Agenda 01-17-23; 6-b - Community Climate Action Grant (CCAG) - FY 2022-23 Project Selection for General Applicants and Schools

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1 ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: January 17, 2023 Action Agenda Item No. 6-b SUBJECT: Community Climate Action Grant (CCAG) — FY 2022-23 Project Selection for General Applicants and Schools DEPARTMENT: Asset Management Services ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT: 1) CCAG 2022-23 Project Descriptions, Amy Eckberg, (919) 245-2626 Scoring, and Comments for General Steven Arndt, (919) 245-2658 Applicants and Schools PURPOSE: To: 1) Receive the grant project funding recommendations from the Commission for the Environment (CFE) and the Human Relations Commission (HRC) for the FY 2022-23 Orange County Community Climate Action Grant Program; and 2) Approve funding for the recommended Community Climate Action Grant projects for FY 2022-23 as outlined in the attached report. BACKGROUND: As part of the FY 2019-20 budget, the Board of Orange County Commissioners (BOCC) created the Orange County Climate Action Fund dedicated to accelerating climate change mitigation actions in Orange County. This decision was motivated in part to help the County meet the climate change mitigation goals set by the Board in recent years: • Reduce greenhouse gas emissions community-wide by 26 percent by 2025 (from 2005 levels). • Transition to a 100% renewable energy based economy by 2050. For the 2022-23 funding cycle, $550,150 in funding was budgeted to support climate action projects that will benefit Orange County residents both socially and financially. Following the direction of the Board of Orange County Commissioners (BOCC), the process for soliciting and selecting projects to receive funding was conducted through a formal Community Climate Action Grant (CCAG) program. For this grant cycle, the BOCC reserved half of the total funding for this grant program ($275,075) to be awarded to projects submitted by either of Orange County's two public school districts. The remaining half ($275,075) was to be made available to all other eligible general applicants in this round. The Community Climate Action grant program received seven (7) applications in this round from a variety of general applicants representing non-profit and public organizations whose total requests add up to $585,873. No private sector applications were received. One (1) project, totaling $368,000 was submitted from the Chapel Hill Carrboro City School district.