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everyone hear me?
Okay and the camera would like to just let's see if we see ya testing testing somebody Now they can see keep that on
mute
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Hello Are you getting feedback? Yeah, that's not muted.
No, it's you. muted the speakers right good. Okay
Okay
we're ready Okay, we're good to go. We have a quorum, and I'll call the meeting to order I believe it's about 105. So almost this conference will now be recorded into the
fiscal year 2023 budget public hearing. And more than delighted to introduce us
to our team, Harmony Lloyd, our new Chief Operating Officer, welcome harmony. It's great to have you with us and Corey, who his quarry has been with us
for six weeks now. Six weeks, but
we didn't have a meeting last month. So welcome to your first meeting. Then we'll be doing a more of an inspection and experiencing background for
District Court.
But anyway, it's great to have you aboard. The first item is the public hearing on our 2020 budget. As you'll recall, we reviewed the proposed work plan and budget at our July meeting. It has been posted and now is the opportunity to welcome public comment and the budget as required. I'm not sure how we do this so we can
get the side of three minutes for public comment. So the public hearing is officially open. So we have to have that time. Three minutes for public comment and then we can just do it
want to put a chapter on it's easier for us but we'll do a couple of calls for comments. And then we'll close the public hearing moves the agenda and that's what we'll do the board for time. That's kind of official action. This is just to hear if there's any public comments official.
Do you want to do any introduction on the budget?
Before we ask Sure. Thanks, Mom. So I'll give a brief introduction on the Okay, let's see if that's better. All right. I'll do a brief introduction on the budget
I'll try again so the budget is in the context of okay this is.
Okay, a little bit better.
So, yeah, I'm in front of the public today. Is the fiscal year 2020 23 budget. And that is in the context of a five year business plan for the agencies. And this is a different approach that we've taken before. Typically we've done annual budgets. We just kind of have the information for what's happening in the upcoming fiscal year. This has that information along with additional information for the next several years. To to just kind of see where we're at. We're projecting to do going forward. We are beginning the year with administrative revenues. around $7.8 million and administrative expensive expenses of about $2.4 million. The bulk of that funding comes from a federal American rescue plan grant, maybe also have state appropriations that we negotiate on an annual basis. So we have an additional $400,000 state appropriation and fiscal year 2023. That American rescue plan funding will last us as this plan the next several years are projecting deficits without other financial intervention starting to hit fiscal year 2026 This is all information we've talked about. And we do it's important to put that information out there does not impact our budget this year. Also announced we just got to work yesterday that included an additional $226,000 In a fiscal year 2016 For appropriation. So that isn't reflected because I literally just got the paperwork yesterday. And we didn't ask for it. We'll take it Yeah. So I will. Again, that doesn't impact this fiscal year by debt will be added up into like a major budget update and make sure those numbers are reflected. But just another little bit of good news. A lot of our administrative budget, we do have a project budget and that project budget ties directly to the work plan that's in the business plan. So that includes all of the grant funding that we have available to do work items over the next year and then into the next four years. The big note there. Most of these are one for one, so we have a grant to do a project. That's the two big notes here is we separated out to D to A to express bus on expenses and revenues. So they're in their own line item in the business kind of budget on line items so you can see those separately and the funding that supports that service. We also put in the American rescue plan regional set aside of 20 to $25 million, put it in this year's project budget. When we determine how we actually want to program those funds, which is something we'll talk about next several months. You can imagine those funds are actually going to be spread out over several years. We still got that program completely sorted out yet and we talked about in July we'll be talking about those are really the two major items with the administrative budget and project budget. So
a couple of weeks in
and also please thanks for paying
for the court reporter. Yes, yes, I just wondered, just mentioned that
page 32 of your packet is the work plan and the project budget. And
so having asked the question, are there any other questions and then before we get
public and we will have a board if the if there's a board and we'll be after this?
And if not, Robert did you wish to speak to the budget welcome.
Always a pleasure. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Robert Pulaski, and I'm from South Gate Wayne County. For someone where new members for some of you that don't know me, I'm a transit advocate and I work closely with transportation routers united for Wayne County, and some parts of Washtenaw County gathering information. So I want to take a minute to talk about the and the one thing that really sticks out is the regional transit plan. So the amount of partnership with a ATA and their 2045 plan. The question I have is where will we be able to have our say with their plan because they want to go from different counties with regional express routes so their park and ride lots are going to be expanded into Livingston County. southern portions of Washtenaw which will be Milan. Some parts subparts in western Washington, but also connections into Wayne County. Now I know this is something that's focused on them, but I want to know have theirs has there been any communication with their plan and integrating some of this plan with them to making sure it meets the needs with this by currently, but other than that, you know, we did so much public engagement on this plan. You know, we kind of got the feedback from the riders and the people that do are involved in public transit. That's what we need, and just going into this budget in July. I was very impressed with all the work and you know, the people that put the effort into doing this especially, you know, factoring in the master plan, the master plan really had my main focus is because we're expanding connections throughout the region, or we're also focusing on expanding connections throughout Wayne County. And that's kind of my focus right now. But you know, you thank you for everything that you've done in the budget and I look forward to seeing this vote yes on this issue, but as always, thank you
and I'm suggest you answered Roberts question before we go on.
Thanks for having me. Yeah, we we participated in the development of the triple eight game plan, both formally as part of their stakeholder committee and then informally meeting with their consultants and staff. I'm going to be meeting again with triple eta next week to talk about not only the plan, but what is the slightly shorter term with their new village that they want in August? So I have a meeting with that next week to start kind of cobbling together where projects that we should be working together as a way to guarantee projects where the product you know, kind of what, what roles we play now that we're actually talking about implementing something. That's a big chunk of their planning. So hopefully, that's helpful.
Do you have any perspectives and what's going on with the planning process?
And forgive me but all if you want to wisdom before heights
will always be here. The millage does not take immediate effect in Washington or in Ann Arbor, ata it will be phased in over the next two years so they're in a good planning session.
And then they will expedite not the old plan but they will face it
deliberately and they're untouchable. Discussions will be going out with the community as soon as plants are finalized. Then,
the only thing I would add to that is that when my partner was here before the millage passed and gave us the outline of our questions to him were the same questions were asking outside of these many is how is this gonna play with what we're doing? Is there money in here for anything that regionally answered that really, but we're gonna continue to press him on that I've talked to a lot of leaders that are very supportive, regional efforts, and we want to make sure that you're thinking that way.
Thank you okay
that's less than
Yes, thought that we're gonna do we have requests virtually to contribute to the hearing?
I don't see any. No requests?
Well, I believe in part it reflects just a terrific plan. And an A well projected budget not only for the coming years Thank you, Jenny, and all permitted Alma, you, committee. You scratch your head on all the former committee. Thank you. So I will officially close the hearing and we will move on, but before approving the agenda, because we're in person now. We don't normally do the roll call but I'm gonna ask for the sake of parliamentary inquiry, every board member to introduce themselves and where you're from, and it's anything to say about why you're on the board and start with
and work with the patient
always been particularly from our lives in the city of Georgia, and I'm happy to be represented. Welcome
and I'm Ned Stabler. Technically, I
represent Washtenaw County related to payment. But we're also really excited to have you welcome aboard. We got a lot of work to do in the next few years. moving this forward
come on from Macomb County. In my previous life, I was involved with economic development.
We see
public transportation and the ability to move people and workers is important to keep in success.
John Moores city manager and Richmond County
was asked to serve just under a year so relatively a lot with representatives from.
county and city government for a number of years currently shop
out here Airport Authority which airports I believe a transit
system as a whole providing people. So to the extent that we can pretend to take that limited resource that we have.
Do we ask everybody to see claim against Microsoft we're
really close
to Eric Robertson here, I am from the city of Detroit, but I represent Wayne County on the board. And this work for me is about social justice, access and equity for our riders in our communities, and I have to say that I'm excited to sit next to Alma, who are interviewer in 1999. And just be a part of the conversation and try to figure out how we literally move our people forward and beyond the boundaries that currently exist for them. So super excited. It was great to meet you, Cory and hear a little bit about you and what you want to do before looking forward to learning more about economy.
I'm Alma Wheeler Smith. I've been on the board for all for one year. of its existence. I represent Washtenaw County and share that responsibility with men.
It is
my delight actually to be able to work on regional transit that moves people from Washtenaw County to Wayne County, Macomb County's. It gives them great job opportunities. I won't say it gives them great health opportunities because nothing's better than your hospital system. But as Erica pointed out, this is an opportunity for social justice as we give people the chance to move around this community and the larger southeast Michigan's segment of our population and actually discovered that we can work together.
Online I'm Jeanette Bradshaw. I am I am represent Oakland County. One of our two I am new to the board. I was appointed in eighth actually on April Fool's Day though is that I in my every day I actually am I am a licensed electrician for over 21 years, but I've been in the labor movement for 21 years being on this board want to make sure not only are we respecting our writers who are also going to be labor in the labor force, but we also are respectful for the communities that we serve. I'm looking forward to it and being a member of Northern Oakland County. Understanding and trying to get my community that understand that transit brings us all together. And it's not just about certain regions, but if we have a prosperous transit, regional transit, we can have a better
and more productive
thank you all. We have great attendance today. Okay, okay. Hello, Amy.
Please.
Hello, everybody.
I am I'm from Oakland County social worker by training and I care about taking care of communities, employees and so forth. And I love communities that have good transit, you know, urban environment has been working on this issue for years. So I'm very excited to be part of the board. Sorry, I can't be with you physically, though, out of town.
Thank you, Lynn. And I'll go with Graham's the state appointed chair. I've been honored to be appointed by both Rick Snyder and Gretchen Whitmer and it's been a privilege to serve on why, you know, one of our greatest challenges as a region is just working together. And it's been an issue. It's reflected in access and equity, as you pointed out, and also economic growth. The sad fact is over the decades, we haven't grown in population that much. We've just spread out. And if we're going to change that pattern, I just think we're aided improved regional trends. That's my passion. That's why we're all here and I'm thankful that we have a board with his work together. Share it, that passion. It really has been a great experience. Thank you. We move on to the actual agenda and first we need a motion to approve of the agenda before us. Is there a motion by Erica supported by Yama? All those in favor say Aye. Any opposed? The agenda is approved and so we'll go first two numbers for the approval of the July board meeting summary. Unless there are additions or corrections I booked a motion to that moves and I'm a second all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any votes? In summary, it's approved. Now to public comment, Robert do have additional comment to contribute today. We really sure appreciate your your dedicated engagement.
Thank you, Paul. Appreciate those wonderful words. For the record Robert Lasky from South Gate when you own a transit advocate. I just want to take a moment to welcome our new members to the team. Harmony Lloyd Chief Operating Officer Welcome to the team. I look forward to working with you. Also, Cory? Well first Okay, I got that right first time. Welcome to the team. Community engagement is one of the biggest things I'm focusing on in Wayne County. So you know, we look forward to your leadership here at the RTA and brings more transit town remember, me and Khalil have met dozens of times I just want to give you the official welcome that you're on the RTA team. So but we enjoy your great work. The amount of effort you've put in to marketing and community outreach has been absolutely amazing. Over the time I've known you and I just want to give you official warm welcome right after Ben. But now and I want to take another moment to talk about the 80 millage. I've been heavily involved with that over the course of the process of public engagement. And I want to report on the happiness noticed that is past August 2, under a five year or four year millage. I think it's four years from correct. But now we have the 2045 plan that will be expanded all throughout the county. With this new law much allocated funding. That means more connections into Wayne County, more Park and Ride connections express routes all throughout the county and with the amazing leadership under Matt carpenter we finally get to see a leader in transportation and that is the ride in Arbor second to the rapid in Grand Rapids but you know we have a lot of things in Wayne County, Oakland and Macomb to work on, you know, our current connections now with the Oakland County Board of Commissioners passing the county wide village to basically expand transit service all across the county. You know, that's a huge step for our region. Now the question is, will we get Wayne and Macomb counties to follow in the footsteps in County especially Wayne County is filled with people from many different backgrounds, including myself, and this is an opportunity of social justice like Rob Erica said, you know, we focus on social justice, we focus on the need of transportation. That's why the RTA was formed and the amount we've put in over the past decade, you know, we've changed this region to where we can actually start working with all these different agencies and start to perform like we needed to this is in 2010, where everything has been separated. We're finally starting to see what's being the purpose of the RTA. So on behalf of myself, I want to say thank you for everything that you've done, and I look forward to the best going forward. And with our new team, team members on board, we have a bright future with our GA we have a bright future of these four counties combined. As always, I enjoy giving you guys public feedback and I look forward to giving you more next month but as always, thank you thank you.
Appreciate you. Are there are any other
making would like to make comments she's online? Yes.
Hello, thank you for allowing me this opportunity. I wish I could be there in person to meet all of these great new board members and staff. But for those who don't know, know me, Megan Owens and the Director of Transportation riders United also known as true, and we've been advocating for more and better transit for more than 20 years. Throughout the whole greater Detroit area. We believe everyone should be able to get where they need to go regardless of whether they can drive.
And we are
focused right now very much on the Macomb and Oakland County. And just want to make sure everyone's aware of of all of the great work that's going on. We've made over 40 different presentations to community groups going out out to a dozen different fairs and festivals and farmers markets. We've already hosted three transit town halls and have four more coming impact on the 20th will be in Warren at Macomb. 29th up at Oakland University on October 3 in Novi so we would definitely love anyone to anyone who's able to help us promote those events or who anyone who has ideas as to how we can get the word out. We know that when we take the time to talk with residents about transit when we share with them, what is provided what could be provided, the who is really needs, the service and how we all benefit. We all depend on the essential workers that depend on transit, when we can get that information out. Voters are very supportive. So those are just a sample of the things that we're doing. We'd love to be in touch with anyone who can help in that promotion, either of the purely educational components like the town halls, or more explicit vote yes. Outreach as the as we're doing as well. So I know that that the RTA is very supportive of the transit millages and love to work with the folks from RTA as well so just wanted to give that that brief update. And again, slight one other slight thing sort of to echo and to build off of what Robert said, our transit providers around the region are doing a whole lot of exciting stuff, a whole lot of good planning. And I know it's not always easiest to keep all of those plans coordinated, but I appreciate the efforts and urge RTA to continue to do everything you can to get the deed out reimagined and the arbors plan and then smarts, developing some new plans to keep everyone fully on the same page as much as you can. Thank thanks again for the time
Thank you, gentlemen, thank you for a truly sad act of advocacy and the millage renewal. We appreciate all you do are there more citizens
interested in speaking? Any request
no further requests then thank you for the public comments and we'll move on to item 6am. I do you want to introduce the financial reports
we have financial
we had the financial reports for July, August of this year and the meeting minutes on your reporting on the closes fiscal year. But right now we have entitlement and balance sheet statements for July and August and I'm going to turn them over to Jenny to give us a rundown. We
do not have any expenses. We do have for July. Slightly higher. legal expenses. We have bills assistance on a Trinity review, as well as reviewing the employment office offers great and permitting. We also went to live cat our quarterly invoice from the Area Agency on Aging. See there for 75,000 in August, we have additional staffing expenses because that is when quarry started. And you will also see some computer expenses as we purchase new computers for new staff Khalil as well and suddenly with a new computer. There are also some travel expenses. Both Cory and Khalil attended the MPTA Michigan public transit Association's conference up in Bel Air in August and so there are expenses related to that post travel as well as registration fees for that are there any questions? Yes.
It's okay. Um, I don't know if it's ever been brought up or maybe I noticed on the bank fees that we don't do we budget for bank fees, because I've seen like a larger increase and don't worry, I do this on the other side. It's not just here. It is
is actually that something like that? Yeah, we haven't because they can fluctuate. They've been pretty consistent because
we do have other contracts and other line items that can cover those fees. We just have a call. Yeah, that was okay. We can't call them out in the future in a budget to be more clear
because they're lying. They're lying to
their senses. Okay. All right.
Thank you, Jeanette. Other questions? And now I do Your Move approval. Approval. Thank you.
Is there support? Support? Support from
John okay. Any further comments or questions? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The financial reports for July and August are approved. This leads us to the fiscal year 2023 budget which we reviewed and then heard public comment now any further comment?
No, I have I did the overview. It's it's similar to what we looked at in July. So happy to take any questions.
Are there any last questions on the 25 budget? If not,
welcome a motion.
I will give them to you and then you. Okay, all those in favor say Aye. Any opposed? The 2023 budget is adopted. We now go to directors and officers liability insurance renewal
This is a standard non renewal. This is the insurance or all of our all the things that we do. i The cost is generally in line with our administrative budget. I don't think so. So cost isn't the huge increase. It's the standard item that we do every year.
Welcome a motion. Ned moves, Genet seconds. Now comment and question. If you could find out
more out of curiosity anything cheers was 2% or 15 is what it is? Insurance.
Oh, the insurance
Yeah, probably gonna vote yes. And
our track record is good. Yeah.
Okay. Unless you need to do another
14 this year and I was
like, okay, so it's up to $1,000 and part of the reason is because our budget went up every step. The premium is it's a set amount or budget or per $1,000 of budget. So there's a combination of the slight increases, plus the increase in our budget.
That makes sense. Okay, the motion was to support us before us. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The insurance renewal is approved. Next we go to really what our tax code or updates for fiscal 2023 The W SP and hMPV contracts. I believe we're in the third year of our contract so next year.
There will have to be an RFP with third year of those contracts with the updated desk voters is now with us. I don't think he made it. I know he had a one o'clock that was going to go to all these two. And so he don't think he's on us.
I can report that. Our Adult male Musk once again reviewed these updates and has given us the green light and he didn't see any issues throughout any changes. Just pick up so he was comfortable. Then you last platform but I believe that's the case. Yep. Just just just as a reminder, so
both these contracts have a three year contract with both of us p which is my services are either HTTP or masterplan. This is the third year so really, this is a task order. But just to kind of keep everything transparent, we do we do bring it back to the board every year and just make sure everybody's on the same page and the next year strategy.
For reasons of transparency, I think it's a good thing that we vote to approve the desk letter updates and vote separately. So physical year 2023 WSOP task order update. Is there a motion to approve it Freeman saying yes. And then supporting any comments or questions? If not, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? And then the 2023 HNTB task order update their work on the master plan. You You move and Erica moods and Jeanette seconds. Any questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Both of the updates are approved. Thank you the fiscal year 2022 triennial audit report and I will say before you address this I was somewhat relieved to hear from harmony that every transit agency has to deal with us signings to deal with so we're not alone. I guarantee you will bring new experience for us to the next triennial. Thank you. Yeah.
Okay, so we've been reporting on this in the program managers report the last several months. broad context, the FTA comes in every three years was actually four years this time because of COVID. And it doesn't review really of your kind of their rules and regulations that a financial audit. It's not the same as having a sanitized or a seagull is really about are you following all the rules. So we had our review in late May have received a draft report. In July, we provided some very, very basic comments there to base the comments on there report mainly about process just make sure we know what when they asked us for an update of a policy when when do we send it Who do we send it to. So nothing major to report. And then we have the final report which is attached here, which we got on August 15. So in this memorandum, I just walked through that, essentially the findings that are in the report really boiled down to us updating about four key policies and procedures. The first is our disadvantaged business program or DBE Program, give a draft of that program. The updated version of that program today is not nationally known, but that's probably our most complex programs. I just wanted to spend a minute going over that. That program also needs to be updated every three years. So this is along with a few tweaks from the triennial. We would be updating this anyways. Similarly, title six, which is our civil rights program, I actually did not get any major findings beyond making sure that we're working with our sub recipients and making sure that we're filing their title six programs, but it's a three year update, similar to DVS or updating that one. We'll be updating that next month. So that's fun to see the deep the final DVE and the final title six program for approval in October. We'll also be updating our procurement policies and procedures. So this is we updated this last time December of 2018. So it's a good time to update it. There were some some findings and deficiencies, namely the procedural elements didn't adapt to New York to be a proper documentation of our decision. Making. And to be frank and I shared this before, there was like two people making decisions. So I surrendered a separate memo about why we do that, well, totally what you need to do. It's just not something we did. Just to be frank, and we everything we've done across the board. So nothing major, we just have to go through the policy and make sure we're following all the rules. Similarly grants policy and procedures manual. This is just when you get a federal grant from the moment you decide you're going to do the grant to how you manage the grant I met just in time to close the grant these are just things we'd have to go through and update. And more. Again, make sure we're following the rules of the road and documenting those procedures. So you'll be seeing those two elements procurement and grants should be in November. So that's kind of how I have it set up. By November 14, we at least have to write updates of all these items. You'll see this next table and this table is repeated in the record I just did a kind of an easier to read version of it without their weird codes. And other things just because it's so a couple of items here I just wanted to go through. So I'll just kind of go through really quickly. So lacking scription so we're on page sorry, we're at age 61 And as a table, and it says description, action and approach so clacking, missing required written financial management policies and procedures. What they're actually asking for is do we have a procedure for what I'm called kind of purchasing and requisitions right so when we are when we're going out for buying a new computer, or doing an RFP status, where we have reviewed it and approved it, and it is allowable. And now I'm going to do a wrap up now we're going to do this sacrifice Army Corps we just met and said okay, it's nothing we know this is the right thing to do. We just have to make sure that we're documenting that procedure. So that'll be an update grants manual. So those are grants payments. So when we when we ask for reimbursement, we do what's called Echo drawdowns federal reimbursement system. So we actually do have, we do have procedures for this. We just have to update following them and do a little addition.
There was a asset on the third item, there was a slight overpayment so one thing that we need the function of it's like 80%, federal 20% and we did 100% typographical error. The next month, we adjusted it, so it's all bounced out, but we did not write an email to the FTA saying that we did this challenge. So a lot of again, a lot of these things are to be ready to be fixed it close outs. These are just grants that are expired that we have to close out, because out three of these, some of them were actually waiting for FDA actions to close and then next and other things. So we've already moved forward with that. We were missing some very, very missing like two things from our subsidiary report, and one of them was the amount of money that the sub recipient had received over time, which I've never seen before. It's always been persevering reports are now updated, and she's got approval, FDA has reviewed them with the team so that's that's actually clear. FSRs This is a database you have to report your sub recipients who you're giving money to pass through. I can maybe put Harvey on the spot. Someone who has experience and you've ever heard this r s report. This is the first time I've ever heard of this. Yeah. That is done. I was very easy to update. I did not know something that existed so procurement should say procurement not procure documenting micro purchases. This is another interesting one. So we do have a rules around conflicts of interest or procurement procedures but we do not have the disciplinary actions that we would take if someone violates so that'll be fine right now. We be we proceed to next the next one is every time someone brings up every time we do a federal contract, we have to check the database to make sure the contract is valid the call to Bard, which we do do but we did have to keep a screenshot of that search. So we will update our procedures and make sure we do that for Noah. The other was kind of a new piece. We put them in lobbies certification. So every time we put out a contract that uses federal funds, the contractor has to sign that they're not going to use them in this game. This is we do have this form but we forgot it. So we do have this form. Now I know it's simple. Change Order procedure. So we are going to deal with you have such a change in our procedures but they're kind of buried in a couple of different sections. So this will be a place where we have more clear procedures when we want to extend the contract change a contract and then the contract How do we do that and what roles we had some findings with our TV reports. i The finding essentially was the difference and I'll talk about this a little bit more once we get the policy the diversity team what's called a race neutral versus race conscious contracting mechanism very briefly doesn't sweep this this issue and getting confused by filters through everything. Essentially, you set your DD equal when you put out your RFPs you have to say you can do one of two things. You can say contractor you must you must hit this target or go about whatever it is seven or 8% or you can say this is our game. Please try and raise consciousness you must raise neutral is please try. We were using race conscious. I don't think you're really thinking about doing how do we do the difference? We were just saying you must you must you must we exceeded our goal. So at the end of the day receiver he did very well actually. Also when you're doing the recording of him, you have to record out phrase conscious restraints. I was not we're paying those reports out could face after person a few other items. We had good procedures for these things. Take knows. That's about it the report. The report again is attached I just kind of made it a little bit easier to go through that table. Before I talk a little bit. I'm gonna talk about the DBE goal. But before I do that, is there any questions about the triennial? We'll this will be a recurring item and we'll modify this I guess I'll see a checklist of like okay, this one's done close close. Close close. Thanks Dr. Progress.
Yeah, I have questions.
Yeah, these two big questions. So one is around. Quickly so one thank you for like really making sure that the table was detailed you identify what the issues were. That made it clear to us so appreciate the clarification. Good question. I know that this is the end of the audit has always
been an area where there's
some outline issues. And I know in the earlier years when we discussed it was a hey, as you bring on more staff, some of these things will be addressed. Moving forward. So do you anticipate now that we're at some some some key talent on board that these issues will kind of be addressed in the
shorter? Yes. So two things One staff and obviously Harvey's experience doing triennial developing these procedures across is going to be huge. The other piece is bringing on Ramin, which is the financial operations firm that we brought on through an RFP may be finalized it took a long time to finalize the contracts, all the separate conversations done finally was getting assigned. Once they're on they'll be able to help us move through the financial management much more quickly and make sure that we're getting our drawdowns federal and state grant tours much more quickly, as opposed to JJ.
So just to ponder as you talk about the DVD and I looked at, you know, the report out on that and we exceeded the goal this year, which is great. We did lower the goal for next three years. So my question is more toward you and the board is our perspective on on utilizing disadvantaged businesses. I know that there is a our threshold limits federal mandate for what that looks like. But what is our position as a board as an organization, understanding that part of what we're after is equity. And we talk about that out in our communities. But as we think about how that equity shows up in our processes, our policies as an organization do we want to just repeat the minimum? Or is there something more intentionally should could be doing to make sure that we're being a more inclusive organization? Just be curious to hear the board's perspective on that as we get into that conversation.
Reflections on Erica's question or other questions? And then as
I share her 72 as well, it gets before people better to give us an explanation as to why.
Okay, so I so the DVE there's kind of a TV program. How do you manage it? So I'm going to focus on a call, because that's the number that you're trying to hit. So a couple of weeks in contextually and think about one, this is only for federal contracts. So if we want to set an overall agency goal or have an agency policy, that is a well this is part of that it can be a totally separate thing we can discuss. But this has kind of follow a bunch of federal rules. And that includes a mandated methodology for actually calculating goal. The goal is not a ceiling to floor. And so what you essentially should do and I laid out here is you do a scan of all the industries that you think you're going to be working with, you use their business codes, codes, find how many herbal available in your service area, we use the state so we actually like have the broader service area because we have these DVDs that are tried on our TVs, since look at how many friends in total, how many registered DVDs their own state percentage, you apply that percentage to what you think your progress is gonna look like. So one of the things that's a slight differentiation that that brought us down slightly is that we are looking to have probably more engineering services potentially available and the percentage of TVs and engineering compared to communications because there's 1000s of engineering firms. There are a lot of TV for engineering firms, but they're just a smaller world. So just it's just a math thing. It's not me making a recommendation. It's just so that's what that's why the goal went down slightly because we're shifting our work program. Just a little bit. And you can see all the calculations for that. One of the key things that they ask you to parse when you're looking at this is how much you're going to use race conscious, which is saying you must do this versus what they call neutral. race neutral requires you to go out and do that engagement and do that. Do that footwork he will groundwork to meet with JB canto with different organizations that were people who operate at T star car and talk to him about your work program, and hopefully just generate that business coming to you without having to use targets and there's countries. So we have a race neutral plan here in terms of like, what groups we're going to reach out to the lot and Bill about the program and opportunities. What conferences we're going to attend, and other things like that between media repositionable and the media, get feedback. What we'll do over the next month, what we've done previously, is actually send this information out specifically to these groups and get some feedback from them on at least an acknowledgement that the gay we know the RTS practice is coming up where you go, we know what you know what's happening. So that's one of the things we'll be doing over the next month and then you just do that in an ongoing basis. You just continue doing this kind of knowledge. I will say that larger transit agencies that I've worked with and have a person whose job it is full time to do TPR now these are people doing millions and millions and millions of dollars. They usually have a dedicated staff person who does TV all day every single day we have that program that is so hopefully that answered some of the questions by if the board doesn't want to talk about agency wide goal or more information about other contracts, state funded contracts, other things that's kind of a separate item that would wrap it around, because we have to keep this like, you know, has to be the federal guidelines. Did you do this exactly the way we've laid it out and CFR 49 Part Six. You can even say in this program, we actually use the references for the section numbers from the actual code. Like that's how much we want to make sure section 26.109 is in here is trying to auto say section 26 Neither Yes, sorry, words that section 26.0 Nothing. So hopefully that helps
reshape the detail and I just want to reiterate, so there's a compliance piece which you explained very well, but there's a value based on what you believe to be true peace as an organization, which then is above and beyond that. So those are the pieces that I would like for us to keep in mind. It sounds like you're on the same page as the rest of the business. And I think
one of the things that we can to help hold ourselves accountable, certainly doing all the all these pieces all this outreach is part of it but when we bring up procurement to the board, and to discuss, hey, you know, we're we're going to do this procurement in two months. You know, our plan is to so this is an area where there are a lot of DVDs. Our plan is to use the following means and could you help us as well. Make sure we're getting the word out and taking that extra month or a couple of weeks to make sure we're doing all the appropriate things we need to do. And being transparent, these are these be used this these are the proposals we received. You know, I mean, I think we do a pretty good job. You can do that thank you Erica for that hello so for Ben in harmony as as you work through developing a program, I understand how the DBE Program is applicable to federal funding. I also understand that you know, the reality of today's we don't have large amounts of contracts, right. But to the extent that or when we enter into a growth period I think it's important to look at what kinds of programs are taking support relative to non federal spend, and specifically taking into consideration our mission and prop two limitations. Right. So proposal two, I think I can't remember the year and it has to do with the fact that or state under contracts. Don't quote me on this. Technology generally can't take race or gender into consideration. Right. And so, understanding that's kind of different for Michigan or some other states. I think that's one of the reasons why the gentleman really only applies to federal contracts. So understanding that we still have a policy, perspective and direction of inclusion and equity. I think it's important to for looking into the future, before thinking stop working on programs now that we can use for leveraging non federal funding. Thank you. Great, thank you.
Any any vendor you want to respond
to Thanks for the comment. I totally agree. And that's one of the I commented to our reviewers during during our review that this is one of the strange one of the most fascinating pieces of public policy because there's kind of the the intent of achieving a civil rights goal, but then there's this you can you can just see how it evolves over different administrations. Let me just put it that way. Where it went one way with one administration and the Federal alone that Oh, no, don't do too much now. You know, but don't be it so you can just see the evolution when you read the policy and have someone added this section that's interesting. Um, whether we can we can at some point, the board's pleasure look at we do have other state funded contracts that do go to DC that just aren't reflected. So we can't always report out on that at a broader level. The other thing that I want to identify and I haven't looked at how much bandwidth we have to get by and sometimes smaller firms that have a DVD composition, have not taken the time to go through the DBE certification process. So while they may be a DBE in terms of their makeup, they're not a official team. And that's one of the places where, you know, you can if you identify a firm and identify that gap for them, and you help them get connected so that they can be registered. That's kind of one of the actions that we can help take, as we try and build up so that's something we'll keep our eye on.
As a thought, to the extent that outreach, vendor, database management, and arts are a major component of these programs, to the extent you know, do want to reach out to some of our your your component counties or the city or any other agency have a program. I think that you know, as one board member, I would welcome opportunity to have some sort of inter governmental MOU or something clicked the advantage of their existing programs on average.
Well, what I'm hearing is, then that we've got a mathematical mathematically set floor we've exceeded past floors and the spirit in Florida is that we continue to work at exceeding anything more on the triennial report. I was saying to harm anybody but like I can only imagine what's coming with the IRA funds, infrastructure dollars, she
said she just finished your train y'all. Like I'm tearing
in our case. We do we
we don't ask for permission. And I think to Julie's point, there are some of our partner jurisdictions that do so that may be that can again be something else that we can we can look at it maybe through an MOU or figure out if there's and there are non DBE firms that do have particularly in the local offices, a diverse workforce, but they're not just a general like very diverse Detroit offense. 35,000 person firm, global, so that I know the city of Detroit if you are a trade based business does look at your original constituents and actually come to us.
Yeah, okay. Yeah, just eyeballing construction work this season. DTE has a lot of contractors on the streets.
Looking at the way the jobs let's minority workers are not
skill level jobs. And that's critically important for us. To look at as a makeup
artist. Thank you. I think we move on, then to your record, it's
okay. Um, so the program managers report we talked a little bit already about triple ATM, they allege I just included some more direct facts about what that's looking at. So that was it is a 2.4 2.38 mil total as runs for five years between 24 and 28. There was a 1.68 mil increase, substantial increase, and we'll go through the bullet points here. And I'll be frank, I just took them from their sights. Just wanted to be clear, congratulations to triple AAA. I have a 61% passage rate which is just good.
Staff next week particularly to talk about Bashaw have been the key but also just other places where we can kind of work let's do so we have our our me and Cory have an opportunity to like introduce themselves and talk a little bit about their background.
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here and I'm so excited to become part of this team. Just a little bit about my background. I came from the Mass Transportation Authority in Flint. I was the chief operating officer there. And like Ben said, Just finished our triennial and I think that if you went back and asked staff, they would describe me and he's liking things. Exactly right. So we're gonna work really hard. You can't wait till their year because if you wait till then the work has already been done and you miss that opportunity. So we will tighten things up and hopefully next time I'll be a little bit better. My background just real quickly. I did grow up in this area. I've lived in Macomb County, Wayne County and Oakland County. So I grew up in East Point graduated from East Detroit. I went to college at U of D and then lived on campus. And then then I lived in Grosse Pointe Park for a while and now I live in Birmingham. So I'm very familiar with the community, the dynamics and how all the counties kind of interact with each other. I was in Flint for 17 years. So I went through the recession, the water crisis and cold wind during the time I was there. So I am very used to dealing with huge challenges and also understanding when things like that happen how critical services like transmit, become, and not just the big bosses for the essential workers. But what we really saw during COVID was there was still people that had to get to dialysis. They had to get to chemo. These weren't things that they could do from home and so as transit, we had a responsibility to respond to that. And so I hope that some of those experiences that I went through I can bring to this agency and thinking about that and thinking about the ongoing talks about the areas where there isn't transit right now or there at least isn't big buses. You know, I think that in transit community right now, there's a lot of innovation. There is ideas with micro transit, flex routes on demand services, commuter express routes. We've tried a lot of those in Genesee County and I had really good luck with them really a lot of success. And so I hope to also bring some of those ideas so that we can help people that live in northern Oakland County and northern Macomb County and Canton net Lavanya in some of the areas where we struggle, realize how relevant transit can be to them, even if they right now don't think of themselves as a transit user. So those are some of my goals. I only in my second week, but I have really enjoyed the team. I think it's going to be great to work with them. Everyone's been fantastic. And I think Ben and I have skills that really complement each other and so I'm looking forward to what we can do together.
Or you want to come up hello yes, once again, my name is Coco record. I am now serving as the community manager. Come to our city government. I have been very involved in government at the state, city city in Detroit specific level at the federal level. And just really looking forward to coming to the RTA stressing the word reach the Regional Transit Authority, building our meaning building our brand building back letting people know it's okay to cross county lines. You will be okay. If you transfer from a column all the way over to Washington. Just really excited to be part of the team looking forward to us building relationships. As I stated, I live in the city of Detroit and I cut my teeth with Detroit city governments. So getting into areas that I'm not as familiar with that broke out to me. So looking forward to exploring the McCollum and exploring in Washington counties. There's just so much potential for IoT. And we've all heard stories of when people go out of town and they experience transportation. They say you know, and then they come back home and they say we can have this we can do this. I was an X major city and a y major city and I took a bus from here to there. Jump into Uber and I've never had to jump cab. Well, that same thing can happen here and I've definitely the better chance so with working with the board, working also with our community, because we can put all the plans together we can, you know, have these awesome masterminds, but if our community doesn't embrace it, then we just done the last. So working with the community advisory councils giving feedback and buy in from those that are advocates of chance and and those that are still
kind of on the line about transit
that's challenge and it's one that I'm absolutely looking forward to getting involved in the entire ecosystem that we see a transit mobility flagship. There's are all of those different areas placed with parts case. So once again, thank you for the opportunity and I look forward to continuing the conversations with them.
Clary, you before the meeting, you gave some examples of how you're doing outreach already. Yeah. I think it's great. You might want to mention, yes,
just starting very much and making sure that we are within the region, so making sure our action steps are up to date, making sure that you know we're attending major events. We are already going on to college campuses talking about a few opportunities we are looking to get into Washington doing an event with Spark next month. So already just kind of getting involved in getting into the community given our name back out there. So people say you know, hey, don't forget about as we go away still here.
Thank you both. i It's so great to have you aboard. I'll say it again but it's also a tribute to our TA our board and Ben and team that we've been tracking such amazing talent. Thank you. Okay.
I'll fix it real quick. So, RT opsbase. We've talked about this a little bit. We are still at the CENTCOM offices. We have been using those offices pretty actively. They've been, they've been really good to us. We are having some conversations Peoplemover and Robert Kramer who's running, running that shop right now he's looking to move. So there's a possibility that we have our own space in there. Kind of working our way through that. Figuring out what makes sense. Now we have a staff. As I told them, I'm just walking around with a backpack on a landmine. I have maybe different needs or visions of like what I need and I just kind of go around American rescue plan, so we will be doing next month about the program. For programming those dollars. That will be something out there a couple of items in new grants. We did participate with him that he had securing a $25 million raise grant for the Michigan Avenue. They call the Detroit mobility innovation corridor which is a dedicated transit Lane project is in Corktown. So the RTA provided a cost analysis. Example of where we're helping, you know, even so mildly secure additional funding for the region. I did I was successful in securing some grants in this last cycle for new electric buses and they're looking to expand their their zero emission cost program quite aggressively. Big passion for Mattel we are working with a huge coalition of people to try and together a coach in response to a mobility wallet challenge that I've not put out on the street month ago. The idea here is that we develop a pilot project for an app or something like that, that would allow people to pay for multiple services. So this is one of the things that we talked about in terms of fear system. You know, how do we have one place or one stop shop to be able to find information on services assessments. That last part is the most complicated part because it requires financial agreements and all kinds of other things. So we are working with a large coalition of all of our mobility providers, I put it in here but to look at a potential pilot group that tears off of the equity section that we completed earlier this spring, so we talked about that study looking at Job Access, we're going to be looking to develop a pilot for the section services for job seekers. So hopefully we can pull it together. No, it's not easy. It's a complicated coalition and a complicated grant. So we're working to pull it together. That's due October 24. We are working on an update of the master plan. This is just going to be purely an administrative update, where we just say check back check all of our goals and strategies that transit providers DDOT is actually working on their DW Apache program which is looking at their entire system or helping them with that update to finish their updates Mart's working on some things so we just want to make sure like are we all on the same page? That's the point of this. I'm also using the engagement that they're doing around their plants in China to kind of use things with multiple villages and plants and other things going on. Day to day to ridership continues to increase. We're kind of bouncing around the 3000 riders month. The variation we see this month here in September, we're back in session. We did increase this a little bit on questions, doubled the service on weekend trips. And we saw a double, double the ridership. So we just did that back two weeks ago. So July that actually didn't increase our budget that's coming up a little bit under no budget increase. And we are going to be talking about doing some surveying and other information on the buses and in and around the communities and businesses that are around the bus stops to get a better sense kind of quantitatively qualitatively. Who's taking the buses. Are they taking them for who knows about them? We've been doing a lot of parking both through the TCP ATT that has the RTA and the output of the of the buses check.
That is all I wanted to touch on your annual touch. And once st item just to wills probably in November, we'll start talking about our 5310 call for projects again, we'll probably do that new call and most likely will be January at this point. But this is funding for seniors disabilities to be had around $11 million. That's going to be available this round. So we're working right now to get some recording back from status and the last round of projects. So probably November, December we talked about that. That's it.
Thanks, Ben. Questions for Ben and his comments are just written report. very complete. I hear no questions. Is there any new business to bring to the board? Here done? If not without objection, we're adjourned. Thank you for goodbye. This conference
