Well, good to see you. Found a couple good staff people. Mark, >> will you please rise and join us in the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you for that. All right, we start our meeting with public comments and the public comments are to be about something that is not already on our agenda. We kind of discussed that the AIS I know is of interest in the room today and uh would be a part of the budget process and so that would be after the consent agenda. So thank you for your patience. We are going to hear from the mayor of Wakonia who doesn't have to identify himself. He's Mr. Liten and he's the mayor of Bonia. >> Thank you board chair Workman. Uh commissioners. Good morning, uh, staff, public, uh, thanks for having me here today. [clears throat and cough] Tim Lton, Mayor Volkone has got a few things I want to talk about and and for the most part, it's a gratitude conversation, things we're already working on and we'll continue to work on as we move forward. Uh, Carva County and the city of Okona and I appreciate the partnership and I look forward to more. So, we'll move forward. Uh, one of the campaign promises I made a couple years ago was, uh, the county and the city just need to be like this. And, uh, I'm not sure if it was always that way, but I want to make sure that we are working together as we move forward together. That's the way it should be. And in working with most of you already, I can say that's been very true, and I appreciate that from the county. Um, as we the sign says, that's what we are. We're better together. So, thank you for all of that. So, I'll go over a couple of project success successes that we've had the past couple years. And again, this is a in partnership and in gratitude that I'm speaking. Uh Carver County number 10 and Wakonia Parkway North at new roundabout uh opened up last year right before the Carver County Fair. My goodness gracious is that necessary needed and you most of you have not all of you gone through that a time or two. Uh here's a comment from a parent that lives right near there and uh she's just loving it. It was to the point where nobody wanted to go near that intersection during rush hour times, we'll call school times. It just wasn't a safe intersection. So, thanks to the leadership of the county to make that happen. It's a good thing indeed. Uh, new pavement in medium. This project is already underway right now, car county road 10 on the south side of Wakonia. Uh, that's going to be another wonderful safety project and again a tips tip of the hat to the Carver County Board. um the new sidewalk and trail that'll be on both sides of that. Uh Carver County 10 on the south side of Wakonia. Here's a resident Todd Han. He lives right near there as well. He says, "Tim, thank you and thank the board." He said, "That is going to be nice for our family. It's going to make it easier just living there as well as crossing that road when we need to." So again, nice nice project that we're working on together. Thank you very much. Here a [clears throat] couple of weeks ago, we had a ribbon cutting. Commissioner Feahhee, thanks for joining us that day. This was on the new trail on the west side of Wakonia along County Road 10. That was a partnership between the Carver County, the city of Wakonia, and we had a DNR grant to help fund that. Again, just a wonderful need and busy all the time. As you can see what Jim Steinhagen, who lives right across the street from that, said when I visited with him last week, he said that thing's busy all the time. Just loves that trail being there, as do residents that are biking, walking, jogging, you name it. that trail is useful. So, thank you for, you know, looking ahead with us on what is needed in our area. Appreciate it very much. So, what's next as we continue to work together? Plenty of things, right? Uh the list is endless, but I'll go through a few of them. Lake Makonia Regional Park opportunity. Uh plenty of opportunity there. Uh the mission statement of the uh county parks is the purpose of the parks and recreation department is to provide a variety of quality recreational experiences, services, and lands that meet the needs of the residents of Carver County and Carver County Regional Park users. Uh you know that well I didn't have to read it to you. Um but I wanted to highlight a couple of words in there. Uh variety uh variety and then residents meeting the needs of the residents. So, if you keep those things in mind as I move forward, uh I worked with a group that I helped start last year, Wakonia High School. It's called the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council. Great group of kids. It's fun. We meet regularly. Uh we'll meet again this coming uh Thursday. We met last week. Great group of kids. So, last year to get them started, we did au student survey of all the students in Wakonia High School. 4919 responded. Uh, what would you like added in Wakonia was one of the questions. Uh, dog park came up 138 times out of 419. Sand volleyball courts came up 149 times out of 419. These are from high school students and they're looking at the park as something where they could do more at. Uh, so how cool is that? And dog park is because their parents have them or they want that for their families as well. Um, recreational trail along County Road 10. This is not there yet as you know. Going north from Wakonia Parkway to the new Dakota Rail trail head and thank you for that new Dakota Rail trail head. My goodness. Cars there all the time. So well done commissioners. Thank you. Uh but to have a trail that would connect Wakonia to that is a not only a recreational need, but it's an economic piece as we can get people off of that trail coming into Wakonia from all over the region in the state. 82 high school kids said, "Yeah, that'd be a good thing. and we should have that. So, pretty cool as kids look forward to, you know, improvements in the area of Wonia 92 and five intersection. We talked about this almost a year ago. Uh, and I'm glad that you're on top of that Carver County as you work with Mindot and uh date we don't know it's out there. So, thank you and just [clears throat] say, "Hey, Tim Wonia, what do you think? Where can we go with conversation?" And we'll come running for that one that I'll go backwards to that. I get a call or an email once a week on that. It's of course in Carver County. It's not in the city. We'll call you, but people don't necessarily distinguish. Uh when are you going to fix that? It's like, yep, it's on the list. It's on the list. That's what I tell them. Uh Highway 5 frontage road construction next year. I know [clears throat] you're going to be swimming in uh blacktop and gravel all you are already and you will next year. So, thank you and appreciate your patience as you deal with conversation with your constituents. Um but in terms of Wakonia, uh it's going to be a fantastic new addition in Wakonia as well with what's going to happen in ti inside of Wakonia as not even part of the big arburetum Victoria piece, but what we're going to do out there. And then lastly, uh the Carver County Sheriff's can't really do anything without them. They're fantastic people. We're glad they're there and we glad they're they're serving us. Uh I hear good things constantly from our constituents in Wakonia about good things about these people. So, thank you very much for allowing us to work with them and work with you. Um, and that's really what I've got today. Uh, just a quick little update and gratitude as I started out earlier saying and and we're appreciative for working with you and uh don't be strangers and I won't be strangers for you. So, any comments, questions at all? >> Nope. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Mayor, uh, I was just thinking of a mild, uh, campaign promise I had, which was we would hope to treat the our beautiful cities and townships better than the state treats us. How about that? [laughter] It's not a hard [clears throat] promise [cough] to keep. Um, but I know cities don't get treated well, you don't have as much to do with them, but we sure do, and >> I think that's why there's people in the room today. So, >> well, I wish you luck with that promise. Thank you for your time today and good luck with the rest of the meeting. >> Thank you. Thank you, sir. >> Okay. Anybody else on something that's not >> Marty Walsh, Mr. Chair and members, uh Walsh [clears throat] and for the record, um 683 Woodriidge Drive, Chask, Minnesota. Um I was, you know, here to also listen to Mayor Lipton and about the Gal off leash dog area at Lake Middle Lake Regional Park and just have a few comments that I'd like to share with folks. We've had a conversation with him for I want to say the last couple of years um before the board takes what I'll say is a effort towards looking further into that. Uh, Waconia has undeveloped park acreage which would be suitable for an off leash dog area at both Sudheimer Park and at Interwocken Park. And so I'm a bit concerned and I think you know I I'm very passionate about our park areas and very passionate about um regional parks. They are very significant parks. They are the equivalent of the state parks but in the metropolitan areas as Tom as you know. Um and so they are you know the open space that's inside these regional park areas is every bit as significant as a built facility. The county currently has two regional park off leash dog areas. One at Victoria and one at Chenhassen. and frankly um quite familiar with one in China at Minawasha Regional Park as you probably know um very instrumental in getting that park set up and designing the off leash dog area and it's one of the most successful off leash dog areas that there is several years ago um you know at the request of Tim Lynch I did take a look at you know Waconia Regional Park and trying to find out if that was a suitable place for an officer took a step back from that and really there are just so many conflicts with that and I can get into a lot of details here but so many conflicts with that particular park and trying to add that particular facility it just becomes very difficult and what I'll say is conflicts conflicts with the existing park master plan which has been quite successful um you know I think early on we had you know under 100,000 user visits to that park and now we have over 400,000 user visits to the park so I I will end there. If you have questions with regards to what I'll say is suitability for an office dog area at that particular park. Um, more than happy to give you some additional information. So, with that, I'll take any questions that you might have, but I'll step back. >> Thank you, Marty. Good to see you. [clears throat] Okay. Anybody else on an item not on the agenda? Hearing none, can I get a motion to approve the agenda and by adding [clears throat] >> an amendment 210 to consent agenda >> with that amendment? I would make that motion, sir. >> Okay. >> Second. >> I got a motion by Lynch and a second by Fehee to approve the agenda as amended. >> Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. Those opposed? Motion passes. Can I get a motion to approve the August 18th, 2026 minutes? >> So moved. >> I got I got a motion by Anderson and a second by Fehee to approve the August 18th minutes. Any discussion on that hearing? None. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed. Motion passes. Community announcements. Commissioner Lynch. >> Summer's almost over. the state fairs going on. I just did got an email from Sam and he's in the room uh that the uh Lake Wakonia Regional Park the beach is closed because of a blue green algae outbreak. I don't recall happen that happening. I asked Marty earlier. Um so so the beach at Lake Roni Regional Park is now closed for time being. >> Okay. Thank you for that commissioner. [laughter] >> Mr. Chair, thank you. Couple of announcements. Um, the first ever Minnesota Fallen Heroes football game is going to be held this Thursday, September 3rd, at Central Raiders Stadium in NYA. They'll be playing the Bell Plane Tigers. Uh, this project is a collaboration with the Raiders Touchdown Club and they'll honor local military service members and first responders who made the ultimate sacrifice. The players from each team will play in honor of local fallen heroes. There's going to be food truck, [clears throat] excuse me, food trucks at 4:30, opening ceremonies at 6:30 and the kickoff at 7. So, if you want to venture out west to NYA on a Thursday night, put that on your docket. Uh, also, Mr. Chair wanted to say thank you to the Norwood Young America Fire Department and also the Stiffens Fest committee. The Stiffens Fest wrapped up this weekend and it was just a huge successful event. And then thank you to all the volunteers who continue to make this a great local event. Um my wife Janet and I enjoyed volunteering every day at the festival. It it was just a lot of fun. Also, uh, have you checked out the newest display yet at the Carver County Historical Society Museum? uh visit the museum through the rest of the summer to view the document that made the United States a display for the nation's 250th anniversary looking at the Declaration of Independence. The document that made the United States and the Organic Act of 1849, which created the Minnesota Territories, they're all on display at the museum. Um please go out and view that. And then also school is starting so slow down. Uh you're going to see school buses everywhere. I was behind a couple this morning. So definitely slow down and take your time. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> Commissioner Hutterman. >> Well, good morning. Uh couple comments. One, excited to see from our library folks that expanded access goes into effect in Norwood Young America today. I think it is. It's the second library that that happens. Just the macro picture. I think it was about 3 years ago we envisioned what it would look like to deliver more services to people knowing that we had um headwinds when it came to budget. Um and I I'll mention a book that I I finished recently and it talked about um when there's constraints we have to look to creativity. And so we looked to other counties, we looked to other places and we we thought about what it might look like to have expanded access within our libraries. Some of our libraries were open at 1:00 on a Thursday. Some of them weren't open till 9:00. and there were some staffing challenges and whatnot. And so in Victoria about a year ago, we piloted a program to to expand access there. Essentially, if you have a library card, it can turn into a swipe card that you can get into the libraries. Um by the end of 2027, I think we'll uh there's a plan to roll out um expanded access to all libraries, which would mean an incremental 15,000 annual hours of library time um for our residents. Um the the Victoria Library, at least for the first three years, cost nothing because there was a grant that was associated with that. Um there was a change in formula for Melsa, which is our regional library system. Um they brought back incremental dollars to um Carver County. Um that's the equivalent of what it would might cost to retrofit some of these additional libraries and so pretty proud of that when it comes to expanded access. Again, um I'm looking at Mayor Litin and others that might be listening. Everybody's dealing with constraints in their budget. Mark, you're back there as well. Um and so I think this is a time to be creative and this is a place where staff and and and uh public came together to to deliver a solution. Um, I had the distinct opport opportunity to be at a Savannah Bananas baseball game a couple weeks ago. And if anybody's heard of Savannah Bananas, they know it's it's quite a show. U but behind the show is a business. And the guy that started the business is Jesse Cole. Him and his wife Emily. And they wrote a book called Fans First. And so if anybody's watching or listening and wants a copy, I'm happy to provide my copy or additional copies anybody wants to see it. But essentially in there, it talks about um creativity meets constraints. Nobody thought it was possible. We had a 150 plus year old game called baseball that was getting long four-hour games and people wanted something different and so he pressed in on that and the book is phenomenal. I would recommend it to anybody that wants to learn and grow and and deal within constraints. Um the game was great too. I don't know that I've had four hours uninterrupted with my 11-year-old without being on a device. And so that alone was was great. I'd echo what Commissioner Fehee said about back to school. I have two going back this week. uh a freshly mented middle schooler and um a second grader. Um and not just that, all the activities that parents are juggling, coaches and people that are leading teams and other things. Um uh and then the administration getting ready and prepared for these days. So a shout out to them. Um the Chesa Cubs made it pretty deep into the state tournament run, but um fell a little bit short, so their season has ended, but Town um I think um others have said this, but Town is more notable in the state of Minnesota than anywhere else in the United States. It's very something special we have and we have some really quality teams in Carver County. We also have quality opportunities for families and a new one was added recently. Um most people know about Screamtown on Highway 212. They added a familyfriendly um exhibit called Northstar Pumpkin Town. They have thousands of pumpkins that are out there that are carved. It's a walking area. Um if you don't like the scary side of the scarce town, they made this for familyfriendly. Um I think that opens up the first week of October. So if you get a chance, another opportunity within Carver County. Um, and I didn't realize it, but Screamtown is a destination, a top four destination for that type of stuff across the United States. So, there's a lot of people that actually fly in for this thing. It's not my cup of tea, but if it's yours, we're bringing people from outside. Um, I had a chance to visit in the last three weeks, uh, five Three Rivers parks. Um, I know everybody is looking into >> Yeah. >> Um, I know everybody, um, I know everybody is, um, u spending a little bit of time on three reverse partnership and the potential of that. So to get out in some of these parks um was great. My kids got a chance to ride a couple of the trails and see some of the amenities. And so I'm encouraged um and and I'm also encouraged by some of the feedback to make that partnership even better. Um two weeks ago I had a chance to be with our HHS team in partnership with district uh intermediate school district 288 to see the progress that's being made on our trades 360 program. Uh it was dreamed up three years ago what it might look like to bring 16 kids together to learn 16 different trades over 16 weeks. what's manifested has been um similar to that. Uh we had two leader te team lead uh kids that are part of that. They now have life skills to take back to their own home um to use within their own community and maybe have level of employment. They got school credits for that. And then we also are producing a camper cabin that will soon be placed in um one of the three rivers park districts and generate revenue if people want to come here and camp um within a camper cabin. So encourage what that might look like in the future and what it looks like now. Um the Shakapei Amphitheater. I had a chance to be there a couple weeks ago. Um anybody that's followed me at all knows that I dream of the potential of a smaller venue in Carver County. Um they're about 95% sold out and they're navigating first year challenges, but it's an interesting one to watch. And then finally, congratulations to Thomas Roel. Every year I do a ride along with our sheriff's deputy. He was one I got a chance to ride with um about a year ago, maybe a year and a half. You probably know the exact time, Tim. Um but he was able to save a couple kids that were um that he cut caught out of a burning building. Well, the acknowledgement of um Deputy Roel um this past weekend um uh was was recognized at Target Field as a 2026 DWI Enforcer All-Star by the Minnesota State Department of Public Safety, Office of Traffic Safety. And so I think um he made 70 DWI arrests, earning him a spot among Minnesota's top DWI enforcers. I've been in the car when somebody's been pulled over doing that and I don't think about just [snorts] the person that's in the car and their impact the impact of their lives. I think about all the other people when there's people that are impaired on our roadway. So, congratulations to Thomas and everybody else that's protecting us through the sheriff's office. Thank you, >> Commissioner Anderson. >> I do also want to um congratulate the Chesa Cubs for getting um to the state tournament and watched those state tournament games. They were both kind of nailbiters, but um may maybe next year they'll get there. I also want to congratulate I see Mark uh Vanovven here. I also want to congratulate the city of Chanhassen. They had their groundbreaking yesterday on their new rec center which promises to be really fabulous and really needed. And um I was telling uh Mayor Elise Ryan two years ago when I was running for this office. I think I had more conversations about that than I had about Carver County Commission, which is fine and great. So it was great to see that groundbreaking and and it'll be exciting to see that project um as it develops. I also want to um with the passing of Dolly Parton, I also want to acknowledge that I'm a proud member of the Chanhassen Rotary, which has um a program with the Imagination Library, which Dolly Parton is Dolly Parton's program, and it's to fight literacy and to get books in the hands of kids. And um my teen years on the school board has taught me that the number one combatant to illiteracy to is is getting books in the hands of kids and having access to those books. And that's why our libraries and our libraries being um in all of our communities is so very important. Um what people don't realize if if a child cannot read by the time they get to third grade they're um the probability of them not graduating high school or ending up in jail increases to 80%. So um really proud to be a member of the Chanhassen Rotary and and this and also of all the work and all the reading hours and um story times that are in our libraries. It's super important. I also want to acknowledge Kate is back there. I also want to acknowledge the programming that is happening at the family resource center. I do not have time to go through all of it, but we um open Mondays from 9 to 1, Tuesdays from 10:00 to 2, and Thursdays from 12:30 to 4:30. And the amount of programming is um housing assistance, resource navigation support, career force assistance, so important. um parent support outreach programs, healthc care assistance, it's all the things that will help train families to um be be better better parents. So excited um about that. And finally, I want to thank Cher Workman um for accompanying me a couple weeks ago. Um, we had a group in from from Brandenale and they have had some some struggles and um, Chair Workman and I were able to go to Brandenale, tour that, see some of the issues there have and um, I know you had uh, a phone call um, that you made a phone call and um, I got a report last week uh, that they're seeing some incremental improvements from the ownership and so I just really appreciate It's those relationships you have that are so very important to our community and and and for all members for for all the entire community of Carver County. So, thank you for for accompanying me on that and for your hard work on this board. That's all. >> All right. Well, thank you. Um I've been around long enough. Uh and I want to remind everybody I was the first paper boy in Brandonale. [laughter] um me and my dog Daisy. Um, but I did I got a call and it it's uh it goes with the experience of the people uh all the people that I've met along the way certainly through the legislature and everybody else but believe it or not the owners of Brandenale Land uh have a lobbyist of which I do a little bit of that and of course I would have known their lobbyist for a long time and so a great connection and uh a quicker faster easier way to try and get things done outside of the state of Minnesota uh and whatever they're up to with this >> and it's paying off. So, thank you. >> You bet. Um >> I hate to date you, but what newspaper did you deliver? Made up the Star. [laughter] >> Definitely was the afternoon. Yes, the star. >> Cuz before there was >> both. I did the morning and the afternoon. >> Okay. >> And thank God for my dad. Otherwise, I couldn't have delivered all those Sundays on those cold days without his station wagon. Anyway, this is all for another day. Um, it is a school and, uh, uh, uh, be nice to a bus driver. Um, almost all bus drivers are nice people. It's like police officers and deputies. They're almost all wonderful people. Every once in a while there's a bad one, but uh, we've never found those uh, people. So, be nice to those guys and and ladies. I do enjoy that it's as long as it's summer is going to end uh well it might as well be football season and so I do enjoy that and everything from high school to college to the pros and big gopher fans they are uh taking on the the Panthers of e Eastern Illinois uh on Thursday night uh should be a beautiful night and a fun time and so let's get that talk about a short season seems like that goes really I keep track of at least five high school teams and more and more. One of them is Wakonia. I don't know where they are, but they come over here to Chan and Chaza now regularly. So, that's fun to see the inner county rivalries happening. We used to have those when I was growing up. Chaza's out of town this week. Chanhassen's out of town. Minnotonka's out of town. Holy Family and Eden Prairie are in town. Check local listings because some are playing Thursday night, some are playing Friday night due to the uh Labor Day weekend. Where's Wakone? Do we know where Wakonia is playing this week? That was a gotcha moment. [laughter] Um but anyway, always fun. That goes fast. So that's about all I got. Let's get on with the rest of the meeting. Can I get a motion for the consent agenda? >> So moved, Mr. Chair. Okay, I got a motion by Fee and a second by Lynch for the consent agenda as amended. Right. >> Yes, sir. >> Uh, any discussion? >> Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed. >> Motion passes. All right. Our regular session item 3.1, county administrators recommended preliminary 2027 budget and levy. And I will tell those uh keeping track at home and in the room this is a preliminary budget uh that we have been working on since about May. So uh the final budget is to be voted on December 15th. I think I might have texted somebody and said December 1st. He's right behind um Mr. Henzy. Um but it's December [clears throat] 15th. Two more weeks, Stephen. Okay. >> Thank you. Good introduction. Mr. Chair, good morning board members. Dave Hemsy, the county administrator. Hope you're not disappointed. I'm not going to go through this full presentation again. >> Phew. >> Yeah, it's it's long. It's lengthy. Just like as the the chair alluded to, the process is intentionally and by statute lengthy, but I'm asking you set the ceiling the levy uh today and then we'll continue to talk about it up to December 15th when I'll ask for the final adoption by the board. Uh I I do want to give you a couple updates and highlight a couple of areas. Uh I would note that if if folks haven't been keeping up, it is difficult to keep up uh to the volume of information if nothing else. Uh folks can go back to last week's meeting that's taped uh in today's packet. There's information of course. Uh the detail is a bit uh a bit difficult to decipher which is why we explain it in the boardroom. Uh the the presentation is posted online. Uh we'll talk about various pieces of that today. So there's all sorts of ways to to catch up, but I completely understand that it's difficult if you're sort of the casual observer to to fully understand it. So all sorts of opportunities however including calling call my office call I'll be happy to talk about it Mr. Chair. So with that introduction again I'm not going to go through what we did last week uh we did the the high level summary and then talked about tax base etc all the way through the long-term financial plan which uh that document is also critical as part of our fiscal strategy. We'll be asking you to do adopt that plan in December also. That's a real integral integral piece of the puzzle as we look at uh our our fiscal rating all the way from the AAA rating all the way down to the minutiae of everyday board meetings when you're making decisions. Very critical document that we'll be bringing forward and of course the budget calendar. I can remind you of that uh at the end. So the couple items this this again I'm not going to go through this in detail. I do want to focus on on this issue of state and federal cost shifts getting a lot of press which is really good to see. I forwarded you speaking of the paper although you didn't deliver it Mr. share the the online version said uh others are with us in this in this troubling problem especially counties of the the state and federal cost shifts state in particular but but the feds seem to be a amping up the problem also >> uh that's a real critical component and I do it's these four items that I have at a high level uh one [snorts] of the most critical components of the budgetary pressure that we're looking at if I forwarded to a little more detail on that if I could per second. Uh look at looking at the the legislative impacts in 27 and 28. And let's not forget about 26 where you had a 2% levy sir charge built in the budget. And also I would note well before that you know what we're what we're talking about here are new items, new things, new pressures, new money that's necessary to cover these mandates where we we don't have a choice of what what we're doing. We have some control over how we're doing it but but we have to do it. And again to as a reminder looking back having been in the business for three decades plus ever since I started this has been a a concern. So on on and on the story goes with little resolve and it's actually exponentially got gotten worse unfortunately over the past three years back to the 26 legislative session. So to look at uh this particular chart, you've seen it many times. Most of the concern is of course in the health and human services area. Uh I would point out that all all the items here again are are those u called mandates. We're we're required to do them with one exception and that's at the bottom. Uh not sure if I have a pointer here. Uh you can see the 70,000 at the bottom eliminating AIS inspections. That that particular one we do have a choice. And as a reminder uh that was cut by cut in half. So there was $140,000 allocation cut down to 70,000 by the uh 26th legislature. uh that is the only item on this whole list where where we can say well maybe maybe we're going to get out of that business and certainly it's these are all difficult decisions we're dealing with but it it is one of the reasons why I'm putting it forward today it's really a diff all these are difficult right the these choices uh that is one of the key reasons is that all of the other items which I would much rather quite frankly continue on with AIS inspections than doing some of these items where the state is telling us, you know, now you have to do these new things and we quite frankly feel they're counterproductive >> to to our mission. >> So, that is really concerning and something that will keep beating the wardrum uh as we move into this next session and and it's getting louder as as you've noticed with your colleagues at especially [clears throat] again at the county level. It's sort of like how much can we handle here? How much can we take? And now to pile on not only the things that we don't think are productive but but this benefit shift uh the the cost of the benefit itself that is extremely concerning. That's it's a fundamental seismic potentially shift in the in the the way we do budgeting. So all all those things are ominous signs and it it does point to then these difficult choices and and many of these choices are uh politically popular etc. as compared to uh many of these that are on the board. I would give you an update on the uh state net allocation allocation reductions at $200,000. We talked about that last week. Uh actually, how about some good news? I'm sure you'd welcome that. Uh there was one piece of that that came in uh and it was a a positive amount. We were worried about getting a cut there. So be in that 200. So there's two allocations that were hanging out there that that we haven't received from the state. Another sign of of concerning sort of dysfunction at the state level. We've never waited this long to receive all of our allocations. So So there's there were two uh two out there that were in 2026 amounted to $1.7 million. Uh we did get one back and that one in 26 was a $510,000 number. Uh and in 27 looks like it's coming in at 548. So a positive 38,000. So great news. But hold on. Uh there's still that remaining allocation. That in 26 was 858,000. So we're not sure uh unless Heather checked your email. >> Not yet. >> Okay. It's not here yet. Uh so we're still waiting on that. So still bu so bottom line built into this recommendation is that $200,000 plug number. We think that's probably not going to be as much as we need. However, uh behind the math here, remember we're taking part of this levy searchcharge that that initial levy search charge which is at 3% and 1%. And we're moving that the literal bottom line here. We're moving that 3%. We're we only have 1.5 in 27 and then we're moving 2.5 to 28. It's the same total amount uh but a shift to 28 with the hopes that there's more good news that as we as we aggressively go back to the legislature and ask for relief as these numbers get finalized as some of these strange formulas hopefully we can uh resolve to have them make sense so they're not not the opposite of what we're all trying to accomplish together. All those sorts of things are built into that number. So if that plug number was in other words was was much lower I I still wouldn't have a it wouldn't be a budget solution for 27. It would it would minimize the impact on 28 really is what it would do. So, uh, Dave, let me hope you follow that one because on that allocation thing and I and maybe the board can help me, but I want to make make it kind of clear that >> the state and federal government has all sorts of great ideas and they pass laws and hopefully that law they they need somebody to uh perform the law they pass. And that's usually always the county. So they usually send then money for the county to [snorts] perform that function. This is where we're having some trouble because they don't want to send the money. They want to keep the program, but they don't maybe have the money, don't want to send the money or whatever. But for a lot of our standing uh programs uh they do send the money, they allocate the money to us. So like I said, we've been in this budget process since May and I think usually around the time the legislaturator is getting out in May and June, we get the information about what that money is for each individual program. We were waiting and waiting. We're in the budget process and the state isn't telling us. So, by rule, they get to decide how much money they send us for a program. Maybe it's more, maybe it's less, but we can't budget completely without those numbers. Very frustrating. And as Heather says in the back, we still haven't received all the numbers. The other part of that that I was getting on to was for example food stamps, the SNAP program. Okay, we distribute food stamps, so to speak. That's what our county staff does. We hire the staff to do that, but we don't pay for the food stamps. Well, that's changing. Now we're supposed to pay for the food stamps. So, as you're looking at your property tax statement, that is exactly where all of that stuff, the difference would come out. Is that clear? Um, I just want to make that clear because here we that like I told the mayor earlier, you know, we hope to treat our cities and townships as much better than the state and feds are. We don't know what they're doing. Uh again in 23 the legislature passed a lot of great ideas. They had $18 billion extra. Remember that? And then they ran out like we all knew. And then they still wanted to keep those programs. And so there's the pressure. They're expecting the counties, not just us, all the counties to pay for the ideas that they didn't want to get rid of. I'm done, sir. Okay. >> Yeah. Well said, Mr. Chair. And it it's big money. Uh you look at the bottom lines. I I found my pointer. I think there it is. I think I point here. Look at the bottom lines. So a million, two million, a couple million last year. Uh big big money on top. These are all new, right? On top of all those other things. Uh you know, as you're talking, I'm thinking about this this relationship which is heading in the wrong direction. And I, you know, one of the landmark issues we've dealt with, of course, the board did, was the shift in responsibility to take care of roads. A little bit more easy to grasp on than child protection and some of these these complex issues that not everybody sees every day, but the state of Minnesota had zero dollars going into their roads in terms of improvements. And I know Lyndon's in the room. Other division directors can back me up on all this stuff, but [snorts] zero dollars. And so the board said, "Well, we'll we're going to take it on and implemented a sales tax, right, which arguably is the most regressive tax there is, unfortunately." Another another again seismic sort of shift in in how things are funded, right? This is similar, but much different. Uh much different. These benefits are literal budget busters and I'm sure you're hearing from your colleagues the concern that that is out there. I think we can uh change the trajectory of it if nothing else hold I'm positive hope hopefully we can hold it back but uh 28 is at this point even with it holding back as big a problem or perhaps bigger you can see the numbers than 27 and that that's assuming we can hold back these benefit cost shifts to some degree at least so back to the summary Mr. share again I'm not going to go through everything here but to touch on the the key points uh the pressures of course uh we're c in the service industry so personnel by far is the the most challenging pressure that's always been the case you know certainly there's some different dynamics going on with inflation that has stabilized a little bit in the 3% range but it's also been built up there there hasn't been a relief as we've saw the double digit inflation not too long ago [cough] so it went up. Usually what goes up must come down. It hasn't come down yet, right? So, we're dealing with all those things that relates to the other items, you know, in our daily business. Taking care of our capital needs, uh, like the the government center, the $80 million project is a is a big pressure on our ongoing need, uh, to come up with the principal and uh, interest payment for that particular project. And just to briefly touch on uh the strategy issues, real proud of the work that division directors have done along with others uh Mary Kay and finance and others. Uh this is hard work and uh more so I think than ever quite frankly because it really does there's some commentary about being creative and you know leveraging the opportunities. There's a lot of that in within the the mixture here. Part of that's part of the reason that's so complex. Looks like we have some issues going on out there. [laughter] Yeah. Uh speaking speaking of taking care of business, there we're taking care of business. [laughter] So we have we have these issues, you know, that are really extremely complex that don't always come in front of you like obvious, you know, which is why I need help. And again, they're they're definitely not easy at this point. Over the years, multiple years, we've we're taking t taking the easier ones, taking the easier ones. Uh and now they're getting harder and harder. And back to the spring comment, uh we once again resurrected that the first item there, the service level issue. We resurrected once again the the discretionary services list. So, back to that issue of what do we have to do, what don't we? uh and that document is available for folks that want to take a look at it. But if you look at that document, counties are much different than cities in terms of the percentage of things that we absolutely are statutoily required to do. Uh the bottom line on that spreadsheet that that we worked hard to figure out everything as best as we could, including things that were maybe a little higher service level than than we were required to provide. The bottom line was about $13 million that that the group came up with uh in in discretionary items, which you say, well, go to that for the budgetary solutions. Of course, that's where we have to go. But if you look at that list, you know, among among the list, there's many items that are part of this package today. Uh but there's also items that you would think shouldn't be on the list when you first at first blush. For example, mental health. There's a pretty significant dollar amount set aside in that 13 million for mental health needs. Not necessarily required to do but pretty darn important, right? So there they while it may be discretionary on one hand, uh they seem like more of a core service that that we should keep doing, right? So you don't see that particular cut in the mixture. You do see a a lot of different ways of getting at that issue, a lot of different ways of doing business. That's why some of these issues like AIS or like outsourcing all all those kinds of thing kinds of things the fair board you know all those things are suddenly coming to the surface in this even you know extreme difficult budget budgetary time so I want I want to touch on that and remind folks I think if you did the math on that by the way that's about 15% of what we do in our levy so pretty small dollar amount I would say there there are uh some overhead issues in there guess maybe 5% add to that. So it's about 20 20%. So $2 out of 10. So about a fifth of our budget is truly you could take it and say well okay we're going to we're going to reduce that particular service piece. Again I'm not going to go through all these items uh that we went through last week but but reflective certainly of a lot of good work. uh one I would point out again brought this morning the parks issue very popular service highly discretionary so we've taken a hard look at uh working with a partner Three Rivers Parks hopefully if nothing else we can uh work on doing it in a different way more efficient way uh reduce costs relative to doing it the same way we're doing today uh Mr. Chair, I will jump then to the to the tax impact unless I just missed it. I think I must have missed it. Back up. Only an accountant could love some of this stuff, Mr. Chair. So, hold with me. >> Who wouldn't love this kind of stuff? >> Oh, it was before that chart. That's why I missed it. Here it is. Okay. So, again, today we're looking at the preliminary levy. uh as we look at the pressure that would put on our median value home and and as a note again we we used to use a average home we we move that to median it's a better benchmark with our colleagues who use that number so it did go down I think the average is over 500 now but the median is 447 so that 8.5% that includes a 7% base the highlighted line plus that that search charge there it is again keeps popping up All right. The search charge, which quite frankly isn't covering everything. Remember that part of that half percent of that is moving into 2028 with with a plan to uh cover those dollars in a two-year period. You can see that that uh bottom line, the monthly impact on that home is about $10 a month was an annual impact of 8%. And you can see at the bottom that the history behind the uh last couple of years. So that's a a pretty critical chart to note. Of course, that's the real true bottom line. And to clarify for the the casual followers here, this is county tax, right? So you still have city uh school district, etc. So your bottom line, county tax. As I was talking about this chart, Mr. Sure. One thing I neglected to point out as we look at strategies and how we're uh how we're making these decisions, that fiscal sustainability item, the third item down, one I wanted to point out uh as as we look at making sure we're not using one-time money for ongoing needs. We're very lerary of that. We've seen the stories where where others uh NOA was a few years ago now Dakota uh you see how they're struggling now with those doubledigit proposals. Why is that? There's a lot of reasons but one key one is that fiscal sustainability issue. They they literally emptied their cash balance. So, uh, with and applied much of that to ongoing expenditures. That is problematic. That's not part of this budget. Uh, we're really cautious against that. You know, and where we do it, we have a strategy and and we talk about it. So, that strategy to take that cost shift and move some of it into 28. Arguably, you're not covering it in 27, but we have a plan, right? We're looking at a one-year issue covering that and hopefully driving that down and and mitigating it if not eliminating [clears throat] it. So, a real real key piece to keep your eye on because it's really easy to go into uh our we call it our year end savings accounts or what's what's left at the end. Real easy to go in there and throw it at some of these problems, right? But very dangerous and that's not part of this particular solution. Okay. So, you've seen or heard heard the high level again, seen the the budget summary, seen the tax impact. I think those were the the key areas I wanted to touch on this morning. I know sounds like looks like some folks want to provide some input, Mr. Chair, but before I would do that, have you open it up for that, I would look to the board for questions. >> Uh, thank you. And, uh, I do want to to follow up on my point. go on the last page, page 58 of our agenda, which is uh our levy, preliminary levy today, we would be asked to approve a budget of almost $200 million, but the levy, which is your property taxes, is only about 88 million. So there in lies the Fed and the state have plans and ideas and they send the money. So if you subtract 88 million which is our our combined property taxes and the one that we really watch, there's another 112 million that comes in here. A lot of it is road projects, but it's HHS. It's anything and about anything that you can imagine. So, thank you for the 112 million that comes out of a different pocket of your taxes, but the 88 is what we're concerned about here today and we will finalize in December. But that 112 and what comes from the state and the feds always affects our levy numbers. So, that's what we're here to discuss. I hope I'm not getting too redundant. All right. Any any comments from the board? >> Mr. Chair, if I may, uh, we have gotten a lot of emails from people about the AIS stuff and Dave, I went back and looked at it and you probably educated us for us, but I think what we're talking about specifically is the local aquatic invasive species prevention aid, AIS, AISPA, and I just found this. Minnesota provided $10 million annually the program and starting in 2027 that dropped to 5 million. So, I think the team has done a really good job. your team, HHS, law enforcement, everybody's going to doing a good job of isolating what is the dollar amount that shifts from state or federal. I think it's 90% 95% states, but I like to throw federal in there, too, because there is some federal shift, but most of it state. How much of that's being shifted? So, I think we've got a really good handle in the last couple years on how much is actually being shifted to us. Um and I think that what I'm hearing among my my peers across the state is if we don't draw a line in the sand and and say no um then they'll the state will continue to shift it to the counties and the county has a little bit more flex because there's 87 counties and so if you pluck out the four or five counties that are highly populist they hold they hold politics in the state of Minnesota largely population centers in Minneapolis and St. Paul and Rochester and Duth etc. And so this is one of those areas where the counties can band together five to seven commissioners per county times 87 counties and say stop right if you if we're so good at doing this give us the money to do so. This is one of the areas we can isolate specifically to say legit it went from 10 million to to 5 million based on a state decision. I don't think the state doesn't like AIS or our lakes or water. um and I don't think they don't like uh mental health, but in both case scenarios, the state has made the decision fiscally to reduce those reimbursements because they have to make their budget. So, not only they're shifting, but they're taking back services and then they're the local constituency comes out and says, "What are you doing?" And I want to put it in context to say maybe a lot of those conversations should be had in unison with our state lawmakers. And I'm not a, you know, blame them for it. I'm like, "Let's come to the table and come up with some creative options." And so I want to hear from the from the people that are coming forward that that didn't email in or they did email in, but to say maybe we could put our heads together and get creative because we have a lot of people that are very passionate when they live on the lakes or really close to the lakes. It's a small minority of the people, but a lot the the lakes and trails collectively are what attract people to us in the community that we have. And so I don't want this to be a, you know, you have to add it back in and or no, we're going to take it out. No, we have to make our budget. I want it to be like, is there a level of creativity? One of the elements that I saw when I did some research in the last week because candidly I don't know a whole lot about AIS is there is AI functionality that can get us to a place where technology may be the answer to scan boats when they're coming in and out. That might be an answer to some of the challenges. This may be an opportunity where people are shifting to us. Maybe we shift to the local folks and help embed them so that they can we can provide some training for them so that they can do more inspections themselves. So I I want to use this as an opportunity to say where is our level of creativity when we have constraints and I think there's good ideas to be had. But going back to that 10 million bucks from the state is now 5 million and that's where the the reduction that Dave's suggesting is coming from. So thank you. Well, and I I think that this program has been not uh wellrun from the beginning and we we can get into the blame game, but it's about priorities. And if the lakes aren't a priority of the DNR and the state of Minnesota and the legislature, then this is probably pretty good proof. But the lakeshore associations have had to pony up a lot of money to take care of it themselves. This is from the beginning which I found to be what the you know they they live there but I can go there. I don't live on a lake but I can go there use it fish water ski do whatever and pay nothing but but the homeowners have stepped up. I know Minawashta has and Lotus and um uh so I I haven't been happy about this program from the beginning and and uh here we are with the slow drain from from the state which isn't helping. So I too want to hear um I I don't know that this board doesn't like um uh clean lakes. uh somebody was critical because we didn't have housing in our legislative uh our legislative program and um you know we don't have clean water in our legislative program either. Does that mean we're against clean water? No. And we're for great housing. Uh you can't get everything into your legislative program. But um so as you come forward uh may maybe somebody up here likes dirty lakes or bad lakes or stony wart or whatever. But our problem is with the budget and it isn't just the AIS budget as Mr. Hemsy laid out pretty well. It's the millions of other and so so the soft fleshy part of our budget that we can have the $112 million part of our budget. We don't have any say about the 88. We do. And so, as I used to say about the school districts, you know, pass this really high levy referendum or we're going to cancel the high school football team and the fifth grade band. >> By the way, we never were trying to cancel the football team >> and I was speaking very generally about another school district somewhere else, >> but but that's how it all and so so the AIS is is the football team. I think Dave, you've heard that from me for for many many years. Well, we're gonna have to cancel the football team unless everybody ponies up and you know, it's only going to cost a couple of pizzas a month more for us to anyway. So, uh so but anyway, u if there's anything else the board wants to talk about this um or Dave's budget, let's uh let's have people come up. And >> Mr. Chair, can I first clarify uh on AIS? I know there's some folks in the room that want to talk about it again, but uh the the budget uh the way the math works, so the the state of Minnesota, I'm rounding up, allocated $140,000 that was cut in half. So there's 70,000 out of out of the legislature last session. The cut is a is a little larger than that because what we're proposing is cutting the inspections side of AIS. We will still continue to do monitoring and education. Okay. So that that needs to be clear. But certainly understandably eliminating the AS inspections program is a a big blow to to the attempts at uh controlling aquatic invasive species. And it's not just zebra muscles. It's all the other things. But certainly education is a real big component that we'll continue to focus on. Uh by its nature, water's complicated. There's so many jurisdictions involved uh you know so many different approaches to get at these issues. As a reminder uh we this board is literally the WO board the water management organization by statute. You decided this board not this one but previous boards a long time ago said we want to take direct control of this chunk of our county by becoming the actual water management board. That's about uh four-fifths of the county I I speculate. So it's you subtract out the eastern side where there's lake miniha watershed district raleigh purgatory maybe lower men's in there probably looking to Nick and Paul's in the room too kind of get getting a well beyond my the detail I usually jump into but it's important to note again that that be you know part of the complexity is exists there. We're trying to manage it as best we can, trying to salvage what we think should be salvaged. But the fundamental issue to me is the state is sherking their responsibility. I think from the very beginning, the DNR should be should have been managing this. You look across the state of Minnesota and you know what I am an avid outdoorsman. I go a lot of places to fish. So if you look across the state of Minnesota, it's really scattered, right? You go to Crowing County, some of those lakes, absolutely they're going to have inspectors elsewhere, not so much, right? Non-existent. Why is that? Because the state shook their responsibility. Left it up to the counties, which then be it became a peacemail puzzle, right? On top of all the challenges of even if you have an inspector, how are you how are you going to avoid some of the concerns? So all of that it's it's a a good microcosm of of the broader issue that we're dealing with which is that state responsibility and quite frankly I had to do some soularching to even put it on the list. is really difficult to put that on the list, but I think you got to go back to the fundamentals uh you know sort of our core businesses and how do you how do you sort these things out? >> Um Commissioner Warp may ask >> uh Dave, can you clarify the difference between monitoring and inspections? So, I mean you we're keeping the education and monitoring piece of that and not the inspection, but can you clarify what that looks like? What does monitoring continue to look like? Continue. >> Mr. Chair, Commissioner Anderson, I can do that. Paul and Nick are in the audience. They can provide [clears throat] more detail, but I think most of us know what the inspections is, right? We have actual physical folks lo employees. There are employees uh located at the landings as boats come in coming out uh advising individuals in some case cases checking and catching uh where there may be aquatic species on their boats. Uh monitoring is a is much different where we have staff out in the field looking uh looking to monitor water quality over a period of years perhaps if there's an outbreak uh uh a potential outbreak of a species looking for those species doing sampling >> th those kind of things. >> So there is some preventative in there but there's also reactive uh related to that. Uh if I could also clarify, I forgot to mention this a very important piece back to the jurisdictional issues. Chan, the city of Chanhassen uh not in the watershed Carver County watershed district does does apply funding or they have in 26 applied funding. So to take care of Lotus, Susan and an so that funding is to be determined. What we do for them is manage the inspectors. But back to that issue of finding the staff, uh, supervising them, uh, we add roughly a $1.76 to the salary to cover our overhead. So, it's probably a little under 10% of of their cost. But, but now, you know, their our problem has become their problem. I'm I'm hopeful they can find, you know, either either figure [clears throat] it out on their own or find a partner uh to to help them out. So, again, it kind of goes back to this fundamental problem. the state said, "Well, here's here's a little bit to take care of, but not enough." >> Right. >> Which then results in this sort of peace mill approach, which isn't really good for education, quite honestly. >> No, >> it is it is so chopped up and and uh it's unequal playing field, which is doesn't help simplify the issue. >> Thank you for that clarification. >> Yes. >> Okay. Hearing nobody else who'd like to speak. Come on up. [clears throat] Please identify yourself and where you live. >> All right. Uh my name is Becky Russell and I live in Do you want the address and everything? >> Nope. This town. >> Belain, Minnesota. Um so good morning everyone. Um thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk today. Um, like I said, my name is Becky and I am the lead watercraft inspector for Carver County. I have been with Carver County for eight years and lead uh of the watercraft inspection program for the past five. Uh, when I was listening to the meeting last week, I heard one of you mention that the DNR should be doing this job and I would like to touch base on that with some data. Um, so both DNR and Carver County has watercraft inspectors that work on Wakonia and Mininoasha. So the DNR so far in 2026 has done 600 uh inspections on boats in between Minowasha and Wakonia. That sounds like a lot, right? 600, you know, uh Carver County has done 6,500 between those two landings. um at the same two lakes. Um almost equal in the days that we inspect there. Um and we are the only decon unit listed on the DNR's website um south of Minneapolis. We get people from all over the state um past mano. We've had people from Hutchinson come to our decon unit on Wakonia to be decontaminated. I'd also like to point out that DNR level one inspectors are interns. They typically only work one summer and that's not enough to time to build a relationship with the public. We have one inspector that everyone knows and loves on Inasha and Roberto has been with the inspector program for about 14 years and we have many returners that come back every year. So, we're the face that they expect to see when they're visiting our lakes. Um, I believe the lack of staffing was another concern mentioned. Well, even with the hindrance of the 67-day rule, we outperform Mer County, Scott County, Dakota County, Sherburn County, Ramsey County, LGUs by thousands of inspections each year. We also inspect more boats than three rivers parks per the 2025 data. Um, and we should see around the same for 2026. Um, but we're actually on track to even beat those goals or like [clears throat] their inspections and their decontaminations. Um, I'd also like to say that we're not just Watercraft inspectors. We are people who have greeted over 16,000 residents and visitors to Carver County Lakes in 2025 and well over 11,466 so far in 2026. Um we are the people who make sure voters have a positive interaction with Carver County staff and um sorry I'm not used to like talking to board people. I'm talking like can you guys like get your bass boats on? >> You're doing great. [laughter] Um um also on >> I get my vote, Mr. Chair. [laughter] >> Um on the education aspect, I'm glad that you mentioned that um the Raconia Regional Park closer boat launch or their um the beach for cyanobacteria blue green algae. Starting last year, we um teamed up with the education uh Maline um on handing out blue green algae cards to Boers to people bringing their dogs to the boat ramps to swim. Um, and it's I can't tell you how many people are so thankful that they have that resource at the boat launch for them. Um, to give out the educational material and to be educated by all our staff knows how to identify it. Um, just by or see when the lake is starting to turn. Um, and people will come up to us and ask us if it's safe or not or if we've seen anything, you know, looking suspicious in the water. And we're able to give them educational educational material um so they can make an informed decision if they want to go into the water or not when the sinobacteria algae is starting to bloom. Um, we are also a credible source for voters to ask about the AIS um in the lakes and how to prevent the spread and many other things. Every year I give all our inspectors a clipboard with every single piece of educ educational material that anyone could possibly ever want. Uh weighs about 5 pounds. Um and they're able to hand that out uh and also educate the public um on you know if it's zebra muscle star stone wart um how to you know properly inspect their watercraft and where the we have a card where they can scan the QR code to find any decon in the entire state that's free to use. Um, so we are we're big on the education um at boat launches and bear with me because this might be you know a little bit on uh a little emotional for me on this part. Um we are more than just the watercraft inspectors. Um we are people who sit and visit with a veteran on his way home from visiting his wife in the nursing home. We are the people who cheer up a little boy who didn't catch a fish with stickers and stories of days that we didn't catch any fish ourselves. We are the people who take the extra time to educate the high school fishing teams across the state on how to keep their bones clean and prevent the spread. Um, we're the people that when someone is out the boat access and they have a medical emergency, we're able to call 911 to get them help. Cara is here. She she is responsible for helping someone save their partner's life on Lotus this year. Um, we are an extra set of we are an extra set of eyes on the launch. Um, one day a few summers ago, I was working at Lake Pearson's. I was watching a father load his boat onto his trailer, waiting to inspect when he pulled out while his little girl played on the dock. He didn't hear or see her fall in. But I did. I screamed for help and started to run toward her, grabbing his attention, and he was able to save her. >> Becky, if I can, I'd like to say you're doing great. And I really appreciate those stickers when I get off the lake. >> Thank you. [snorts] >> Thank you. Those stickers are like my Thank [laughter] you. >> Um, she sank straight down and besides a little splash didn't make a sound. I think of her father and her every time I work on Pearsons and what would have happened if I wasn't there to be that extra set of eyes. In conclusion, I would like to say that we're not just watercraft inspectors. We are the faces of Carver County and we we do a really good job at it. And I would if you have any more questions for me, if you want to see the data, if you want me to spear the numbers on how we we do such an amazing job in inspections, um we are we can't be touched like for the local government agencies. Um we're you should be really proud of every single inspector out there. Um do you guys have any questions for me? No questions. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Good job, Becky. >> Thank you. And if any of you guys want to go out with me and work a day on Raconia, I I'd love to have you. You can bring a folding chair and you can see what we're all about. >> All right. Thank you. Mr. Gunther, please identify yourself. We do have a fiveminut limit. >> Yeah. Is there a clock here or >> It should be on the screen. I'm not sure if Colin is uh >> Good morning. My name is Steve Gunther. I live in Chanhassen on Lake Minawashta and uh first of all I want to thank you all for your service as a county commissioner. I've served on a lot of boards and it's a lot of work and there's very little thanks and recognition that comes out of it. I want to personally thank Tim and Tom again. Uh I was I I'm the president of the Lake Mawasha Preservation Association. I've been on the lake since 1998 and I think probably 2010 or 12 or somewhere around there. I came to the board at that point to ask for help in financing our incoming watercraft inspection which had previously been funded by the by the association. Uh but Eric Evston, if you remember him from the watershed district and uh kind of came in and helped justify why we needed these inspections. He pledged half the money and Tim and Tom and the others at that time said, "We'll give you the other half." And it was, you know, a lot of good camaraderie. We felt great about that. Uh I've sent an email yesterday which I know you guys have all received or I believe you have and uh you just kind of pleading for the restoration or the maintain retaining the funding for AIS inspections. uh about one out of every 40 boats that comes into the the launches are uh found to have uh aquatic invasive species of some sort. So this is not a minor problem that we're trying to prevent. This is something that has uh you know has a really a fairly high level of incidence where boers are not properly preparing their boats before they come to the launch. Uh the effect of that in Minawashta was we had zebra muscles which were introduced to the lake in 2016. From my point of view they would we because of these inspections they were delayed several years for mentoring. So the inspections delayed the the in infestation of that lake as a result which is a big deal. Zebra muscles are are extremely harmful to the lake in terms of effect on the boats. they get on the boats and create all sorts of problems on beaches and things. So, we're dealing with that in Minowash that many boat many homeowners are paying to have uh their uh docks and lifts and boats, you know, scraped and scrubbed at the end of the season. So, preventing the spread of AIS is in my mind very important. The cost of prevention is much less than the cost of treatment and you know repairing the damage if it can be done. The LMPA, the lake association, spends 10 or 15,000 bucks to uh to do weed treatment on the lake because of invasives that start to clog up the waterways. And that's important not just for us, but for any user in the lake. So, you know, we put our money where our mouth is in a sense. Uh, you know, I pay about $4,000 a year to the county and I'm happy to to pay that and but I just like to see something in return and this is something that I'd like to see is the retention of the inspections. I want to just take a brief aside on this and make a a comment on a recent experience I've had. First of all, Matt, I love your idea about employing AI and other tools and techniques on Minowashta. And we actually stole this from Lotus, but we built a big sign that was installed at the lake that kind of describes to the incoming Boers. This is at the Carver Regional Park. U you know what you have to do and how to behave on the lake and so on and so forth. So that's contribution we've made. A year or so ago, we in installed a u a um triggered uh auto an in education system, if you will. So, a boater pulls up, a sensor goes off, and a a canned speech is given to the boater on here's what you have to do. Here's what here's why you want to do it. Make sure your boat is clean. Look for for uh things that are attached to your trailer or to your propeller and clean that all off before it before you launch in the lake. So there's a a speech that's given, you know, to help the voters in the event that inspector is not available, we're not there because it's not 100% staffed. So we are providing that service. So to add a little artificial intelligence, if you will, to the process of launching a boat. So you know, we are looking at ways in doing that. Um, as far as the inspections, I mean, the LMPA is willing to help to fund or, you know, fund some of the cost of that. It's not that we're asking that you just pay that the county pay for this yourself. Obviously, this benefits the entire county, you know, preventing invasive species from getting the in the lake, but we're willing to up our contribution to that to help uh pay some funds here to to for that. The last point is uh I won't be able to finish this, make a long story short, you have five board members representing, I don't know, 40,000 households. How do we It's impossible for you to know what people really want, what they're willing to pay for. I was in charge, part of a team that got a referendum passed in Florida where the $60 million referendum was uh voted on two weeks ago where the vote came in. This is to purchase uh 15 miles of abandoned railway and convert it to a paved mo to use pathway for bikers, walkers, runners and all that stuff. And the the commissioners had no no clue what the city would want city residents would approve. And the vote and this is a beach town, you know, a golf course town. Who needs a bike trail, you know? Well, the referendum came in with the highest turnout that they've had in the city's history. and the the proposal passed 68% to 32. So, you may think you understand what the voters and and householders, taxpayers are willing to pay for, but until you ask them, you'll never really know. And I don't know how you're going to do that for this budget or any other, but I see some of these cuts coming for SNAP and other things. And damn, I'm more than happy to increase my taxes to pay for that because I've increased their coverage of SNAP benefits might keep people out of jail because they're trying to steal to get food to pay feed their family. So tough decisions for you guys to make. I don't I understand the roll down of cut the federal tax, cut the state tax, put the tax in the hands of the local government, and I think that's a great thing. I just ask that you open your mind a little bit and don't think of a tax increase as a guard rail, but consider you might have some support of that from the community. So, that's what I have to say to you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I think uh Lynch and I uh also teamed up when those neighborhoods all had to pay a big permit fee to launch fireworks on Fourth of July, Wakonia and Minowashta. And we wondered why everybody had to pass the hat for that. There is a there is a difference here and I see council member vonovven back there. Shanhassen owns the ramp on Lotus. So that's why that's that's categorically little different. Uh Minowashta is in our regional park. Wakonia is of course in our regional park. Then the WMO, the water >> management >> management, I want to say maintenance organization is the rest of Carver County. And they have different funds that couldn't be used at either of those three uh places. And so it gets a little confusing uh with the [clears throat] money flying around, but there's I think money in the WMO and they do their monitoring and everything else. So, okay. Anybody else? This guy's been here. He thought the meeting was at 9:00. Thank you for We did switch it one We switch it once a year for Commissioner Uman to be with his kids uh on the first day of school. So that's important. >> That is uh Steve Mullen. We've had a place out on Pearson Lake since 1999 and I'm the vice president of the lake association. And Pearson's is a pretty quiet lake or has been, but as the countyy's growing and Carver is growing, Victoria is growing, Wakone is growing, the lake's getting busier and busier. Um, we battle mil foil right now and curly pondweed, but we don't have zebra muscles or any of the other AIS, but they're I mean, a lot of that's because you guys are catching people. We appreciate coming in. Um, the one thing I'd like to say, I mean, we're keep you want to keep the education. um and for AIS and the monitoring of it. But the the biggest point of education is is the inspectors. We put our boat in once in the beginning of the year and take it out and every time an inspector is there running through stuff, which is great and looking at it and say, "Well, it doesn't go anywhere else." So, but telling us about what to do and how to manage stuff is great because people buy a boat, get it, they get their license, they go out and they don't know anything. Um there's story, you were telling me a story before the meeting about someone showing up with zebra muscles all over their motor, the boat that they just bought going to go into the lake. Um if they're not there to educate them, people don't learn. And I mean, you get a boat, you just want to go. You don't want to do an online course or anything and get know what you need to do. And that's what they're there to kind of teach them that. Um [clears throat] and also you guys The WMO helped us out this year. We've had blue green algae. We and all sorts of different algaes and we don't know the we have different people on the lake that we buy test kits and do it, but they're over the counter stuff and you don't really know. It needs [clears throat] to be looked at under a microscope and so we can't. So, we brought it in and and the WMO has checked it and said, "Yep, that's blue green algae." and then we'll let our people let everyone on the lake know because if the kids or the dogs or whatever go in, I mean, someone's going to get sick or or worse. So, we've really appreciated everything that the WO has done and um even though we're part of the mini hot creek watershed, um the county is given us the most support of anybody. So, um thank you guys and everyone for all that and I hope we find a way and I really like the creative ideas. We talked about maybe making inspections more efficient or whatever. And maybe we'll pull all the lake associations in and find different ways to fund it because we haven't had a board meeting or talked about anything, but we could probably find some money to help out and to keep inspectors there. >> So, all right. >> Appreciate it. So, thank you guys. >> Thank you for your patience today. Really, really appreciate that. Uh, isn't Pearson the headwaters of Minhaha Creek Watershed District? >> Yes. >> Proud to say that. Yes sir. >> Thanks very [cough and clears throat] much. My name is Joel Barker. I live in Shanhassen. Um I'm a biogeeochemist by training which means that I study nutrient transport through aquatic environments. Um I just want to begin by I mean thanking you guys and the people that looked at the budget. It's a herculan task trying to sort all this stuff out. Um I think so far this meeting the role of cutting back the inflation reduction act and the money that was diverted from that to sponsor state level initiatives for water quality. I mean that went away too. So that just compounds everything the state's been trying to do and cut back as well. Um [clears throat] Commissioner Lynch mentioned that we've got blue green algae. um and that this is the first time that's happened. While blue green algae isn't an invasive species, it's sort of symptomatic of what's happening to our aquatic environments, right? They're under stress. Um, my concern is that if we eliminate the the screening at the boat launches, which has proven to be effective at limiting exposure via of invasive species to the lakes. Um, if we do that for just a single year, all of a sudden we're in introducing we've we've taken away that guard rail. And you over the course of a single year, we've introduced these species to the lakes and fundamentally change the ecology of the lake. That's what these invasive species do, right? They fundamentally change the character of the lake. and that I mean sure boating, recreation and all that but in terms of ecosystem services I mean we're talking about migratory birds we're talking about water quality groundwater uh quality it's huge and it's a lot more difficult to go in retroactively and try to control invasive species than to try to nip it in the bud at the boat launches. Um, to use your analogy, uh, Chairman Workman, um, if the high school football team didn't play for a year, that might be tragic to some, maybe the next year they can play. If we're not screening invasive species at the boat launches for a year, the ramifications of that trail off, I mean, it it I can't express it strongly enough. the damage is done and it's very very difficult to undo that damage and so I think while we say okay well maybe we can pass the buck maybe DNR should be doing more be doing more more effectively I think the time for those type types of games is over from an ecological standpoint we cannot afford to stop these inspections for a year and that's all happenless you have any questions? >> Mr. Chair, I'm just curious because because your qualifications as a scientist, >> what does happen if it doesn't happen for a year? Like what's the I'm not trying to get to an ROI, but can you paint the picture of what happens over time and the overall cost to the community >> financially? >> Y >> yeah, if you want to clean it up, the costs are huge, >> right? relative to stopping it, nipping it at the butt at the boat launch. Going in and trying to control um whatever you've got the weeds with amendments using herbicides basically um that you have to do multiple years to sort of callull back the infestation. Uh it's much more expensive. I can't give you numbers. like give me a week I could come up. I was hoping >> somebody might you're gonna have to come forward [clears throat] microphone so we can hear. >> Sorry. Um I was just in a meeting and this was discussed with a lake and I do believe it was Henipin County and they're looking at a um treatment for star stone where stone wart near just in the boat landing area at $16,000 of treatment having to do multiple treatments every year and that's also not including um the the funds that will take to they have like dredge um like weed giant weed boat things that will take um it out of the channels that it blocks. Um so that's in addition $16,000 a pop multiple times a year um indefinitely. >> Is that alum treatment or is that something else? >> That is um a treatment that targets star stone wart. >> It's not alum. >> It's not the sinobacterial algae. >> Yeah. >> Becky, do you know how many lakes excuse me, Mr. Chair, how many lakes are infected with starry stonewood? Sternwood? >> Not many. Um, so less than 10% of all of Minnesota lakes have are invested with anything. Um, I do believe pretty close. It's uh less than 5% have zebra muscles and a very small less than a page print out of lake accesses for star storm ward. >> Thank you. Just for clarification, the alum treatments get after the nutrients that are feeding the plants. Um, after a while, you need to go with herbicides right after the invasive species. >> Got it. >> See, we didn't even have to hire a consultant. >> Well, we've got resources that save us money already. [laughter] >> Apply that to it. >> If you'll allow me to conclude by saying, I mean, these lake associations have contributed to the ES program. >> I mean, they're voting with their wallets. Um, so it is a priority for the public. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. And >> thank you. >> Thank you to the associations. >> Okay. Anybody else? Mr. Donan. >> Well, um, >> where do you live, Mr. Don? >> Sorry that Tom. >> Steve Donan. You live in Channassen? >> Yes, I do live in Chanass Lotus Lake. I am the uh vice president of the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance. Talking about funding and creative ways of funding, Lotus Lake has basically four organizations that support our inspections. The county, the city, the watershed, and I don't I can't remember the exact splits, but they're probably pretty close to equal for each one. I know that we've spent the Lotus Lake. And then the fourth one is the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance itself. We donate anywhere between about as low as four or $5,000 a year up to $14,000 a year from our own people. So, as Steve said earlier, we do put our >> our money where our mouth is. >> Um, so I just wanted to say that that's a creative option. I know that I don't know if if the wersheds are investing in all the wersheds are helping with these processes or the cities, but in the case of ours, we do get a lot of support and help. Um, but I'm guessing that if the county drops it, which is because they run the show for us. I mean, they as mentioned earlier, we they actually run the the inspections and everything else. I think all that goes away. So the money that the county is investing in Lotus is probably getting four times the return just in the dollars it's it's spending because of the support from the other three groups >> talking about value I just did a quick well actually AI did a quick look for me you guys probably already know this but there's all already in this county of car Carver County there's like 1100 homes that are on the lakes Uh the AI said they're averaging about $1.4 million a home. >> It ends up being about $1.5 billion dollars of home value sitting there on these lakes. University of Minnesota has done studies to look at the impact of AIS the stony whatever that scary one a really scary name is the stony horn weed or whatever it is. That's probably one of the worst at impacting the lakes because when it hits a lake, it literally chokes them off. Okay. Makes the lake almost non-usable in some cases. Um, down to ones, you know, mil foil is a big deal. It hasn't had nearly the impact on home values. So, there's like a 5% impact on these values up to maybe a 20% impact on these values. And that's from University of Minnesota studies. Okay. So you take all that math and you end up with $1.5 billion of value reducing it. Let's just say a nice easy number of like 11%. Now you're talking about $ 1.5 billion $150 million of value of home value that gets could get wiped out in Minnesota, thus obviously reducing the tax base, right? There's a lot of fancy words about levies and all that kind of stuff, but in the end, if you take the amount that Carver gets, it's about a $700,000 a year impact on tax revenue. If you do the math, okay, so about $700,000 of tax revenue comes in based on the value of these houses not dropping. Okay, so just a comment for you. You're investing your money wisely. You're investing 100,000 and you are getting back well over $700,000 in revenue every year if we don't have if we can prevent the spread. So that's all I really wanted to say. Maybe find other well in case Lotus we're lucky enough to have four four organizations support our inspections and maybe there's more of that to be used around this the state or in Carver County. Thank you. >> Thank you Steve. Thank you. >> Okay. Seeing no other comments from the public. >> One more. >> Come on up. Yep. >> Commissioners, thanks for having us today. I'm Mark Vonovven. I'm the IT manager of the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance as well as a city councelor. Um, I won't repeat all of the things that the professionals here have said from the scientists to the man who's been on Lotus Lake board for 30 years and still can't say star sorry stonewart stony star wart. [laughter] >> That's right. It's a hard one. [clears throat] But here's what I want to point out and this this one's kind of personal for me. I in a few weeks hope to be in the position that you are all in right now. You are having your preliminary tax levy hearing for $200 million budget, 88 million of which you control, and you have intense pressure from federal and state cuts. And your audience is focused on $70,000. That to me says you're doing a fantastic job with an impossible job that you have. And so my suggestion would be that there's ROI numbers that have been mentioned from home values to to everything else. This one should be easy for you. This one seems and I don't mean it's easy to go find another 70 or another 114. but on that size of a budget and for the decisions that you all have the liberty of making across that number versus the potential backlash from the public. This one does seem fairly simple from that size of a budget. So, I hope that you'll take these comments into consideration. We enjoy a fantastic partnership together on Lotus Lake as was mentioned here. contributions from the city, contributions from our own members, and a small amount of money from the county. Um, I worry about the greater Carver County Lakes and their dependency on this funding and I hope that that funding can continue in some way. Thanks. >> Thank you, Mark. Okay, seeing no other comments from the public, we'll bring it back to the board for a motion. I guess a motion on the county administrator's budget [sighs] uh of an 8.5% increase, which would be the maximum amount of levy we could levy, but we could go lower by December 15th's final vote. >> Mr. Chair, if I could, uh I'm prepared to make that motion, but uh I'd like to ask uh the administrator uh if where would we find the extra $70,000 to implement this program? Um you're very right when you said the inspection is very peacemeal when you go because I've I've uh put my boat in different lakes uh across the state. It's very peacemeal. Um uh and I keep thinking about what the state has done. We're overrun with fraud and then their solution is to cut us. And uh just one example, what's the what's the act cost us this year? Wasn't it like 1.3 million? >> Yeah, Mr. Chair, few questions there. Yeah, that's in your bud budget presentation. Yeah, roughly that number. >> And we can't come up with 70,000 yet. We're talking to the people here who live on the lake who pay the most uh highest taxes and they want to have more. I thought it was very um Steve Gunther made the one out of four one out of 40 boats has AIS before we did the inspection. It was much more than that and there's a lot more education that was uh presented. So, it's it's it was not unusual to see a boat go down the road with a bunch of weeds hanging off the back of it. after the inspection, it's gotten much much better. The education, um, how could we somehow find us the $70,000 to do this one more year and then re-evaluate from there? Is it possible? >> Uh, Mr. Chair, if I could address Commissioner Lynch's question, it's actually a little larger than that. If you look at the budget packet, the detail in the spreadsheet, uh it's 100 >> on page uh 60 of 87 117,46 to eliminate the as inspectors because of the you know the uh the challenge of the WO versus the general le etc. So, so that that but bottom line that's the the gap, right, that would have to be addressed if you if you were looking for a solution. So, I think just like the rest of the budget, it's it's those choices and how do we then uh perhaps reduce something else to offset that cost or I think a better solution is to come up with different ways to to approach the business. I I like the idea of others contributing and you know certainly none of those solutions have are without downsides. you know contribute contributions from the lake owner associations is wonderful but it it also then further further uh parcels out the kind of the winners and losers of the various various inspection programs right so in lakes >> which I don't I think that is a cognizant choice you could make but it definitely helps close a gap if that's if that's the direction you want to head but again fundamentally uh without those solutions is Well, okay. Then what what other things would we reduce? I I would recommend going back to that general functional related area uh the the planning and water area and trying to come up with some solutions within that existing budget which aren't without ramifications. It's probably probably related to monitoring uh or or maybe education or some other some other related issue. Of course, you could go beyond that, right? But that's what I that's what the first place I would go to >> as we look for alternative solutions and maybe maybe that combined with some other assistance from from Lakeshore Associations or others. I mean that that to me would be the potential solution. >> Again, no no real easy. If it was easy, I would believe me I'd have it in front of you today. >> Right. >> One man. Yeah. I I mean I I struggle with this because I'm a big I'm a big fan of upstream and there's no better I mean this is an upstream program, right? Like like you said, the the more money we spend on the the front end is is less on the back end. So that's one side of the story. The other side of the story is um when do we say enough is enough with the state? and you know when when they cut a program and we we have to pass that on the to property owners when is that? I don't think this is an all or nothing solution and I and I want us to be careful about thinking this is an eitheror. I think the answer is somewhere in the middle and um you uh administrator Hemsy and your staff have been have given us a lot of really creative solutions to a lot of really difficult problems. And um so my question is, you know, can we continue to look for creative solutions in in this area um and maintain that 8 and a half% levy today? Because right now we're just setting the levy. We're not actually talking about how the money is spent. We're just setting the levy, >> right? Uh yeah, I didn't realize that as a question. Sorry. >> Yeah, that is I mean so if if we're setting the levy >> um >> well the preliminary I mean we have a >> preliminary levy but we can't go up. >> It's a framework. The eight and a half is a framework for what will be. >> So again to the audience um one point increase is $800,000. So we could say let's have a 9% levy increase today and then that adds 400,000 to the budget. The county fair doesn't get cut. This doesn't get cut and we just every nobody gets cut. >> Right. >> So if we say with this framework 8 and a half we're saying then it has to come from somewhere else >> correct >> within the framework. And because we're not going to just make more money, take more money from our taxpayers. Uh that is a goal. That is a a big goal of this board to and I'm sure the city council to keep the keep keep the spending down. And so but uh and again to Mr. Vonovven, I think he states it very clearly. You know, if this if this is our problem, it's not a very big problem. it doesn't look like uh like a big problem, but then we have to take the money from somewhere else. And of course, I've quoted Confucious uh here often uh don't flick flee on forehead with hatchet. Um uh and so this does this is it this does look small. We have 10 union contracts to negotiate this year yet. this. We don't know if the state's sending us all the money. We don't know. We We There's a lot of stuff on the table. Most of it falls to Mr. Freshman, his staff, and Mr. Hemsy. And so, it's a lot of juggling, but it does relatively look small, but but >> but so is that a motion, Mr. Commissioner Lynch? Um, I would like to say that I'd like to administrator Hemsy's answer. I liked uh Commissioner uh Anderson's answer that we will continue to work on this just uh I'd like to go forward with the budget. Uh at this point, it's September 1st and we're still waiting on budget numbers from the state that we should have had a long time ago. And it's to say it's frustrating is would be under uh really underestimated. But anyway, Mr. Chair, if you give me the I'll make the motion to approve the administrator's recommended 2027 preliminary levy of 87,773,855, which is a 8 1.5% increase from 2026, a total preliminary budget of 198,989,816, and to set the 2027 budget hearing for Tuesday, December 1st, 2026 at 6 M >> and I'll second that. It >> was well stated. >> I know. That's why I'm just seconding, not making a motion. [laughter] >> Okay. So, I have a motion by Lynch and a second by Anderson for the A4 mentioned uh motion. Any discussion? Commissioner Rutderman. So, from a discussion standpoint, like when I ran um I said I'd manage to a lower tax rate, and that traditionally has been um 3.5%. That would get you to um capturing growth and then reducing. Um when there's growth communities, I'll just point to Victoria or maybe Waconia, Carver. When you grow, sometimes you grow faster than that. And you and if you're um levy rate is higher than that, um you can pass on a higher uh rate because you've got more of a base to go through. So I say how much? My my how much has always been uh 3.5%. [clears throat] And then I ask, is it our job? And so some of these state shifts, if we don't put a line in the sand, they'll continue to shift it our way and we'll be having this conversation forever. Um so I think we should put a line in the sand. And then we've all said it in one way or another, but there is a cost to kick the can, right? Deferred maintenance or not planning for the future or whatnot. And I think that nestled within this budget that sometimes gets lost is we've addressed some things that have been longtime issues. Um I'm satisfied to say that parks are on a track to uh from deferred maintenance pu path. Um the 600 building we've we budgeted and have reserved for that building to have conversations about that. Um but I also think that there's creative alternatives. And so I'm not in support 8.5, but I'll bring a solution. There's I think $600,000 that's nestled within our budget right now um that's allocated for the what if we have somebody um that's in our care that we have to pay for when they're um put it in a care facility. um that's a high-risisk individual. I'm not using the the terminology right, Heather. You can you can give me the right terminology, >> but I think we've had one person in 30 years. And so we have put in our budget a $600,000 reserve if that happens in the future. I think if we pulled that $600,000 out, we can not only reduce the preliminary by half a percent. It would also give us some money um to to cover the AIS. So this is pragmatic problem solution. And in the event that we were to have somebody a second person in 30 years that would fall under that um I've talked to a number of people that said maybe there's a different pathway we can get that from the state but if not we have reserves in our year end savings that could be that reserve if we absolutely needed it. And so I think that's a pragmatic solution where don't just come with 3.5 lutter come with solutions. I've got a couple others too. Um, and one more I'll I'll share today is I know that there's been a number of people that have talked about um um getting the opportunity to use their land a little bit more so and so number of people have wanted to have uh additional building eligibilities um in in the rural community or in the township areas and we've had conversations about what that might look like. I wonder if this is the time for us to pilot a program where we made um an arbitrary number but 50 building eligibilities available to test to see what that might look like across our community. Um, I've had people say that they've sold building eligibilities anywhere from $80 to $150,000. So, if we as the community, as a county, created 50 of these eligibilities at a cost of $100,000 a piece, that's $5 million of potential revenue and it doesn't cost us anything in it's within it's within our domain. So, we could achieve 3.5% and we could have dollars associated not with just for AIS, but we could also have an employee engagement metric. Um, we could have additional training for our staff. we could have reinvestment in the areas that we know are going to be hard to hire in the future, but we don't know exactly what those are. And so I propose that as an option. Um, but in the interim, if we just key in on that $600,000, that would reduce us down below 8% on a preliminary ANAB dollars associated uh to fund AIS and a couple other things that we're maybe just kicking the can on. I'll say one last one is the historic society. We know that um our leader of the historic society is going to be moving on. is a very high probability that to replace her will cost a lot more money than we have budgeted currently and I think that currently we have had a 0% increase each of the last two years for that particular program. So again problem potential solution um and we can get down the path of uh lowering our tax rate in doing so. Those are my thoughts. >> Commissioner Pay >> Mr. chair and um thank everyone for being here with uh the AIS and I think it Mark had said because I wrote the same comment down Mark we got $200 million budget and we're spending all this time and effort on $70,000 and I that just kind of resonated with me and the gentleman I think it was Steve that mentioned the one 4 million value of each home on the various lakes. And the state legislature made a decision and here we are now >> making our decision based on their decision and you mentioned the 1100 homes and I kind of did the math. You know, maybe that's four four people in a home. 4,500 voters that might have voted for Senator Smith or Representative Jones and they made that decision and here we are now trying to make our decision and it it just filters down to us. Um, a thought that I had is maybe we do the cut for six months of next year and then put the lake associations on notice that we're going to need your help by June of next year to come up with the remaining funds to [clears throat] do the inspections for the rest of the year. as we get creative and we think through that stuff for 35,000 maybe we can make that happen and the cuts only 35,000 in instead of 70. So just some general comments Mr. Chair but I am in support of the motion. >> Thank you. Anybody else? I I do um I I do want to um acknowledge um you coming here today and being respectful and professional um and sharing your concerns and and I get that. I mean, I I understand where your concerns are, and I think if we can work together, we can we can find um a reasonable solution. And that's what I'd like to kind of extend is um Chanhassen is is a town shared by uh Commissioner Workman and I and um you know, is is and but this impact impacts all of Carver County. So, is there something we can we can do? Um, Becky, I just thank you for being here. I thank you for your work. Um, I just want to reiterate putting this cut on is no reflection on the work you've done and the value you've done. It is not personal. We have to make difficult decisions. The state made this decision and it's passed on to you. So I I I just I just want to reiterate this is no reflection on on the work that you're doing and um so I am hoping that we can continue this conversation about AIS and um and as always I've only been on this board. This is only my second budget time but I but I sat out there watching things for a while. You know things shift around in in the next few months. So, you know, I I'm hopeful that um it will continue to shift downwards. I'm I'm hoping we get good news from the state when we get I'm looking at Heather because it's always in in Health and Human Services. Um there's still a lot of unanswered questions here and uh so the 8.5 uh is with with the hopes that that things we can resolve some of these other issues. >> Heather, if you can just shout out what that that $600,000, what's the terminology on that? >> Does not meet criteria. >> Does not meet. So to to people in the room and watching um the state shifted that down to us, correct? >> Uh good morning board chair, commissioners. Good to see you. Uh Heather Goodwin, director of health and human services. That does not meet criteria is a not classified technically as a cost shift. What happens is when someone is in our state particular state facilities and they do not meet criteria to for that level of care any longer. However, there is not another state bed. Again, this is a state issue. So, it's not a cost shift as much as this is a state issue where then when someone needs to move and there's not a state bed, they do cost shift, but they do hold the counties in 100% responsible for that cost. And we're talking about a mental health issue here. >> This is for folks who have very serious mental health issues. And so we >> and often and most commonly uh criminal proceedings being upheld uh because of competency to stand trial. >> And so these are people that don't won't fit in a prison. They need a bed at about $2,500 a day. >> Little more. Yep. >> And so we have had that. Now this person has shifted up but we were up to about 925,000 a year for this person the six they've moved to a different place so we are not responsible but you are hope we we're banking 600,000 that if it happened to somebody else or if that person would come back >> correct yes we have worked with the state uh I'll say personally worked with the state to uh to for that person to move so currently today do not have those costs. However, that person could return to that bed. That would then mean we start to incur those costs again andor um hopefully knock on some wood. I'm knocking on wood by the our county attorney here. Um that we don't have another situation where um where another person that we don't know of today um is in that situation. Um, but I will say and I I just want to um say to correct Commissioner Erdman, we we do have folks in in what's called DNMC status, does not meet criteria status. I mean, I've been director now for four a little over four years and we have had three of those four years we have had that and we have had even when I was previous and deputy director, we've had those. We typically average some years we have none but we do have some um that's it's not not we haven't had though your comment that we haven't had anybody for 30 years is not true so I just want to make sure I start sorry oh I apologize >> oh look at you stealing >> thanks for the explanation our county administrator is is is >> that's the not sexy stuff that the county does and that we have but we have to be prepared for and >> um so if that 600,000 went away. >> So, I do believe um and Comm uh County Administrator Hemsy, who's standing next to me, can correct me um if I have it incorrect, but my understanding is the 900,000 will go back into the 27 budget in totality. That's our annual, you know, roughly ballpark annual cost. we are setting aside a contingency or a reserve of 450,000 for that situation in case that gentleman um does come back or a new person comes into that status but my understanding is for the overall sort of operational budget if I'm correct uh county administratory we are returning that 900 back into the coffers our finance director come out but I you can see it on the board here this is in your packet your presentation packet on page 20 A very important point is it's onetime money. >> Yes. >> 450. It's 450, not 600. Correct. I don't know if you have other comments, but >> so it's 450,000 one time with the hope it doesn't happen. >> Which goes back to my overall comments about fiscal sustainability, right? It's concerning that yes, >> that one individual cost us nearly a million dollars. And in a heartbeat, uh, we've heard that that particular individual was almost put back in that status because of a fight with one of the folks take individuals taking care of him. So, so just like that, a million dollars can come back. So, while I say, you know, fiscally sustainable solutions, this is about as soft as it gets, right? With the with the, you know, cognizant thought in mind, it might happen. But again, I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend applying it to something like AIS on an ongoing basis. That's for sure. Certain. It's onetime money. I screw anything up, Dave. Onetime money. Would not cut the leside. We're reserving. >> This this 450,000 is is already in our reserves. You know, we're setting this aside in our reserves. We're just breaking it out. So, it's not impacting the levy. If we decided not to set this aside, we would just have more one-time money um sitting in in our year savings account. We wouldn't be transferring as much in. So, we're literally just setting it aside because we know the potential is there to come back. We've been living it. Um so, as Dave said, we're Administrator Hemi said, we're just being uh proactive since we've just experienced this that we know it's possible. The good news, the state has set aside uh legislator has set aside money to create more beds, but they won't be here for, you know, another year or two. Um, so this is in the in the interim. Um, but we think we think we got a pretty good um short-term solution if it does come back. >> Well, Commissioner, if I may say, um, and I've I've said this before, the issue isn't always beds. Sometimes the state has provided beds, but we don't have providers to actually um utilize all those beds. So, so that's that's another issue um with this piece. But I also want to say um can you give us and just just for the viewing audience um some examples of how we're using some of those onetime money because it is always dangerous when we use one-time money on ongoing costs but we have some yes if you can kind of provide um but we utilize that one-time money for for other things. So, I just wanted to share that. And one of them kind of coming up is um the new Chaza Library as one of those pieces. So, so you can kind of see here how we utilize um some of those onetime monies in a fiscally responsible way. >> Yes. Uh Commissioner Anderson and board chair Workman. Uh David Fisherman, uh property and finance director. Forgot to introduce myself, but um so a year in savings account and we uh the acronym is yes. um that that represents the the unassigned unreserved um reserve balance that we have. And you can see where that number's been. And and towards the bottom there, the ministry's recommendation, preliminary recommendation is to use um just over 5 million of that reserve, the 10 million that we have right now, and to use half of that uh for one-time projects, onetime capital, and onetime services. As you recall, the attachment E1, we we've done that for years where we have one-time uh projects. Some of those are in our long-term financial plan that we've been planning on. Some of them uh come up in in in the year as we're developing the budget. Um and then but this year, for the first time, we're actually um taken out of the year in savings um uh one time we're applying one-time money towards services and that's nearly a million dollars. And that as administrator he um highlighted that's to shift the cost of this uh the increase of legislative impacts from 2027 to 2028 because if we didn't do that 2027 levy would have to be even higher. So the the strategy is to is to shift some of those um ongoing costs from 2027 to 2028 and then we can work on them. Basically buy us a year we can work on trying to uh drive those down in 2028. in terms of the specific projects. Um, if my assistant here could [clears throat] advance the next slide. Um, [laughter] um, uh, >> I I delegate a lot. [laughter] >> All right. Uh, so to go back u, and as as him said, we went through this in in uh, specific detail last week. It's on tape so you can you can see the the full presentation. But um so we we accumulate $8 million in one-time funding u from various sources uh with that uh recommended year in savings transfer of the four million. These are for onetime capital projects. And as I mentioned, 2.8 of those came out of our long-term financial plan. That's where we're looking 5 10 15 20 years out. Um and these are replacements. These are planned replacements for roofs and software IT equipment. Um, in addition, uh, this year we had the the 5.2 million in division requests, and that's where the the money that you, uh, mentioned, Commissioner Anderson, is where we're setting aside 2 million for the government center project. That's the $82 million project um that we're um in in starting in design and and uh planned uh to be moving out in 2027, tearing down the building and then um moving off site and then having a bond sale to uh to fund that as well as $2 million for the Chesca Library. That's a um the the the relationship this uh county has with the with the cities um and and is to that the cities build it uh build the libraries and then the county uh pays for the one-time um shelves and and books and that um as well as the staff and the one-time cost for the the new Chaza libraries estimated 4.4 million. We've set aside uh money before 500,000 now this two million. So, we have roughly two more million to go. Um, which we plan on doing for 2028. Um, but that's where that's where the one-time capital projects the the recommend the recommendation includes um uh both the funding and the use for those one-time uh projects. And then um the onetime funding for services. Uh we have uh 750,000 is the cost shift of the act which is the 1.35 million. Um it was 1.5 but we made an adjustment for the um [clears throat] for a parallegal that we're going to try and get done in 2026. Um and then the other uh additional costs and as well there's the onetime funding. We did get money from the state one-time money for the act for SNAP administration. So the state was recognizing in my mind they were they they were the ones that came up the idea first to give us onetime money towards these ongoing costs. We've just added some additional money from the county. um reserves to be able to push um these costs into 2028. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> And I I do have one other question. Um Commissioner Udman brought up um additional eligibility um in selling those. Um what is our role in that? I mean, I I thought those were that the townships were involved in that and and that's a big piece of that. So, I'm I I I mean I I I I believe heavily in local government and um in local control um so just kind of curious as to um the the feasibility of of that idea and I don't know if if that's a Commissioner Lynch and Fehee question or anyone else. Well, Carver County has a 1 in40 development outside the uh municipalities, Carver, Victoria, Chaza. So, that's why we have farm fields out there and not just spot housing. And so, it's pretty strict about having one home per 40 acres eligibility. So, that'd be four homes within 160 acre section or quarter section. The townships have certain ways they can get they can have additional uh eligibilities. One would be wooded wooded building lots, one would be high amenity uh building around a lake, something like that. And uh we've discussed this at the township level and uh at the planning commission which uh Commissioner Fehee has graciously sat on there for many years and townships always are they like the way our our county looks and uh they want to continue with and it's the township it's township driven. they want to change it to get out of the 1 40 to go to wooded or high amenity, they certainly can do that. Some have chosen to do that. Some have not. So, it's a local decision. >> Okay. But thank you for that. I >> We're all learning a lot today. Huh. >> Right. >> Yeah. And Mr. Chair, I would I don't know if Commissioner Anderson, did you ask Commissioner Udman to clarify more on the >> I mean, that would be great. Yeah. >> Yeah. I would like to learn more on how you create an eligibility. >> So, uh it seems like four out of the five are content with 8.5% um a preliminary levy. Um if you take that 8.5% that means your property tax on the county line will double every um eight and a half years. I'm not okay with that. If you don't like the s suggestions and solutions that I bring forward, I I'd urge every one of us to have a few minutes to suggest ways that we can whittle this down. We do the hope and pray and hope that 8.5% comes down. And very good point. There are people that want to pay for additional services. In your case, it's AIS. I get that all day long. My fear is that if we look out 10 or 20 years, and I've often said the next 20 years shapes the next 200 years. And anybody that's listened to me any period of time knows that part of the reason I do this is that my kids can choose Carver County as a place to live, work, and play for a lifetime when they choose in 20 years if they wanted to live here. I think we're on a path that three years ago we had a 6.8% which I think was a record. First time in in 20ome years that we had a 6.8% 8% levy. Next year we're 8% levy. This year we were 8.5% levy. If we continue to aggregate this, the people that know that Carver County is unaffordable for them now, including probably half our staff if they didn't have a dual income. It continues to propagate. I'm happy that CDA is in the in the room today. They're help addressing some of those challenges. I bring forth these ideas to say we can address the 40 to1. We just haven't. We can address affordability. We just haven't. we can make things easier for people to live in Carver County if they truly want to live, work, and play here for a lifetime. We just haven't. And I talk to 60 plus year olds all the time that the cost to downsize is more than this cost to stay in their in their place. And so I did some preliminary research and we as a county board, my understanding is is we can create eligibilities. We can sell those. There's a lot of details that go into it. And I think a lot of those conversations, if we were willing to have it, can be had now where we're talking about 2050 comp planning challenges. Now, if we want to continue to do it the way we've always done it, it's not an option. Period. Point blank. Not going to happen. But if you think about 50 incremental dwellings for an auxiliary dwelling unit, for a mother-in-law, for a piece of land where you've you've lived and farmed on it for 100 years, and you want your kids and your grandkids, three generations living on the same piece of land where you can't right now, introducing 50 eligibilities, 100 grand a piece is a viable option for us to consider. But I guess the question is, if we could get back to the question, is how do we make that h happen? Is it literally we can do that, but we would circumvent um the will of the townships. Is that the only way we can make that happen? I >> I think that we should have those conversations. My understanding is within the county's power to create those eligibilities if we so desired. If there's not a desire to make non-starter, >> okay, >> Commissioner Anderson, the eligibility $100,000 that Commissioner Durman is talking about doesn't go to the county. It goes to the land owner. >> They get the money. >> So, I don't know where this There's suddenly a bunch of money on the table if we let >> 50 homes build in the middle of a cornfield. Well, that's >> which down the road defeats the whole concept of it, which is to have the density that you can get future sewer systems and not put put septic systems all over the countryside of Carver. So, I I don't know where the money's coming from. You're you're kind of upsetting the seed corn of the county if we just couldn't start going willy-nilly wherever anybody wants to develop. We got have a mountain system. Got County has 10 acre minimums, not 40. So you go down there and that's where all these roads and nice places to live, three acres, 5 acres, and they got a mound system. But for the future, it isn't very efficient. And that's that's what where the mech council comes in and the sewer systems come in and the cities make those decisions and that's why there's densities like that in the cities. But to to say that the county is going to we're not going to have any budget issues by building homes in the middle of cornfields is is I I don't know where that comes from. >> So Chair Workman, you're very >> because you listed my name. Um you're you're very skilled at at creating a pathway that is not what I said. >> Um if somebody >> Commissioner Uterman, >> we're at 8 and a half. We have a motion on the floor for 8 and a2%. You have stated 48 times that you're a 3 and a half% person. The difference is five points between those two things. I said earlier it's $800,000 a point. So that's $4 million to go from 8 1/2 down to your three and a half. So if you if you have the ideas where to come up with that $4 million to get it to three and a half that you keep talking about, I'm all ears. But if your idea doesn't hold water, then it doesn't work. >> Yeah. So, you listed my name. If I can finish, um, if somebody has a building eligibility and they sell their property for development, that building eligibility expires. It doesn't get transferred. So, we're not creating them out of thin air. If somebody owns an eligibility, it it goes away if they can't transfer it or sell it right away. The county could play a role in saying, "We'll we'll house that eligibility. we'll hold that eligibility and we'll pay that um builder I don't know 50% of what it would be. It goes from zero to to 50% if we're able to sell that. There's solutions if we want there to be solutions. What I'm saying is I'm not content with 8.5. Nobody I talked to is content with our taxes doubling every eight and a half years. I'm bringing solutions. You might not like them. I've got a bunch of others if you'd like to. I've I've offered them over the course of six years. Another one is what if we were to max our loss of the DMV? When I came in, we had a half a million dollar surplus. And now on paper, it looks like we're we're budgeting for a $600,000 loss. That's a shift of over a million dollars. It's not our responsibility. Do I want to DMV here? Yeah. Should the state do it? Yeah. How can we tell the state that that we're that we're going to take on all this stuff? But we continue to voluntarily take on some other stuff. We know that there's going to be a new sheriff that's going to be in, and we typically and traditionally recalibrate towards that. We can recalibrate $50,000 in the next year's budget to recognize we will have a new sheriff. and they will probably not get paid if history holds what the current sheriff makes. I'll continue if you want me to continue to whittle down the 8.5% with solutions. Um, we're >> Commissioner Erman, we need a total because >> well these are >> you just said I know you kind of brushed over it really quickly and I have a lot of discussions with people about license centers. You want to close down the Chanassen and Chaska license. I do not have I ever said that. That's false. >> You want to close the libraries and build one central library. You've said you want the Chanhassen Library, the Chesca Library, the Victoria Library, all the counties in the library to be closed down and have one central library. >> So, I could continue. >> Now, if there can be a number attached to that to that, maybe we got the budget solved. It's 0% increase, >> $ 8.5 million, 10.6%. I just want everybody to know that if you think AIS is a difficult decision, >> Uman's plan to balance the budget by closing the libraries and the license centers. We'll have to have that debate. I guess I'm not sure it is a debate because it isn't probably a reality of happening. >> That's a fun and convenient sound bite, but it's categorically false. I have said, "Let's keep our DMVs. Let's offer them to the private market." You've long been a private market guy. Offer it to We haven't offered them to off to to run them. Wonia has a private DMV. Why wouldn't we let the private market? You know that they don't the privates don't do the work that the government ones do. You just said $600,000 loss. >> So you answered your own question. The private sector isn't going to take over a business that's losing $600,000. So it's not a realistic point. The the sheriff's department costs us money every year. Do we have to have a sheriff's department? I don't know. We don't have to do the license center. The state doesn't send us enough down the pipe for that. So, yep. The county taxpayer subsidizes it, but we don't have to. I was in there getting my real ID and everything else two weeks ago. 15 people before they open the doors. What do you think? Close the close these 15 to nothing. Don't you dare close the license center. Small group of people. We need We need the real answers. If you want to cut $4 million, we're not cutting the libraries today, ladies and gentlemen, or the license centers. Maybe between now and December 15th when we finalize the budget, we could have that discussion. And but um we need real real answers. So 50% of our user base and our DMVs come out from outside the county roughly. Carver County taxpayers are subsidizing that for a service the state should provide. On one day we say we're not going to take the shift from the state and the next day we voluntarily say we're going to. Now if we want to make the decision to say we're going to burden our our our taxpayers with a state function to the tune of $600,000 a year, that's fine. Great. Let's move on to the next idea. I'm not saying close the DMVs. I'm saying hand it back to the state. 13 years ago Eden Prairie decided to do that. And in their press release, they were 13 years ago, they said, "We expect to lose $300,000 in our DMV." And you know what they said at the footnote of that press release? You can go to Chazar Chanhassen to get your DMV services knowing full well that they're dumping that subsidy on us. Now, I'm here to have a real conversation, not a not a hyperbole conversation. >> Commissioner Udman, are you making a motion to amend the motion? >> I would be happy to amend the motion uh and propose a preliminary levy of 3.5%. for 3.5%. >> Yes. >> So, no pay raises for Kyber County. >> Well, again, you're going down a path that's not true because I have publicly said for the last two years and helped guided I think we've get a historic Is there a second to the motion for our staff the last two years and I proposed a second to the motion five years in a row historic raises for our county. >> Second on the motion to have the county at 3.5%. We would just have to hold our our headcount flat through our thousand population. >> Hearing none. You got no second for your motion. >> Okay. I didn't even get a chance to speak. But guess what? We've said yes to 8.5%. We've said no to any creative solutions to bring it down. I haven't heard one proposal from any of my peers to bring the 8.5% down other than hope and pray. >> In fairness, Mr. >> Commissioner, we brought this down from 14.5%. >> In fairness, >> without your assistance. Thank you. >> All right. So >> I I I would like to state that I believe Commissioner Hemsy and his staff have provided a numerous creative solutions and um and and I would like to thank you for that and I'd like to thank all of our division directors in the room for all the creative solutions that we've pro provided. Our job is the what and their job is the how. And I would pre and I would just like to again publicly acknowledge all the work you've done to put into that. These are difficult decisions. It's never easy to raise taxes. Um but yet we need to provide the essential services that our residents um need and desire. And in some cases um 25% of our levy budget goes to the sheriff's department. I don't think that's a discretionary need. I think that's a real need. I think 20 8% goes to HHS for a number of different safety net services and child protection. I think that's a need. I think [snorts] um county attorney Mets, I think your department is a need as well. And that's what government does is we provide the services that the public will not cannot can't make money on. So, um, I'd like to call the question. >> Okay. No debate after that. So, we have a motion on the floor. >> All those in favor say I. >> Those opposed. >> Motion passes. Should we take a quick break? >> Yes. >> Let's take a three-minut break. Mr. Colin back there. patience. >> Somebody's got >> item 3.2 preliminary Carver County Water Management Organization 2027 levy. >> Uh good morning, Mr. chair, members of the board, um here today to present preliminary levy on the um CCW mole levy. So, a different but related topic to what you've been discussing. Uh quickly today, uh want to briefly cover some CCWO accomplishments just to give the board an idea again of what the WO does. Uh give some background on the the levy um and the process got us to today. the impacts on the 2027 [snorts] levy and then the request at the end of the recommendation. So quickly for the board and and the public watching um CCW Mo roll uh implemented the latest water management plan in 2020. So we are implementing that. We follow the requirements [snorts] of Minnesota statute and what those requirements list out in a water management plan and the role of the WO. There are seven program areas within what the WO implements. Those are listed here. Education, monitoring, permitting, projects, planning, uh, AIS, and, um, administration of the organization. So, um, we have a annual report we do every year. I'm not going to go through that, but I did want to hit on a couple slides, and I've just added these slides since this link, um, I can't manage if I click on it. Um, this is on the website for the public. This is our annual report from 2025. And just some quick highlights [snorts] here. Um, we do monitoring of all the lakes and streams in the WO. This is a photo of Mason Lake near Cologne. Um, it's a really good success story. We managed to over several years keep the carp from migrating there and the lake water quality bounced back kind of amazingly. It's not a public access lake. I I think some folks get on by canoe, but um that water quality just rebounded amazingly. It was listed years ago. There's an article in the Pioneer Press talking about one of the worst lakes in the metro area and um had a big change just from getting those carp out of there. Um another highlight that we like to sort of um promote, we do development review of all the developments in the WMO. Um last year 64 development sites. Those of you that drive around the county know some of these are very large. If you've driven on County Road 11 or 10, you see the scope of some of these developments. Um, one of the features we have, we we really pride ourselves on being flexible with that permitting process. Um, one option for developers is to set aside a conservation easement to meet some of our storm water requirements. We have dozens of these in place around the county that preserve um areas like in this photo um permanently to help meet these storm water requirements and then it ends up being a benefit for those people moving in into those new housing developments. Um projects, we do several projects. A lot of these are funded by state grants, but we do contribute a match from the CCWMO. This is a photo of the new Lyman Bridge that went in um earlier or excuse me last year. We added some funding here to help daylight this creek. It used to be 300 foot of culvert that East Creek went through and we worked on a design for that creek [snorts] under the bridge um instead of you know what origin the early proposals were just box coververts here under the bridge and we managed to work this out so we could daylight this creek which is um a goal here to naturalize these streams. This picture doesn't really do it justice. As vegetation comes in it's going to look [snorts] more natural uh as it you know does today already. And then lastly, just education. Um, we we reach a lot of people every year. Uh, last year we counted about 23,000 um, citizens with direct education impact, whether that's one-on-one or someone that subscribes to our newsletters, our direct mailings, etc. Um, really proud of the effort we do spreading the word about water resources in the county. Um, well, one more grants. Um so we we've been very successful in getting grants from the state. Um we average about a million every two years. So um one of the efforts we've been doing lately is trying to get the goldfish out of uh Big Woods Lake and Hazeline. Um we've seen quite a good response in Hazelton Lake as well with some aquatic vegetation coming in which it hadn't had for years by removing um millions of goldfish literally. >> So for the tax levy uh process, we are here in September. Just the reason I put this up here is to just to let the board know, we do talk to our advisory committee. We we went through a preliminary recommendation with them in May. um subsequently came back to them uh last week actually with an updated recommendation which was reflecting the budget hearing we had with the commissioners and then the delin recommendation from the administrator on the general budget. So that the rest of the process follows the same as the the county overall process. Again, for those uh watching at home, uh this is the coverage of the CCWO about 85% of the county. It is a separate tax levy again guided by Minnesota statute. Um in the water management plan, we talk about that that advalor tax going to capital projects and operations of the W mo including the um portion of the soil and water conservation district. Um this levy um is is again that that coverage area on the map. The other watershed districts have their own levy that their boards adopt um every year. Um, again, one of my favorite slides this year when we look at uh 2026 tax rates compared to those other watershed districts, uh, we happen to be the lowest um of of all the watershed organizations in the county for 2026. Uh, I think this speaks to um what Minister Henzy brought up before that, you know, your predecessors decided to um wrap watershed organization management into Carver County governance, which is different than the way the wershed districts operate. And I think this slide reflects that choice. They were able to keep the rates lower because of that choice. Uh just by comparison, Scott County WO is the only other one in the state that is really true comparison to Carver County and their rate from last year was higher as well as their budget. Uh for reference, the increase from 25 to 26 was uh 61,000 about a six it was a 6% levy increase. And where does this money go? This is a a somewhat general distribution, but it [clears throat] gives you an idea. Um, most of that is towards staff. There's a chunk that goes to the soil and water conservation district to fund help fund their operation. Got about 200,000 a year, give or take, that goes to projects. The AIS piece in 2026 is about 74,000 plus. And then we've got some engineering and other operational expenses. This is where the WO tax dollar goes. Some influences on operations. Obviously, we we follow because the staff is partly funded by the WO, we follow closely what those salary benefit projections are. Um, similar to the county levy, we've got other revenue sources. These are partner funds that are contributed to our budget. um the portion that goes to the stolen water um conservation district impacts our budget as well and that is at three and a half% proposed for 2027 and then the board direction recently um there are impacts from eliminating the AIS inspection funds those get redirected um current in the current proposal they get redirected to um offset staff costs and you know that has some impact on the budget as well so those are some of the influences on WO operational costs Paul, is there what would happen if we shifted our previous conversation dollars associated with AIS to the WMO? Those those levy dollars if they showed up on the WMO budget, is that a possibility? Uh, so the the current proposal is to shift dollars um have the WO pay for some offsetting some of the general levy funds that fund county staff. So that those funds would have to come from somewhere else, you know, as as was discussed, we have to find another >> I'm asking because if there's 114 and some of it can go in the WO levy, is that an option? And what's the pros and cons of that? >> Uh if it was just to be added on that that W levy increase would >> double but you could do it. You could do it. >> You could do it. >> Okay, got it. >> I mean, it's one it's one it's a tax dollar. It doesn't matter which pocket it comes from, but it's not there's not a limitation that we couldn't have it housed within WMO. >> Yeah. Just change the >> the levy increase or we'd have to cut other areas of the W. >> Okay. >> Mr. MC, >> I was going to point out Mr. Chair, Mr. You also need to keep an eye on the taxing jurisdiction. >> The map's a good one because it I I as estimated four-fifths of the county is WO, right? But you uh legally you can't levy funds in the WMO and pay for things in Minneapolis rally >> and but behind the scenes here we've been trying to juggle things right. >> My direction to Nick and Paul has been well let's try and get the general levy >> out of the watershed for >> uh as much as we can and over the years we've whittleled it back back back back. I think there may be some room for some more, but there there are ramifications to that within the within the budget, right? >> Ultimately, but we'll we'll look at that as we move forward up to December. >> Okay. Catch up here. >> Uh so the other revenue sources we get about uh 37,000 or excuse me 75,000 from fee and cost recoveries. That's on our permitting side. We get an annual grant from um board of water soil resources. That's a state agency 37,000. We have partner agreements with city of uh Chaza and lower Miss Lararsa district about 46,000. Um, currently the way the state operates their clean water legacy fund, uh, we get about 700,000 every two years, give or take, and we've been successful [snorts] in implementing that. And then again, just showing the AIS state reduction here um that was cut for 27. So the operational change costs uh really make up most of the levy increase. um increased staff cost portion the WO portion is about 49,000 increase allocation to the so and water conservation district. So we're taking the the WO portion and um as part of the overall budget recommendation is funding the full 20,000 increase to Stone and Water Conservation District next year. And then some operational cost increases which are small but um our education budget hasn't increased for 10 to 12 years. We have a slight increase there. Our monitoring budget has um a slight increase just due to cost. The cost lab cost um all the materials have gone up and um we're trying to capture that. And then we have a slight PDM increase for the advisory committee too. And that's just based on um the PDM itself isn't increasing but the uh we've been over budget there for a couple years. So just wanted to line that up. I want to talk about projects quick. Um the way we um decide our project budget, uh we send out requests to all the cities. Started that in February. Um this year we got two project requests back from cities and then we have some WO projects we're proposing as well. Then we also have this grant match need. I mentioned that you know we got about 700,000 from the state. Every two years we have a 10% required match that comes from the WO. So 70,000 over two years. Quickly on the two requests from the cities, we got requests from Cologne and Wakonia. Um Cologne's request for was for 50% funding on a what's called an iron enhanced sand filter basin. It's for treatment um in downtown Cologne. And this is to solve sort of an ongoing problem they've had um right in their downtown area. And then the city of Wakonia requested some funding for um doing some inline storm water treatment as part of their Sparrow Road reconstruction next year. The CCW Mole projects we're bringing forward uh north of that Lyman Boulevard um part of East Creek going up to Spring Peeper uh that Spring Peeper area of the Arboritum. There's a stretch there that has some erosion issues that we would like to fix. um working with the city of Chaza to try and uh sort of protect um the area we just did under Lyman and then the Big Woods Lake um trying to keep sediment out of there. Eagle Lake curly leaf pondweed treatment. It's part of sort of a this feasibility we've been doing on Eagle Lake trying to look at long-term cleanup doing five years worth of uh treating the curly leaf trying to get it out of there and trying to um increase the um water quality on Eagle Lake. working with uh the city of Wakonia and uh hopefully the school district there too. Uh working on a education piece along a boardwalk that's coming out of a new development um right next to the school there in Waconia partnering with the city again. And then what I'm hoping is the last year or or second to last year of the um SSDS direct discharge fund. We've got a small area of the county left, um, West Chesa Creek, and need a little more money, um, to get us over the finish line there. This has been a, um, what'll be close to a 20-year project getting these direct discharges eliminated in the in the WMO. And again, we're really close. I think need another 20,000 to get that done there. Now, that'll be a huge accomplishment if we can get that all finished. So that project budget, those one I just went over, totals up to about 179,000, which brings um us to kind of the the recommendation here. Increase of $75,555 um from 2026 levy. It's a 7% increase. Approximately 30,000 of that close to that is from tax capacity growth. and annual uh tax impact on an average value home equals $1.76 uh which is a 4.8% increase from or excuse me from 2026 to $37.79 a year. So with that, Mr. Chair and the board, the recommendation to set the 2027 preliminary CCW MO levy at 1,154,914. >> Okay, any questions or a motion? Commissioner Enderman. >> I'll move to approve for the preliminary. >> I'll second. >> Okay. I got a motion, a second. Now, is there any discussion? >> Hearing none. >> I do I do want to just >> Commissioner Anderson re. >> Yes. Thank you, Sher Workman. Um Paul, I just want to thank you. I know that um I've had a lot to learn about water management and watersheds and um I have leaned heavy on on you and your team. So I just want to thank you for this. Um I don't think we talk about um preserving our natural resources as much as we talk about some of the other things in this in this room, but it's really important that the work that you do is is really important. So, I just want to acknowledge that and and thank you. >> Thank you, Commissioner Anderson. There's always more to learn, too. >> I have so much more to learn. >> Yep. And >> Commissioner Fehey, >> Mr. Chair, thank you. Yeah, Paul, I think a great presentation and just continue to do those partnerships that you've created those relationships in these cities, the city of Benton or Benton Lake and the city of Cologne. And I've had quite a few conversations with those individuals. I've been on that lake. I've canoed on that lake. And to see the quality come up is it's amazing. And they're very thankful for the work that you guys have done. >> Thank you. >> All righty. Hearing no other discussion, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. Thanks, Paul. >> Thank you, Mr. All right. Those CDA people have been sitting here >> patiently. >> Patiently. We're going to talk about and pass. Now, this is not a preliminary levy. This is the final [clears throat] CDA 2027 final levy. >> Good afternoon. Although my notes say good morning. Um, and this was supposed to have been delivered by our board chair, Kaylee Hagga, uh, who had to leave for another meeting. I'm Gretchen Oprite, and I serve as a board member, uh, for the CDA. So, thank you, uh, for hearing us this morning, this afternoon. Before we begin today's presentation, I want to thank staff, leadership team, fellow commissioners, community partners, and residents for their continued engagement and support of the Carver County Community Development Agency. The proposed 2027 budget reflects our mission of providing affordable housing opportunities and fostering community and economic development throughout Carver County. It is a budget that balances fiscal responsibility with the growing needs of our communities. As we review the budget today, it's important to remember the breadth of the CDA's work. We currently provide and manage approximately 850 affordable housing units across the county and growing. Support firsttime home ownership opportunities. Support our businesses through next stage and partner with communities on community and development initiatives that strengthen our local tax base and quality of life. The investments reflected in this budget continue a strong record of results through the community growth partnership initiative. CDA funding has helped leverage more than 225 million in public and private investment across Carver County. Our partnerships continue to support housing development, business growth, redevelopment efforts, and entrepreneurial success throughout our region. We have also seen significant progress in expanding housing opportunities. Recent projects such as Carver Place and Carver Oaks have opened their doors while Trails Edge Senior Housing moves closer to construction. At the same time, our community land trust programs continue to help people ac. Most importantly, this budget is about people. It supports residents seeking a safe place to live, communities planning for future growth, seniors wishing to age in place, and businesses creating jobs and opportunity. It represents a continued commitment to ensuring Carver County Carver County remains a place where people can live, work, and thrive. With that, I'd like to thank staff for their work in presenting this budget and invite them to begin today's presentation. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> And apologize to Chair Hagga for us. [laughter] I did see her running around back there. Hard to miss her. >> Um good morning, chair, or good afternoon, chair and commissioners. Allison Strike, executive director for Carver County CDA. Um again, thank you to the board members who are here. Um I also have my director of housing, director of human resources, and director of community development had to run out for another meeting. Um, the CDA's mission is to provide affordable housing opportunities and foster community and economic development. As we prepare for 2027, we remain focused on meeting the needs of residents while being rep uh responsible stewards of public resources. Just a little bit of history about the CDA. Um, we were created in 1980 as a housing and redevelopment authority. We received our first levy pay uh in 1992 for payable 1993 taxes. Um in 2001 we were gr granted economic development authority powers and we changed our name in 2006. Um again our mission is to provide affordable housing opportunities and foster community economic development. As we prepare for 2027, we remain focused on meeting the needs of residents while being responsored responsible stewards of public resources. We are dedicated to strengthening communities by expanding affordable housing opportunities and supporting sustainable community and economic growth through strategic partnerships, innovative programs, and responsible development. We work to enhance the quality of life for residents, create vibrant neighborhoods, and foster a strong local economy that benefits current and future generations. So when we talk about housing afford affordability or housing that's inffort affordable, it is important to recognize that affordability is relative to a household's income. A commonly accepted standard is that households should pay no more than 30% of their income towards their housing costs. Households that spend more than 30% of their income are considered cost burden and households that spend more than 50% are considered severely cost burdened. For example, uh even a household earning $250,000 annually and paying more than half of their income towards their housing cost would be considered cost burden. According to the Minnesota Housing Partnerships 2026 Carver County housing profile, there are 7,627 renter households in Carver County and 43% or 3,156 of those households are considered cost burden. Among homeowners, 19% of the county's 33,548 ho um homeowner households or approximately 6,45 are considered cost burden. Um however, being cost burdened does not necessarily mean a household needs affordable housing. Rather, it indicates the household's current housing costs are too high relative to their income. When organizations such as the CDA talk about affordable housing, we're generally generally talking about housing that is income and or rent restricted. The income levels are determined by the funding sources um and program requirements. Our rental properties serve households ranging from 30% of area median income to 80% of area meeting income. Um and 80% of area median income for Carver County is right now is about 105,000. um with rents structured to be affordable to those households with the same income ranges. Um our community land trust is available for households at or below 80% of area median income. And our down payment assistance program, we go up to 100% of area median income. Um and that's reflecting higher income limits permitted by that funding source. Understanding the distinction between housing that is um affordable to a household and housing that is formally designated as affordable housing helps clarify both the scale of housing challenges in our community um and the specific population served by the CDA. So our community development department we have our community growth partnership initiative was created and funded in 2016. Um the goals are to increase the tax base and improve the quality of life in Kerver County. Um there's four specific strategies. Affordable housing development, job creation, technology assistance is our newest, and redevelopment and community development. And that is done through direct grants to the cities and the townships. To date, we've awarded 67 grants, including $875 in technology assistance, just over $256,000 in planning uh planning or pre-development grants, and just over $2.6 million in community development grants. Projects included uh funded have included zoning and land use studies, small area plans, infrastructure feasibility, redevelopment sites, um industrial parks, and affordable apartments. um funds have leveraged over 225 million uh dollars in our county and 10 of the 11 cities and two of the 10 townships have been funded through the years. Um we continue to support Next Stage and providing businesses with no cost business consultation. Um planning resources include writing a business plan, refining concepts, testing concept feasibility, and compiling uh financial projects. Um, starting business resources include helping select appropriate business entity, licensing, compliance, accounting system support, um, and then also direct financing. Um, and then further services once a business is up and running. So, in just 2026 alone through the end of quarter 2, Next Stage has served 24 clients, provided uh $225,000 in direct loans and leveraging um an additional $943,000. Um and the CDA pays for the cost for next stage to be here. So, it is free for any uh business owner that it serves. Um, our local housing trust fund was established at the end of 2024 to assist nonCDA developers um, creating new affordable housing. We allocated 100,000 in 2024, 32,500 in 2025, and 71,333 in 2026. Um, and then we are currently working on an expansion project of Beyond New Beginnings with um, some of those funds. And then our environmental services partnerships. Um so we've been part partnering with Carver County Environmental Services on two initiatives. The septic and well replacement loan which provides residents with a combination of grants and lowinterest loans. Um for improvements to failing septic systems or wells. Uh this number might be a little bit old. So currently in 2026 we had one loan approved and four applications in process that may be more could be higher now. Um and to date 83 loans have been provided. Um the second most rec recent initiative is the implementations of an organics collection program um for our multif family buildings. So, the CDA supported supported the grant and we're working with environmental services with education and collecting collection at several of our sites um to help implement MPCA's goals for counties with populations of 5,000 or more to implement curbside organics collection by 2030. And then the community land trust um that provides access um to home ownership opportunities for low to moderate income households. ificant 80% of area median income. We ensure permanent affordability by retaining ownership of the land um and removing it from the real estate purchase. So homeowners um must be at or below 80% of area meeting income, receive certification from a home buyer education course, um and be mortgage ready. Um at the time of closing, the land is severed, so the homeowner only needs to take out a mortgage on the home. Uh we currently have 52 land trust homes located throughout Carver County. So they're in Chaza, Cologne, Mayor, Victoria, Wakonia, Watertown, and Chanhassen. Um since its inception, we've served over 86 households. That's through adding new um units to the land trust and resales. And we in the last 12 months, we grew our land trust by 25%. Um we still have one additional um home buyer initiative program household searching. Um and then we wrote grants to Minnesota housing that we'll find out if we're awarded in 2026 to do 10 more home buyer initiative program participants and that's where we find the home buyer. They go and buy find the home and then we bring it into the land trust. Um and then funding for new construction of a twin home. Um just quickly to touch on 25 2050 comp plan resources. So we will be providing comp plan resources to the city again and the county for their 2050 comp plans. Um same information we did for the 2040 comp plans. So we're currently working on updating those resources to have them out by the end of the year. And then Maxfield is currently working on doing an affordable housing study update for each city that they will also have done by the end of the year. And um both Joe from Maxfield and I will be at the city county planners meeting um I think next week to give an update to everybody on that. Um the local affordable housing aid um we signed a professional service agreement with the county in 2025. The CDA is administering 70% of the county's um funding. So, the first round of DPA down payment assistance launched in 2025 that assisted 19 firsttime home buyers. Um, average assistance, so we had 18 households that received 50,000 and one that received 48,000. Average household size was 2.4 persons. Average income was just over 78,000. Average p purchase price was just over 321,000. and average mortgage was just over 263,000. Um, and 47% of those home buyers were current residents at the time. Um, homes were purchased in nine of the 11 cities and the DPA funds leveraged just over $5 million in first mortgage financing. Um, we launched our rental emergency rental assistance program in February and closed that in April. um expended just over 163,000 in funds um to assist households experiencing housing instability in Carver County. Um we administered this program in partnership with Bon Bonaful Basket Food Shelf. We served 64 households, an average household size of three, an average income of just over 31,000 and an average assistance of just under 2500. and the remaining 2024 um funds will be used towards the rehab of the New Germany um the forplex that we bought in the city of New Germany 2025. So, we launched our second round of first-time home buyer DPA. Um, and our first round of firstgen DPA. Um, and we already have 12, so eight standard and first four firstgen reservations. And we have I don't even know, maybe eight people closing, I think, next week. Awesome. >> It's going to be a busy week. Um the multifamily CDA set aside that was again for the purchase and rehab of 110 West 2nd Street and 100 street state streets so in New Germany and Chaza. The multifamily nonCDA is the set aside for developers noncda developers um to apply for funding to towards new construction. Um and I'll have more details on that the next slide. Our senior rehab program um hopefully will launch in October of 2026. Um and we will be um partnering with Rebuilding Together Minnesota. So they will be officing in our office once that program launches. Um and this is designed to help low-income Carver County homeowners age 62 and older or disabled repair vital home systems. Um and the this is to serve households at 50% of area median income or less. So that's currently 46,350 for a household of one and 66,200 for a household of four. Um and that's to allow them to repair replace critical systems in their homes and allow them to successfully age in place. Um the maximum loan amount is 30,000. It's no interest and it's a deferred loan. So a tenth of it is forgiven um over each year. Um, and with that program, our intention is to do a right of first refusal so that when those homes that are on the lower median uh income price in our county uh go for sale, the CDA would have the right of first refusal potentially to either bring them into the land trust or to use them for one of our down payment assistance clients. And then 2026 LAA um just over 3.1 million 1.3 million is going to be used on Trails Edge Senior um again the 10% set aside for the nonCDA multifamily um which will be just over uh just about 610,000. So our intention is to release an RFP later this year for de developers to apply for funding for that. Um, and the remaining funds, we have not made a decision on how those will be allocated yet. Um, just a list of all of our properties, how many units when we built or acquired them. Um, we currently own and manage 846 units throughout the county. Uh, Trails Edge Senior, which we're hoping to break ground on by November 1st, will bring us to 891. And just a map of where everything's located. So, we currently own uh rental housing in 10 of our 11 units and I think as I mentioned in our work session, we're gunning for that 11th city. This is just an update on the CDA project funds. Um so, Carver Place uh that opened in se September 1st of 2025. That building is fully occupied. Uh million dollars for Carver Oak Senior that opened on February 25th. Um, as of yesterday, we had three units left. Um, one of them has somebody who was supposed to move in yesterday but couldn't come due to health issues. And then we have two remaining bash units left and we have a tour today and tomorrow for those last two units. Um, and then Trails Edge Senior, as I mentioned, we're anticipating breaking ground in November. So, there's a little picture for you of Carver Place, 60 units. Um, this project serves households at or below 60% of area median income. That's currently 55,260 for a household of one and 91,560 for a household of six. And then we also have some further income targeting for 50% and 30%. Carver Oaks, um, that's 43 units and that is for seniors 55 and better. This prop property serves 50% of area median income. Um that's currently 46,50 for a household of one and 65,750 for a household of four. Um and then again further income restricting for some households at or below 30% of area median [snorts] income. Trails Edge Senior is basically Carver Oaks just plpped down on another piece of property. So 43 units, same income restrictions. Um really the only difference is we will not have any VASH units at Trill's Edge Senior. We will have nine units of high priority homeless and those will be funded through housing supports and the CAP agency will be the service provider. Our office expansion um so construction is nearing completion. Um we can actually get in through all the doors now and move around. Um, we're hoping to get some the city to come in and do an inspection today for them to sign off on some stuff and then a bunch of us in offices and in cubes are going to be packing up and moving out of our offices and into the new side so that they can re finish the rehab um on what I refer to lovingly refer to as the old side. Um, so just really want to extend a sincere thank you to our staff. They've been super patient living in a construction zone. Um, they are coming to take out the old furniture next week, Monday, and the new furniture is supposed to be delivered September 21st. So, we will be able to have our October board meeting in our new office space. >> And then there will be a party. >> There will be a party. Yes, >> you're all you all be invited. >> But yes, >> we don't get asked out much. Oh, we [laughter] >> um so in accordance with Minnesota statute, we're authorized um to levy special benefit taxes subject to approval from the Carver County Board of Commissioners. Um per the formula statute, we are eligible for a maximum levy of 4,673,196. That would be a 23% increase from our 2023 levy. Um the board approved our 2027 budget at the July 23rd uh board meeting and then we also presented to the county board during a work session on the 28th. So for the 2027 budget we are requesting a levy of 3,931,350 which is a 3.5% levy increase. Um it's $132,944 increase from the 2026 approved levy. The impact on a $58,000 value homeed is a yearly increase of $1.92 or a 16 cent monthly increase for a total of $7267 a year. The proposed increase helps the CDA maintain and expand critical housing and community development programs throughout Kver County. The annual impact to homeowners homeowners remains modest, equating to less than a cup of coffee per month for the average value home. The CDA programs leverage local levy dollars to secure additional state, federal, and private funding, uh, maximizing the county's return or return on the county's investment. Um, the proposed levy continues the CDA's commitment to fiscal responsibility while ensuring that residents have access to safe, affordable, and community development resources. The total 2027 budget for the CDA is 19,841,828 8882 um of which the levy represents 20%. And then funds from that increase would be utilized to offset payroll and benefit costs. Uh this is just showing the 2026 approved levy increase um as opposed to our 2027 request. Uh the levy makes up 20% of our budget. Um our housing makes up 61% and the remaining 19% comes from state, local, um state and local. Okay. So revenue for our budget. Um so you can see the administrative revenue is a decrease and as I explained in the work session um that is because um in reviewing let's see we were able to remove three take three caretaker positions that are part of what we call enterprise chargebacks. So that means the CDA covers the salary and then we charge them back to the property. Um so those are not levy funded positions those are property funded positions. Um and we have cleaning companies at those properties now. So th that cost is strictly running through [snorts] the property budget. Um additionally we will a we were able to review property coverage and remove one property manager position from enterprise chargebacks and still provide the same level of coverage at our properties. Um we looked really closely at all line items in the budget. The positions that we've added or reclassified for this budget include a staff accountant to a property manager to those are both just reclasses and the addition of an executive administrative assistant, a community development specialist to and a director of facilities. With admin not being an eligible use of WAHA, adding another staff member in the community development department is integral as we continue to deploy LAHA funds and work with cities, expand the community land trust, and free up the director of community development to assist in future development of the county. The new director of facilities position is an essential position as we now have 13 properties and 80 scattered sites. Um, and those scattered sites are compromised of town homes, duplexes, forplexes, and single family homes. Um, every property the CDA owns has a five-year capital improvement plan to ensure our buildings are maintained to the highest standard. Every spring, we start the process of reviewing and updating those plans to determine what work needs to occur that year. This is extremely important given the approximate $95 million value of our assets. Um, and additionally, this position is responsible for assisting with down payment assistance, community land trust, and providing valuable input for our new construction. Um, and then um expenses. So, with the addition of the LAA funding as an option to pair with our land trust program, um as outlined in our original five-year projection, we were able to shift um leverage funds to help offset payroll. So, we did this by reducing the land trust funding amount in our 2026 budget um and shifting that into the LAA budget. So, therefore freeing up that money to be used for other stuff. This along with our levy increase allowed us to implement um phase two of our salary study um add in two new positions, recclass two and increase our community growth partnership and local housing trust fund. This is just a history of the CDA levy going back to 2026 um up to showing our 2027 recommendation of 3.5%. So, I just like to take a moment to highlight some key accomplishments and impact of the CDA. Again, we own and manage 848 housing units across 10 of our 11 cities, providing housing for approxim approximately 1500 residents. Collectively, these properties are valued at roughly $95 million. In addition to our housing portfolio, we administer several tenantbased rental assistance programs serving 54 households. These programs include bridges um serving individuals with mental illness, bridges RTC serving the same population but with the additional caveat that the person is uh transitioning transitioning from a regional treatment center back into the community housing trust fund which serves households that are considered high priority homeless and then permanent supportive housing for individuals and families experiencing homelessness and with a disability. We are fortunate to uh partner with Carver County Health and Human Services as our CA uh providing case management for all of those rental assistance programs. Um again, earlier this year, we provided approximately 163,000 in emergency rental assistance, helping 64 households maintain housing stability. Um, our community economic development efforts continue to generate significant impact throughout Carver County. Since its inception, um, we've invested nearly $2.9 million, leveraging more than 225 million in total public and private investment. Through our small business support programs, we help entrepreneurs and local businesses access the re resources they need to start, grow, and succeed. 2026 year-to date, Next Stages served 24 clients, providing 225,000 in direct financing and leveraging an additional 943,000. We also continue to expand home ownership opportunities um last year 19 first-time home buyers received a total of 949,000 in down payment assistance. Um helping make home ownership more attainable and strengthening communities across Carver County. So today before you is the motion to approve the resolution approving the 2027 proposed budget and payable 2027 levy of the Carver County Community Development Agency and certifying said levy to the county auditor. Happy to answer any questions. >> Anybody have a question? Commissioner >> Unman um land cost for for the new develops and new buildings is roughly between 20 and 30% is land cost for when you build a new building. Is that about right >> when we build a new building? >> Yeah. >> Uh well thus far we've been donating the land. So there has been no cost. I mean you certainly could go back and look at what we paid for them. But um like on our proformas there is no cost for land because the CDA is donating them. >> Right. So like when you build car oaks the land portion of that >> there was no land portion. and we donated it to this to the project. So like if you look at our proform there is no land accounted for in the proforma because our agency is donating it. >> Sure. But it had to be acquired at some point, right? >> Yeah. I mean >> and is it customarily between 20 and 30% land for a total build is? >> Yeah. >> Okay. And then the other question I had was what percentage of um people that occupy our new buildings have some presence within Carver County before they before they occupy? is around h half the new residents to these new buildings >> that I would have to look into and get back to you on. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, >> nice job. >> Okay. Anybody else? Commissioner Fee Allison, um, thank you for everything and thank you more importantly from the city of New Germany with that new project there. That's >> that's definitely going to help. We selected a contractor and are moving forward with the windows, the siding and doors and we paved the parking lot. >> I noticed. Good job. And then just a general question on in Cologne on the kind of north side of Benton Lake, we have those or the CDA has those homes in that development. Have you purchased all of those now? I know just from when I was on the CDA board, there was a couple still left. >> Yes. So, there is an 8 unit town home complex. Um they're called Brookidge is the association. Um we have seven of the eight. The last owner is not quite ready to sell and we're not in any rush. Like we're just until they're ready to go. Um we we've been talking with our attorney about whether or not to dissolve the HOA and do a shared wall agreement right now. I think it'll make more sense to just leave the HOA standing until they're ready to sell, but seven of the eight we have. >> Okay. And then definitely looking forward to the tour. Um and then on your map, uh you didn't have a dot yet at New Germany, but I'm assuming the other city is Hamburg, correct? >> Yes, I will add the dot for New Jersey, but yes, that's the last city where we'd like to get something. >> Okay. Thank you, [snorts] Commissioner. lunch. >> Ellison, is there any way that we just about terminology that you could refrain from referring to anyone over 55 as senior? >> Well, we do say 55 and we do say 55 and better. [laughter] >> I'm leaving that 55 in the dust. Commissioner Anderson. >> Oh, Allison, uh, thank you so much for your presentation. And I I'm so grateful to be the liaison and I think actually I thank Commissioner Fehee for for uh for shifting that responsibility to me. So I so I uh I appreciate it. It's it's always a pleasure um working with you and and seeing your team at work and just seeing all the good work that's done. Um, I really appreciate I know that you have a lot of needs and I know that your team um does a lot in um with with the resources we give you. Um, and I just re I appreciate that you this levy increase is is what it is for this year and and um I think it's responsible. I think you're maximizing um what you can do and um I I I'm just so grateful for for all the work you do and for all the people that you serve. Um so I would be happy um to go ahead and make the motion. Do I have to read the whole thing like Oh, thank you for that. I would like to move to approve the resolution approving the 2027 proposed budget and payable 20 2027 levy of the Carver County uh community development agency and certify said levy to the county office. >> Second. >> Okay, I got a motion and a second to approve the CDA levy. I just want to say Allison, thank you and CDA, thank you for the three and a half. That's the nicest sounding word I think I've heard in this room today. And so things are going good. You're inviting us to a party. Your levy's low. The taxpayers are happy. We're housing people. Uh so all good and hats off to you guys. And again, thank the chair for being here. Um that's it. Thank you. >> Let us know about the party. Okay. Okay. Hey, got a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Our final >> Mr. Chair. >> Uh yes, Mr. Commissioner Lynch. >> I would like to make the motion to recess as the county board and convene as the regional rail authority. >> Commissioner Lynch has moved to recess as the county board and convene as the regional rail authority and second by Fehee. Is there any discussion on that motion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. Mr. Robot has been very patient. >> Good afternoon. You have a 25page PowerPoint. No, I'm kidding. [laughter] [snorts] >> Uh hopefully we can keep it quick. Mr. Chair, commissioners. >> Thank you. Today, uh, we'd like to, um, ask your request to consider the administer administrator's recommended Carver County Regional Rail Authority preliminary levy of $267,649. That is 11.4% higher than 27 2027. And that is a total budget of $269,649. So there is a small amount of revenue that comes from leases that comes in the budget. Out of the budget, 169,744 is for staffing. If you recall, that funds a maintenance worker and some sheriff's time. Um the remainder is for stewardship. So that would be just under 100,000. Uh the $27,357 increase is needed mostly for pavement preservation and other stewardships in the corridor, fixing drainage, cutting trees, things like that. Um so the out of that 27,357 25,000 is public works or my asset management folks. We hired a consultant to do some pavement ratings of all our trails in the regional rail and all our trails, not just regional rail trails. And we determined that they're we're a little behind on pavement preservation. So this 27,357 includes 25,000 for pavement preservation needs. And we anticipate we need to up the levy for the regional rail by 25,000 a year until 2031 to keep up with preservation needs. So that's datadriven analysis, but we will revisit that strategy every year. So that gives you a summary of the the ask on the CIP side. If you recall, we have money in reserves in the CIP side. Uh most of that was the sale of of the uh of the UN former Union Pacific Railroad Line. So we got some money through the Met Council acquisition opportunity grant that's in the regional rail budget that pays for the bigger projects. As you know, we've got some bridges to replace on the Dakota Rail, big culverts uh on the uh on the Minowash Min Minnesota River regional trail coming up. So, but those are covered already with with funds. So, we didn't we don't need any more levy for the bigger capital projects. So, that's it in summary, Mr. Chair. So our our recommend our recommended action today is to a motion to approve setting the CC's 2027 prelim tax levy of $267,649 and the 2027 budget of $269,649. Okay. Uh thank you. You know, I was just thinking about those bridges and I was on a trail recently, the Canon River, Cannon Valley River Trail. And so I'm wondering if we're going to people are going to be able to get around the construction. And here's why I asked because when I was on the Canon River, they had a lot of barriers that you could get around that said, "Hey, the trail is closed ahead." Well, we rode the length of it and it definitely wasn't closed and didn't need to be closed. There was a small patch that was uh class five aggregate but and not paved. Uh but uh a lot of warnings about the trail being closed when it really didn't need to be closed. So, um, if we can maybe stay on top of that. It I think I think people actually turned back and we didn't cuz I don't know, we didn't follow the rules, I guess. But, um, >> what? >> We'll make sure our communication staff are on that for our projects. >> You didn't read the sign? >> You bet. >> I I disregarded the sign. It didn't seem uh seem like I needed to heed that. Commissioner Fe, thank [laughter] you. That has always worked out for me when I have done that but I'm glad it worked out for you was lovely. So anyway any uh any questions or motions [snorts] if I could just make a point [clears throat] uh and actually rather Lyndon made this point. So as we look at the three rivers partnership what's your vision of attaching this portion of our business to that partnership you see the and do you see the efficiencies that are possible there? Uh yeah, Dave, our commissioner. Yeah, I mean, sorry, administrator MC. So, yeah, a lot of this funding will be transferred to Three Rivers. Most of the staffing costs, the sheriff will still get his funds for patrol, but the the remainder of the staffing costs will be part of the partnership. [snorts] But yeah, when it comes to projects, um that's something we're working on is the county will still have a big role in planning, prioritizing projects, whether it's on the regional rail or on the rest of our trail system. But when we've come to when we've set our CIP, which will come through the board every year, and we have a we'll have the parks commission bass it, there'll be that new body that's in between a policy committee uh between the two boards. Um, but once those projects are agreed to on both sides, then three rivers will deliver the projects. But there's still going to be a count quite a bit of county staff time involved with that. Obviously, our communications people um there might be times where our project managers get involved on the regional rail side. You know, even our operations staff might help out as needed if there's something that Three Rivers can't get to. So it is a partnership but overall the breadth of their knowledge that they bring to the table and the amount of resources they have should make our project delivery way more efficient because now we had Sam and Marty Marty's retired as you know [snorts] um they were doing all the project management on these projects and all the park buildings and all the park projects as well as managing the parks. So that efficiency should be way better on these projects. So, we should be able to get them done quicker, which means sa saving money because time is money. So, I don't know if that answers your question, Dave. >> Well, and to add to that, uh, Lynon and I have been talking about a vacancy he has. Which position title is it? Your transportation >> Oh, yeah. We do have We are Yeah, thanks Dave. Yeah, we do [snorts] have a uh our transportation planning manager uh Drew. Do you remember Drew? >> He resigned. um not sure what he's doing, but he's he's not here anymore. So, um I'm talking today with we're going to do a reorganization in in my group and we're probably going to create like more of a a planning group. >> Um and that part of that person's responsibility. So, I'm hoping it'll be a little higher position because I think it took me a year and a half just to find Drew and he came from Washington DC. bless his heart, he loved his job, but he he's a really he's an urban planner. You know, he wanted to get back to more urban stuff. Um, but it took a long time to find that position. So hopefully [snorts] what what we're envisioning is a slightly higher level person that will not only do transportation planning development review but will also help this lia be the liaison between the proposed parks manager and all the county planning functions that need to happen for parks and trails. Will this person will assist me in that role? They'll also help manage the regional rail authority which you remember Marty did for the most part. So we're trying to we're creating this group that will provide you know I think more efficiencies on both sides and now we're in the transit game right the current is funding Southwest Prime. So this transit planning I did most of that you know work with with Heather's group which we did the study went well but it's it's worked. So I think there's a need on the transit side. So, we're we're trying to create this group that will not only do transportation planning, but will also help with this partnership, regional rail and transit work. So, that's kind of the vision we're looking at. So, I'm creating the position description now and hopefully if it works, we got to figure out the incremental funding that I need for that. Um, [snorts] and then get the the position rated and hired hopefully in the same time frame. If the board still approves the agreement with Three Rivers, which we want to get done if possible, October 6th, and then implemented by the end of the year, hopefully this planning group can happen at the same time. So, I think it's good timing to help the whole whole vision of parks and trails. >> All right. >> Yeah. >> Just one pardon me. Just one quick question, Lyndon, about the two bridges west of New Germany. >> Y >> as an avid snowmoiler on that snowmobile/biking trip, >> you can ask me about the schedule. >> I don't know. I'll have to get back to you, commissioner. >> Thank you. >> You go. >> You want to know if they're going to be done by winter? >> Correct. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, but I hear it's El Nino. I don't know if they're going to be snowing. That's going to Oh, Lisa, [laughter] >> I'm sorry to be such a >> Yeah. And then tell >> I knew someone would ask that question. >> Mr. Chair, if I could, I'll make a motion to approve settling the Carver County Regional Rail Authorities 2027 preliminary tax levy of 267,649 and the 2027 budget of 269,649. >> Second. >> Okay. Commissioner Lynch has made the motion and Commissioner Anderson has second the uh regional rail levy motion. Any other discussion? >> Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed. Motion passes. Thank you very much. Commissioner Lynch. >> Mr. Chair, I'd like to adjourn as a regional rail authority and reconvene as a county board. >> All right. Commissioner Lynch uh has stated the A4 mentioned motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> And Commissioner Anderson has seconded that motion. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. Those opposed. Motion passes. County administrator report. >> Yes, Mr. Chair. Back on track next week with the 9:00 meeting. Uh, as I thought about the Mariam Mariam Junction uh, ribbon cutting 12:30. Did they reach out to any of you for talk speaking? >> It sounds like uh >> they did I don't recall seeing it. Okay. So, >> yeah, it's common. Uh, >> Ari can help you out with that. >> I did not respond, but Commissioner Pay can do all that. >> Okay. >> I'll just be on my desk. I don't remember seeing it. >> Good. That that's a exciting project. That open. >> It is. Uh, >> that's it, Mr. Chair. All right. Can I get a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion by Udman, second by Anderson to adjourn adjourn this meeting. Any discussion on that hearing? None. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed. Motion passes. Thank you very much.