff breakfasts and lunches, and 83 food boxes provided for a total of 5,831 total pounds of food provided. They also had 661 volunteer hours totaling $26,625 in value. There were 40 veterans served in February through the fund with services totaling $30,678.02. Of these, 31 were male veterans, seven were female. There were two widows and zero others served, and there were nine denials, zero of which were subject to appeal. At the free clinic, there were two veterans served in February with services totaling $1,673 in value,

1:10:00 and they billed $727.46 to the fund. - That's what this is. - For the fund revenue and expenditures, February revenue was $6,239.83. Expenditures were $97,020.38. At the end of February, the fund balance stood at $387,012.48, which is a $90,780 decrease from the previous month. Any questions? - We can read. - Okay, Abby, it looks like no questions on that. Let's move on to the next subject, monitoring update. - All right, this is me again.

1:10:58 So as I mentioned to you all at our last couple meetings, the Veterans Assistance Fund contracts were monitored in February and March of 2026. This monitoring is now complete, and I just have a few results to share with you all. So at the WDBA, there were no findings or recommendations. We reviewed their client files and didn't have any concerns. At the assistance center, there were no findings and just two minor recommendations. Their client files were great. All clients were meeting eligibility requirements, and the two recommendations were just about program operations. I'm happy to share these with you all. So first, Clark County staff recommended utilizing internal and external demographic data to understand which groups of indigent veterans are and are not being served through the program, and then do some targeted outreach based on the data that they collect. And the second recommendation was to share

1:11:57 some outcomes data that was mentioned in their monitoring assessment form. They mentioned a couple of data points that they've been tracking, which I think could be super helpful for you all to hear, and they're working to put those together to share in the reports moving forward. And then at the free clinic, there was one finding and two recommendations. The finding was just that some of the contracted eligibility requirements weren't being assessed for clients, and so we have required them to take corrective action on this, and that has been taken immediately. They're doing those assessments now. And the recommendations included, oh, these are also just small program operating recommendations. They included notifying clients of the grievance policy and process upon program entry to ensure that they understand the procedure from the beginning,

1:12:55 and, oh, adding a column to the monthly report to show the total number of unduplicated veterans served in the reporting year, which they have already done. Any questions on those monitoring updates? All right, back to you, Bob. - Okay, next is Judy. You're on the hook. - So I just wanted to let you all know that we are losing our senior CSO. He has been with us for seven years, and he will be leaving at the end of May. So we have hired someone to train as a replacement, and we are interviewing for a full-time replacement, because the person we hired, we hired for our part-time, and now we need another full-time CSO. So if you know anyone who's interested in being a full-time CSO,

1:13:55 have them send in their application. I also wanna remind you that June 20th is our annual gala, and this year it's a MASH parade based on the TV show MASH. It should be a lot of fun. And our stand-down is coming up on September 25th. So if you have any vendors, if any of your posts want a table, be sure and get ahold of Donna and let her know. And that's all I have right now.

1:14:35 - Donna, Donna. - Questions? - Donna. - Tickets are available online for the gala? Or to buy your tickets online? Is that up? - Yes, on the invitations that I gave you, there is a, I believe, a QR code, and you should be able to go online and pay for your tickets and that sort of thing on there.

1:15:03 - Okay, any more questions? - Or they have. - If not, we'll move on. - Come down. - Old business. - And on September 25th. - 25th. September 25th. - Anybody have any old business? Going once, going twice, sold, new business. Anybody with new business? - I do, and I'm sorry if I missed this earlier 'cause I was a little late getting here. I know the law passed is gonna let us get our opinion, eighth percent, or 1.8, anyway. When does that go into effect? - Referring to House Bill 2442. - Say that word first? - House Bill 2442 that recently passed in the legislature. - Right, but do we know what date that starts? That we'll start being a separate fund and be able to get our more money? - I am not sure, actually.

1:16:02 - Michael or Emily, do you have that info? - That's important. - We think they start collecting at the new rate January 1st, 2027. - Oh, not 'til 2027. Okay, thank you. - Any more new business? If not, open forum. - We're all quiet today. - Larry's got something for us. - Yeah. - Hello. - I know I'm beating this to death, but it's so important on April the 22nd is our community salutes is recognizing 100 high school kids going directly into the military after graduation. That's gonna be at Skyview High School. It starts at 6.30, and right now, the latest number is a little bit over 100.

1:17:00 The high school kids from 11 different high schools from Clark County and Portland area because some of the recruiting areas drift over from one state to the other. I cannot tell you how important that is, talking to Colonel John Scott, battalion commander, army battalion commander. He's hearing a lot of parents are really uptight. Because everything going on with the war over there in Iran, some of these kids in three months can be in a very hostile environment 'cause some of them have joined up special forces and high-risk areas. It's important to send a message to them, those kids that are walking across the stage, and get a coin and a certificate, and a three-by-five American certificate

1:17:56 and a three-by-five American flag given out by two war, two veterans who are 100 years old. It's important that those parents and those kids look around and see the support. And we're asking veterans, family members, anyone, show up at Skyview. It's a free event. It's about an hour and 15 minutes. It's a little reception right afterwards where you can come over there and, to be honest, we either hug the kids, thank the parents for their support and so forth, and if you're a veteran, wear your hat, wear a coat, what have you, so the parents can see the veterans there in support. This is to send a message out that we have your back. This community will take care of you. There's gonna be several displays there from organizations as well. As I said, there'll be refreshments afterwards.

1:18:55 It's a very powerful ceremony, especially when those kids collectively, 'cause they'll be in jeans and T-shirts from their respected service, they all stand up and do an oath of allegiance together, and that's a pretty powerful thing when you see that, especially with the recruiters because, as you all know, they're probably recruiting each kid back and forth, and finally, that kid decided to go in the Army instead of the Marine Corps, so it's really kind of exciting to see that, but it haven't been involved in a, this'll be my 16th time being involved in this event. I have heard from a couple of parents, one parent whose daughter is a helicopter pilot who went through this program, and how powerful it was for her because of her anxiety level of going into the military service and not asking to expect, but seeing the community support her.

1:19:54 The superintendent of Vancouver School District would speak. We have a very supportive mayor. Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle will speak as well. We have a recent veteran who is a medic who served in the military who'll be the guest speaker and talk about his service as well, and we'll have a couple general officers there, one we're looking right across here, give out the coins, and as I said, it's pretty powerful, and then the thing that we like to do is we'll take the community leaders as they're walking across the stage, and they put these folks in front of the stage. Notice the elected individuals, folks on the school board and so forth, and then the kids go through that gauntlet of individuals to shake their hand, so they'll be shaking the hands of about 30 individuals who are representatives.

1:20:53 We think, depending on what's going on in Congress, that we will have a third congressional district. Marie Perez will be there. She's gonna try to make it, depending on what's happening in Washington, D.C., but she's very supportive of this event, and she's very supportive of veterans, and so I ask you to come, bring folks with you, and enjoy that event, and then afterwards, go over to those kids and shake their hands and say, thank you very much for your service. So that's it. It's at 6.30, Skyview High School out at Lake Shores area. Plenty of parking there, and we'll have security out front. Patriot Garden, that'll be the Wednesday, April 22nd. - Thank you, Larry.

1:21:49 Any other public comments? If not, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. - I had a quick question about this. So are you gonna have organizations have tables there, or just people show? - Yeah, there'll be about seven or eight tables of organizations like the Red Cross and VFW. - VFW, you already have a VFW? - Yeah. - Oh, okay, nevermind. - Yep. - Andrew, I already dealt with it, thank you. - At 6.30? - Mr. Chairman, if I could make just a comment. Before we dismiss the crowd and adjourn the meeting, I asked the chairman if he would, and he said he would, ask each one of you to stay maybe a little bit, and also, if you're so kind, Judy, could you stay a second? Because a lot of our deliberations depends on what you do in your center.

1:22:46 Can you just stay a few minutes and answer some questions? That would be nice, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. - Okay. Again, I'll entertain a motion for adjournment. - So moved. - Seconded. - I have a move and second. Those in favor? - Aye. - Those opposed? Meeting adjourned. (upbeat music)