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23 <br /> 1 b. Community Climate Action Grant (CCAG) — FY 2023-24 Project Selection for General <br /> 2 Applicants and Schools <br /> 3 The Board: <br /> 4 1) received the grant project funding recommendations from the Commission for the <br /> 5 Environment (CFE) and the Human Relations Commission (HRC) for the FY 2023-24 <br /> 6 Orange County Community Climate Action Grant Program; and <br /> 7 2) considered approving funding for the recommended Community Climate Action Grant <br /> 8 projects for FY 2023-24 as outlined in the attached report. <br /> 9 <br /> 10 BACKGROUND: As part of the FY 2019-20 budget, the Board of Orange County Commissioners <br /> 11 (BOCC) created the Orange County Climate Action Fund dedicated to accelerating climate <br /> 12 change mitigation actions in Orange County. This decision was motivated in part to help the <br /> 13 County meet the climate change mitigation goals set by the Board in recent years: <br /> 14 • Reduce greenhouse gas emissions community-wide by 26 percent by 2025 (from 2005 <br /> 15 levels). <br /> 16 • Transition to a 100% renewable energy-based economy by 2050 <br /> 17 • Newly adopted Climate Action Plan (November 2023) <br /> 18 <br /> 19 For the 2023-24 funding cycle, $564,085 in funding was budgeted to support climate action <br /> 20 projects that will benefit Orange County residents both socially and financially. Following the <br /> 21 direction of the Board of Orange County Commissioners (BOCC), the process for soliciting and <br /> 22 selecting projects to receive funding was conducted through a formal Community Climate Action <br /> 23 Grant (CCAG) program. <br /> 24 <br /> 25 For this grant cycle, the BOCC reserved half of the total funding for this grant program <br /> 26 ($282,042.50)to be awarded to projects submitted by either of Orange County's two public school <br /> 27 districts. The remaining half ($282,042.50) was to be made available to all other eligible general <br /> 28 applicants in this round. <br /> 29 <br /> 30 The Community Climate Action grant program received eleven (11)applications in this round from <br /> 31 a variety of general applicants representing non-profit and public organizations whose total <br /> 32 requests added up to $614,540. Two (2) projects totaling $557,959 were submitted from the <br /> 33 Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools and Orange County Schools districts. <br /> 34 <br /> 35 Grant applications were completed over the summer and reviewed and scored by the Commission <br /> 36 for the Environment (CFE) and the Human Relations Commission (HRC). In fall 2023, each of <br /> 37 these Commissions voted to forward their final scoring and comments to the BOCC. <br /> 38 <br /> 39 The following is a rank-order summary table of the combined project scoring and <br /> 40 recommendations. More details on each project are available in Attachment 1: <br /> 41 <br />