Chair Stevens Questions Savings Targets in Preventive Services

And this is also frustrating because for the last two years, because I've only had ACS for two years.

The last two years, it was said that the reason that these numbers are down in these facilities is because of the work of preventive care and that that was necessary.

I don't want to get y'all in trouble because I've been doing whatever, and I don't know how um council member Lee does her thing.

Yeah, no, I'll be clapping and so I'm sorry, my people don't know how to behave, sorry.

Um but it gets me very frustrated because preventative services has been totted as a reason for not having so many people um in the facility.

I think in your testimony you said that we're down um like 13 um 13,000 from a decade ago, and like these numbers are consistently going down, and it has been a continuous effort to get these numbers down and present preventive services has been like the thing that has been pointed to of saying we're gonna get these things down.

And so, how do we now sit here and say and justify that it's services that this is a place that services should have savings?

Because I know we don't like to use cuts, I know that's not what we're saying, right?

But how do we justify that now when that has been the thing that we've pointed to?

And so what is the plan to ensure that that the continuity stays?

Because one of the things that I think for me is frustrating is that I've heard things like, well, there's still slots, and so if I'm a young person, well, if I'm a family and there's slots in uh the Bronx, and I live in Queens, and I already don't like the system, because let's be clear, and I already have issues, I'm not going.

So I'm trying to understand what the justification is, what's the plan, and how this is gonna look in actual actual time for these families.

So I'll I'll stop chatting.

So I'll start out with um, and this might be my own artificial uh separation.

Hello.

Um the close to home uh related to the work of trying to um support young people that are involved with juvenile justice um and um those placements and then the prevention services um connected to preventing foster care placement um are kind of aligned but different sort of yeah, they're all different, right?

But this the point I was just trying to make was like we need to listen to providers because they said this, and now again we need to listen to the process.

Absolutely, and the per the partnership of providers is critical.

Um, and you heard that in my testimony.

Um and prevention services are critical as well.

The um entire continuum.

We also um as an agency have um to have responsibility for you know fiscal responsibility and aligning um resources in um in ways so that we are investing um and utilizing the the resources we do have, and the decisions to um eliminate slots is a really difficult decision, and I'm happy to turn it over to Deputy Commissioner Linares to talk a little bit more about the prevention programs that I think you're referring to.

Chair Stevens.