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Project Identification

Subcommittee

Eastern Sierra CA Jobs First Region

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2

Round Robin
Housekeeping

Rebrand
Timeline
Priority Sectors
2024 Regional Strategies

Catalyst Application Overview
Project Vetting Criteria

Agenda

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Community Economic Resilience Fund

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California Jobs First

SBC is still using:

Email: CERF@sierrabusiness.org

Website: https://www.sierrabusiness.org/archives/cerf/

Program Name: CA Jobs First (CERF)

Waiting for State brand guide for next steps.

CERF Rebrand

So first up on the agenda is the infamous CERF rebrand that we are so excited about! Really this is on brand for the current CERF process in that the state has asked us to start using the new name - California Jobs First without a brand guide or any other direction! So SBC will start referring to CERF as California Jobs First, but we aren’t sure if there is an agreed upon acronym yet - will that be CJF or some other catchy name, we don’t know! But I want you to all be aware if you see CA Jobs First in the news, at work, in communications from SBC - it is the same program. Nothing programmatic has changed at this point, but just be aware that this is out there. You are welcome to start using the new name in your external communications.

All official communications from the SBC CERF team will use the CERF@ email address, and our website URL for CERF is still the same. We don’t know if these will need to change, but we will do a big campaign around it if we do to make sure you don’t miss any communications from us.

Any questions about the new name?

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February

November

December

January�2024

March

May

April

June

July

Catalyst App Due

Regional Summary

Report Due

Catalyst Funding Awarded

CERF Implementation Application

Regional Strategies Report Start

Regional Strategies Report Due

HRTC and Subcommittee Meetings

Regional Strategies Report Progress

HRTC and Subcommittee Meetings

Now - July 2024 Timeline

HRTC and Subcommittee Meetings

Here is the Program timeline from about right now - going back in time a few weeks to show that the Catalyst application was turned in at the end of November. We are busy this month with finalizing the regional report summary and hosting the subcommittee meetings and the HRTC meetings. We need to turn the Regional Summary Report into the state by December 31st. Then in January we will start getting more information about the Regional Strategies report. This will entail a set of economic strategies that strengthen climate resilience and public health while aligning with state goals. The HRTC and Subcommittees will be a part of identifying these strategies, vetting them, and making sure the recommendations are aligned with the future we all want to see in the region. I have a slide with more information on that report in just a minute.

Importantly, in May, we should know about Catalyst next steps - whether that is the start of contracting or at a minimum award announcements.

In June, the strategies report is due to the state. And in July, the state has said that Implementation Guidelines will be released. Remember these are for ready to go projects and will be a competitive statewide SFP. Another really important thing to remember is that all of these things - the strategies report, the catalyst predevelopment funds, and the implementation funds will likely all need to tie back into the key sectors we have identified. So we will touch on these sectors one more time. But first -

Any questions about the timeline?

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Priority Sectors

5

Community Healthcare

Clean & Reliable

Energy

Sustainable

Recreation & Tourism

Sustainable Agriculture

Natural and Working Lands

Access to care

Specialty services

Mental health

Medical facilities

Tribal healthcare

Forest Economy

Wildfire resilience

Wood utilization

Watershed restoration

Tribal stewardship

Balanced tourism and visitation

Events & Culture

Higher wage jobs

Climate change readiness/pivots

Entrepreneurs & Main Street

Energy efficiency and decarbonization

Energy resilience and reliability

Renewables

EV readiness

GHG mitigation

Sustainable food systems/security

Climate-ready crops

Ranching manufacturing

Value-added products

Agri tourism

So these are the five sectors, i know you’ve seen variations of the slide before - but these are more final names and descriptions that have come from the subcommittees and the HRTC meetings in October. So thank you for your feedback. Now as we look at these, i’m just going to highlight some of the main changes

Key point in the healthcare sector is focusing on tribal healthcare and ensuring access to tribes, and also job opportunities within this realm
The natural and working lands sector was called Forest Economy - but with feedback from our desert counterparts and some of our westside friends - let’s ensure that there is landscape level projects across our various ecosystems
Sustainable recreation title includes tourism - and a key point is focusing on arts and culture, broadening who receives the net benefits of the massive visitation of the region
Clean energy now also includes reliability in the title and will still focus on building decarb and meeting state mandates and developing a workforce within the infrastructure sectors - contractors, electricians, plumbers, etc
Sustainable ag also includes ranching!!!! So this can also include local manufacturing and processing of meat products

Any questions on the sectors?

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Deliverable 2.2

Regional Summary PLAN

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DUE: June 2024:

Vision and goals
Strategies for the growth of targeted industries
Strategies for increasing economic diversification
Strategies for responding effectively to economic shocks
Strategies for increasing economic equity
Strategies for increasing health and environmental equity
Strategies for aligning with State strategies

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The Catalyst Fund - Key Facts

$14M

Bridge the gap between Planning and Implementation
Build capacity and provide capital for pre-development stage projects
Projects must be voted on by the HRTC to receive pre-development funds

Max Award

All 13 regions are eligible for up to $14M

Due Date

Nov 30

Only current CERF Fiscal Agents can apply for this closed solicitation.

Award Date

May 2024

Period of Performance is May 2024 through September 2026

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What will Catalyst Pre Development Funds Do?

Strengthen HRTC social infrastructure to allow for continued regional inclusive planning and will enable regions to build a pipeline of viable ready-to-go CERF-aligned projects

Pre-development funds will expand on the work of the CERF Planning Phase and catalyze projects in disinvested communities across the state while giving regions the flexibility to design projects that meet their needs

Enabling regions to develop projects and maximize investment opportunities while reserving Implementation Phase funds for ready-to-go projects

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Catalyst Application Outcomes

Programmatic - $2.8M

Administration/Regional Convenor Costs
Research Costs
Outreach Costs
Travel Costs
HRTC Programmatic Costs
HRTC Reimbursement Costs
Subcontractor Costs (e.g., ESCOG, ITCC, MLJT, SBRC)

Projects - $9M

No specific projects included (not a requirement in the application!)

Requested full amount - $9M towards regional projects in pre-development stages

Building framework with HRTC and Subcommittees for how projects will be identified and chosen

Sector Investment Coordinators - $1.5M

Outline of five $300,00 subcontracts with expertise in:

Forest Health and Wood Products
Sustainable Recreation and Small Business
Rural Healthcare
Sustainable Agriculture
Clean & Reliable Energy

Here is how our application intends to support those goals set out by the state. We have budgeted just under $3M for Administrative and Convening Costs, Research Costs, Travel Costs, Outreach to disinvested communities, and maintaining the HRTC infrastructure and funding our existing CERF partners who have been an extremely valuable part of the Planning Phase. This is intended to continue to build capacity within existing economic development organizations in the region.

The full $9M is requested for Projects. Remember that no specific projects were intended to be in the application. Today we will begin really focusing on building out the project framework - eligibility and vetting criteria. Once we have a better idea of the state’s timeline for awarding, contracting, and distributing Catalyst Funds, this group will begin working on a timeline for how the region will submit projects for pre-development funds, how the subcommittees will vet them and make recommendations to the HRTC Council, and eventually how the HRTC will vote to allocate funds. Hopefully we have a good understanding of the state’s timeline in early to mid Winter 2024.

And the full $1.5M for Sector Investment Coordinators was requested with the intention of funding 5 $300,000 contracts for organization with expertise in our 5 priority sectors.

Any questions here?

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Project Vetting Criteria - Two Pots

Catalyst “Pre-Development”

Funding

$9M total -
Only “competitive” within our region
HRTC votes on projects to receive funding
PI Subcommittee helps define eligibility

Implementation “Ready-to-go”

Funding

$268M total
Competitive across the state/Open SFP
Draft guidelines coming from state in Spring 2024
Final guidelines coming from state July 2024

Okay, now we are going to move into the meat of our discussion today. I sent you all Project Vetting Criteria Questions and we are going to go through all of those, hopefully one by one in the hopes of coming to some general preliminary consensus. We can think of this as we are deciding on some “good ideas” together that will likely evolve and change, and of course we need to have consensus from the HRTC Council and other subcommittees. But we get to do the hard part!

So there are those two different funding pots for projects - there’s the Catalyst $9M that SC has applied to receive. And there are the Implementation Funds - a big statewide pot of a minimum of $268M.

The vetting criteria we are talking about right now is for the first pot, the catalyst pre-development funding. Since the HRTC has the power to determine eligibility criteria for the distribution of the $9M, it is up to us to develop the systems and recommendations that will allow the subcommittees to make project recommendations to the HRTC Council and the HRTC Council to make informed voting decisions.

Here is a snapshot of the current project submissions we have received (go to link). We aren't going to be talking about specific projects today, but I just want to show a snapshot of what we have received and bring up some questions. Notice that many of these projects cover a subregion of our 7-county region with few projects spanning the full boundary. So we just need to keep in mind that projects funded through CERF will need to show regional benefit. Nearly all projects are incredibly valuable for the region, but clearly this would require more than $9M - and some of these projects could be a really good fit for other funding sources out there. So just a reminder that another element of the CERF’s goals from the state are building capacity within regions to leverage other funding sources.

Any thoughts or questions on this so far?

So before we jump into the discussion - are there any questions on these two funding pots and what we are discussing today?

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Catalyst - Project Pre-development Activities

$9M

Invest in regional projects in “exploratory” or “last mile”

Feasibility studies, market analysis, and environmental assessments such as CEQA.

Site acquisition, permitting, and site and development plans.

Revolving loan funds, JPAs, and financial planning.

Infrastructure pre-development, construction, and operation/maintenance plans.

New positions, staff development, tool acquisition, and capacity building.

As a reminder - these are the types of activities that pre-development funding is intended to go towards. We have been keeping track of those projects in the Project Identification Tracker. At this time, this is the best place to add high level info about on-going projects. Once we develop a more detailed vetting criteria, projects in the Planning Phases or Last-mile phases will be asked to submit more relevant information.

We aren’t totally sure what the timeline for this process of identifying projects and asking projects to submit more information will be - once we receive the Catalyst contract we will know how quickly the project funds will need to be awarded, encumbered, or expended by. Once possible scenario is that SBC will need to award these funds by September 2026 when the Catalyst Phase ends - but that individual projects would have the freedom to encumber and expend funds beyond that date.

So I am going to share the notes screen and just take notes as we discuss in real time and see if we can generate some good ideas to answer these questions. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ELgRJ1nnZ69JqTbwNAmPQzwck92gK4ap/edit

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HRTC Council Meeting - December 15th

9:30 am - 1:00 pm (followed by lunch)

Mother Lode Job Training Center, 197 Mono Way B, Sonora, CA 95370

Virtual Option Available

HRTC Office Hours - January 10th

12 pm - 1:30 pm

Virtual

Project Identification Subcommittee Meeting - February 14th

12 pm - 1:30 pm

Virtual

Future Convening

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Thank you.

Follow up info:

Kaeleigh Reynolds & Kara Bechtle�Sierra Business Council

Email: cerf@sierrabusiness.org

Website: https://www.sierrabusiness.org/cerf