QUESTION
Why is there a budget increase for asylum seekers' care from FY 2024 to FY 2025 and what will the additional funds cover?
0:33:40
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88 sec
The budget for the city's care for asylum seekers is set to increase due to changing rules and the need for updates to services.
- The increase in budget is in response to evolving city, state, and federal policies affecting asylum seekers.
- Updates to applications and services are necessary to keep pace with these changes.
- The influx of asylum seekers and involvement of more entities necessitates enhancements to the system.
- The additional funds are earmarked for handling projected increases in volume and implementing policy-related enhancements.
Jennifer Gutiérrez
0:33:40
The preliminary plan includes 80,700,000 in FY 2024 with a sum of 90,000,000 in FY 2025 for costs associated with the city's care for asylum seekers.
0:33:53
And there is a $60,000,000 difference in funding between FY 2025 preliminary budget.
0:33:59
And FY 2024 adopted budget of 30,000,000.
0:34:03
Can you explain the large increase and what it will cover?
Matthew Fraser
0:34:10
So a lot of what's a lot of what we're experiencing with the SLM Zika program is that the rules and policies governing the program not just at a city level but at a federal and state level or shifting.
0:34:22
And as the landscape shifts, we have to update the applications and services that both track and enhance what we're providing to that community of people.
0:34:30
For us over the last year, we went from work authorization all the way through the influx of additional people coming in and having more entities involved in the pipeline.
0:34:43
And due to those reasons, we had to make subsequent updates to the system to accommodate that.
0:34:48
The additional cost is to handle the projected volume and the and the upcoming enhancements around both city policies and federal policies around the folks that in this particular community, and that that's pretty much what that is, a reflection of building a ship as you're driving it.
0:35:06
Right?
Jennifer Gutiérrez
0:35:06
Yeah.
0:35:07
So okay.