The proposed action will not have an impact on the County’s General Fund. Mitigation Fee revenue is used to cover the costs incurred by the County and City of Richmond for any activities "Strategies" authorized to be funded under the applicable Expenditure Plan approved by the County and City. Each annual Expenditure Plan includes a Contingency line item in the budget to serve as a cushion for potential revenue shortfalls.

New Expenditure Plans and/or modifications to existing Expenditure Plans (Amended Expenditure Plan) must be approved by both the County Board of Supervisors and Richmond City Council to officially authorize use of North Richmond Waste and Recovery Mitigation Fee funding. The purpose of this North Richmond Mitigation Fee (NRMF) is to mitigate designated impacts resulting from the County and City approved land use permits for the expanded Bulk Material Processing Center (BMPC) located in North Richmond.  
  
Summary of Changes to the 2015/2016 NRMF Expenditure Plan  
The 2015/2016 North Richmond Mitigation Fee Expenditure Plan was approved by the County Board of Supervisors in June 2015 and Richmond City Council in July 2015. After the close of the 2015/2016 Expenditure Plan (EP) cycle, County staff identified unanticipated FY 2015/2016 costs that were incurred for Committee Administration/Staffing. City staff also identified unanticipated costs for two Strategies that were in excess of the amount available in the 2015/2016 EP Budget. On May 26, 2017, the North Richmond Mitigation Fee Committee (NRMFC) voted to recommend that the County Board of Supervisors and Richmond City Council approve an Amended 2015/2016 NRMF Expenditure Plan to move $34,589.07 from the “Contingency” line item to increase the funding for “Committee Administration/Staffing” by $21,205.20, increase funding for “Neighborhood Clean-ups (Strategy 2)” by $2,519.95 and increase funding for “Right-of-Way Pick-up & Tagging Abatement (Strategy 4)” by $10,863.92. The proposed changes reconcile the budgeted costs with the actual costs after the closeout of the fiscal year. The changes are shown in the Amended Expenditure Plan Budget on page 3 of the attached Exhibit A.   
  
Summary of Recommended 2017/2018 Expenditure Plan  
At the NRMFC meeting on May 26, 2017, the Committee voted to recommend that the County Board of Supervisors and Richmond City Council approve a 2017/2018 Expenditure Plan that allocates funding from July 1, 2017, through June 30, 2018.   
  
The recommended 2017/2018 Expenditure Plan attached as Exhibit B allocates $105,000 to fund a new strategy (Strategy 13 – Urban Farm Park Dedication Project). The recommended Expenditure Plan Budget also includes funding allocation adjustments to existing strategies which either provide for increased services or address anticipated cost increases to maintain existing levels of service for the 2017/2018 Expenditure Plan cycle. The NRMFC recommended funding allocation increases for existing strategies are made possible due to the amount of unspent funds available from the prior 2015/2016 Expenditure Plan combined with the unspent funds not planned to be spent in the current 2016/2017 Expenditure Plan.   
  
The NRMFC also recommended that the same nonprofit organizations that were allocated funding for Community Based Projects (Strategy 9) and Neighborhood Community Garden Projects (Strategy 12) under the current 2016/2017 Expenditure Plan cycle be awarded the same funding in the 2017/2018 Expenditure Plan. The Committee also recommended that additional funding be allocated to one of the nonprofit organizations under Strategy 9 for a special project to assist with maintaining landscaping to address blight at predominantly vacant County Housing Authority properties in North Richmond.

If the 2017/2018 Expenditure Plan is not approved by the Board prior to July 1, 2017 the previously approved strategies (activities) could not be funded by NRMF in which case most, if not all, would be halted. Furthermore, if the Amended 2015/2016 Expenditure Plan is not approved by the Board, both the City and County would not receive reimbursement for their additional costs incurred for the annual period that ended on June 30, 2016. The City could not receive reimbursement for additional payments totaling $13,383.87 for city-administered Strategies (Strategies 2 and Strategies 4) and the County would not receive reimbursement for additional Committee Administration/Staffing costs incurred in the amount of $21,205.20.