Alrighty. Good morning and let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge 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. And let's get right into the lower Minnesota River Watershed District presentation on new strategic framework. Good morning. >> Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Uh so I'm Will Lidle. I'm the new uh LMRWD district administrator. I've been in the role about four months and coming in uh from Linda Lumis, the outgoing administrator, and this is your manager. >> Hi, I'm Lauren Salvado. I've been uh the Carver County manager since May or June of 2020. Um so I've been around a while and excited to be here. I cannot believe this is the first inerson meeting I've attended. Apologies. Maybe we can figure out a, you know, reoccurring way for us to kind of touch base. But um anyway, just happy to be here. >> And Lauren, didn't I miss my coffee with you? >> Yes. >> Several weeks ago and which means I now owe you either lunch or dinner. >> So let me know uh which and uh but my apologies. I don't know what happened and so but happens a couple of times a year and unfortunately with you. Thanks. >> And I'm going to mention so our watershed district was established maybe the next slide shows a little bit but we touch five counties and our board of managers um are appointed by the counties and so manager Salvado is your uh representative and her background is in watershed. So you have an unusually good representative who both has uh experience with the district as well as rivers at large. Could you just describe your professional capacity? >> Um, so my job is I run the water quality program for the upper Mississippi River Basin Association. We were formed by the governors of the five states. So that's Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. And we work on the river um on that inner state corridor kind of balancing all the various uses of the river system. Um, and so yeah, the Minnesota River wershed in particular, the navigable part kind of overlaps with my role. Um, and yeah, I've been doing that role, which is the reason I actually came to Minnesota in the first place since 2018. So, it's really nice to be at a regional scale and then come down to just local watershed scale um, a couple blocks from my house. >> And I'm relatively new to Minnesota, so this is partially, you know, part of the presentation is just introducing myself. Our office is down the street. um and we utilize this room. So, thank you very much for being uh hospitable uh hosts. Um my background is in ecology a little bit forest products industry. I did a PhD in environmental energy policy studying the food energy water nexus. So, thinking about um the water that's embedded in our food or our clothing or our fuel and the way that those systems interact with each other. um in in the US. Um I worked a little bit in agriculture um as a director of research uh and sustainability for some commodity groups. And so as I uh came to Minnesota about two years ago, I have a consulting business. Everybody at our watershed district are contractors. We don't have any staff. So we're all 1099s, which creates an interesting dynamic. Um but so my my background really understands the upstream and downstream ways that this watershed exists. So it's a very very complex and interesting place to be. So created in the 1960s, essentially this watershed district is pretty much a joint powers agreement between these five counties in order to interact with the federal government to do dredging and to man manage a a shipping lane, especially for um you know the the port of Savage, but also there is a small channel that's supposed to be maintained um up to into Carver County uh up into Carver or Chaza I believe. And um kind of after that designation came the watershed district. So we have a dual mission which is unusual. So we're not really the shape of a normal watershed. We're not really scientifically a watershed. We're like a hot dog bun around the river. Um we really represent the flood plane. >> Um and so we have this interesting dynamic. We have this dual mission. One is navigation and shipping which you know you could say has uh national security implications. And the other is water quality and water quantity. Unfortunately, we're only funded um using tr conventional watershed methods which means our boundary which is mostly flood plane is where we draw our revenue from um and and then we end up splitting that money to do this kind of mixture uh dual missions. So our core responsibilities are the, you know, the things that, you know, you'd normally see coordinating with local government, flood prevention, erosion control. We handle a lot of permitting, um, and and coordinate permitting, uh, with a variety of federal, state, uh, and municipal groups, county groups, um, for public and private partners, uh, kind of throughout the the basin that we touch here. >> Mr. Mr. Chair, if I could, Will, you mentioned that uh a channel to Chaza. Do you know what the product was? Was it bricks to be shipped? Why why was the channel maintained to Chaza? >> So, I think based off of statute, we're supposed to maintain a 9- foot navigational channel to Savage and then it's a 4ft navigational channel >> to Chaza >> to Chaza. And I don't know the reason. I'm not sure if it was an intention that at some point there would be a port added there as well or if it was an existing business that you know >> okay >> required that >> and and did that happen? Do we have a channel dessa? >> I believe that you I I don't think that it's being dredged right now but I believe that it could be. So there are two types of dredging that happen right now. There's the federal government, the Army Corps of Engineers. They go out and do soundings and they dredge from the main uh shipping channel and then there's private dredging that happens slips like the you know port of Cargill or CHS. Um so the private dredging is kind of associated with their land and so I believe the Army Corps of Engineers could dredge up thus far but has not maintained it without you know a clear beneficiary of that. But I think it is possible. And then an unusual thing is we receive the dredge materials on a dredge site. It's for some reason very difficult to receive dredge materials. >> And so we're kind of that again that joint powers group that can take them um and then find beneficial uses for them. >> So currently there isn't a clear beneficiary for >> for >> for a port. Got it. >> Yeah. >> Okay. But one thing one thing we're we're approaching our next watershed management plan that's supposed to have a 10-year lifespan. Um our board is very interested in thinking about making sure that this plan, you know, what we set in place for this next 10 years drives that next 100 or 150 years of, you know, food security, economic development. And so we've been discussing the need for port authorities. So even though there is the port of Savage, there's no port authority. So there's no economic development arm. you know, what does it look like for Carver and Chaza in the long term rather than what what's been in place? Um, so that maybe it's hard to know what what that outcome is, but we recognize that, you know, there aren't new there aren't a lot of new ports or new shipping lanes that are being constructed and yet it's going to be very important for, you know, the rest of humanity to be able to move and transport materials efficiently. >> Okay. Thank you. So this is uh this map is a good kind of problem statement. In addition to you know some of those complexities that we just mentioned with our mission particularly the Minnesota River has essentially been utilized as a utility corridor um and not you know not necessarily managed as a recreational or a food source or um you know a water that people can interact with. A lot of pipelines underneath it. Um a lot of industry has taken place historically on the shores. Um and of course um major development happening in terms of uh housing and wastewater treatment plants. But um most most obviously based off of the data is the agricultural impacts coming from upstream sources of nitrogen and phosphorus um that put our watershed um and that that namesake river in the red substantially. Also sediment is another thing that comes down. So in our case both water quantity and quality are concerns. The way uh flooding is affected and the way nutrients and sediment are transported. It's not really originating from our district because our district is just that that hot dog bun. So almost everything that we receive is coming from somewhere else. And um that really shapes our you know I would say our district is not unique in it totally unique in its challenges. Um but because the way we're funded and where we're located in the river, we're kind of an early indicator um of issues associated with um you know that we don't have the capacity or we can't necessarily deal with all of these issues no matter what our budget would be. Um there would always be challenges coming down the river towards us. And so our our board um has adopted, you know, it's it's kind of in between maybe a challenge statement and an opportunity recognizing that we've kind of struggled to make the Minnesota River um you know was Ernie Carlson in the early 90s set the challenge of making the river swimmable and fishable. And we may be further from that goal than we were in the '9s. We have not certainly not succeeded in it. Even though people are fishing and swimming in the river, >> which is a little scary to be honest. >> Yeah. And you know, so we see uh heightened levels of subsistence fishing. You know, of course, there are always going to be kids jumping off the Dan Patch Bridge regardless of how dirty the water is. Um so people are still interacting with the water. Um but I would say by by most measures, the water quality is is worse. Um and so um our board president kind of drafted this this the river will not wait statement and it doesn't really say exactly what the solution is uh but it outlines the problems and being much broader than just our watershed district. This is for the whole state. This may be for the whole country. Um and it it highlights these six points um that we need to think systemwide not project by project. That we need to make every decision count. Um, and that could be every household, that could be every planner or every city, could be every county. Um, setting goals that we can measure and enforce. It's surprising even though we do have a watershed management plan and it has goals in it, they're not necessarily all things that um, you know, whether you've achieved or that you're measuring progress against. And so some of some of our goals need to be aspirational and other ones, you know, really should be tied to data. And unfortunately that's even though it may be technologically possible that's not the way that wersheds have been managed up until this point. Um building regional governance and accountability. Um the watershed districts and the water management organizations they're not they're not symmetrical all across the state. There are little pockets. Um some counties you know get up to the river and just touch the river. And so the sooner they get their their um you know storm water or waste water to the river, the sooner it's not their problem. Some of them cross the river. Um some of them uh you know span like a a very diverse set of watersheds. And so it really creates some difficulties in understanding what is fair governance. Um funding the future fairly. Right now, we use a very regressive, not just for our watershed, but for many, really regressive model um of using property taxes to fund some of these projects that may not um you know, for our district, we don't have that many people that live in our district because it's the flood plane. So, um and yet our problems are large. So if we tax those people and we decide to send money upstream to make the biggest impact um that doesn't feel fair to our residents and it's probably not appropriate when the issues we're receiving are kind of coming down from you know the macroeconomic forces of how agricultures run or how you know price the price for corn that year uh will affect how many corn acres go in, how much drain tile goes in, how much nitrogen and phosphorus end up in the river. Um and so you know what are what are more um effective ways to fund um projects that need to be done and then leaving a legacy worthy of the river. Um recognizing that this is a significant river both in name and volume and location and we understand the historical uses of the the importance of industry in developing this region and yet also that we can do better. you know what's the best case scenario for the river not just what are you know what have we inherited and what are the challenges >> can I add something real quick >> so actually just recently and this is not in our river so the Chicago river they opened up a swimming lane >> which is huge feat um they had those same goals and aspirations so I guess I want to say it can be done um I actually interned for the metropolitan water reclamation district of greater Chicago when I was in graduate school and my first day we actually grabbed sediment from Bubbly Creek, which in name maybe says a lot, but basically the sediment was so contaminated it would just come up to the surface and bubble. It was really disgusting and only carp can live there. Um, so really really poor oxygen conditions and you can hardly see, no clarity of water. Um, so my first day we have an Ecman dredge which is basically like a excavator down to grab the splash all over my face and arm and body. It was disgusting. But I think to get from that point to the fact that someone can actually swim in the river and dunk their head in it and it's safe is really exciting. And so if we kind of keep that long range vision in mind, I think we can get there too with the Minnesota. But >> because I'm relatively new to the region and to the role of watershed administration, it's been interesting to hear these kind of different contrasting opinions about how things can be done or what can be done. So, I had a meeting with Lassour County and their soil and water conservation district feels so understaffed that even if they were to receive a multi-million dollar grant, they could restore maybe one gully a year, recognizing that maybe dozens of new gullies are being formed. And they said we don't receive big grants every year. And so their opinion was it took 200 years to create this these problems. It will take over 200 years to solve them. On the other side we see in France the Olympics were coming and so the Seen River um within I think two years went from unswimable. They had a ban on any interaction with the river for a hundred years and within two years they made the river swimmable for the Olympics. And so of course money is a factor but also political will to change the outcomes which means there will be more party boats. It means there will be more music. There will be more food. there will be more people, you know, generating a positive uh economic outcome for all the communities that touch the river based off of that change. You know, the river water waterfront property is a tremendous asset and if we didn't have water, we would dream about the ability to have a port or to have access to it. Um and so, you know, thinking about how we, you know, prioritize our actions in order to to make a large impact is um the stage we're at in our planning process, the visioning stage. So what it looks like um or how how we could interact in the future. These are these are more maybe staff level interactions. We don't need to go into them in too much detail. I think I think essentially we're in the phase of what's the best case scenario for the river and it doesn't necessarily mean that our wershed gets more money or that your watershed um I think we're open to how to how to redefine success and then how to fund it and and make it happen. So maybe the only thing I can really put a a tangible line on in this would be um this uh funding models but also paired with uh measurement models and what it comes down to is we know that we need to take a whole basinwide approach from all the way from South Dakota to here and what is the scientific model that will allow us to understand cumulative impacts that is fair for farmers that's fair for you know wastewater treatment plants for for groups that are taking water into or out of the river. And if we can identify, you know, an open-source um and open access model that we can share the data from, you know, we're hoping that the watershed districts and water management organizations can interact with that model and then we can build interventions on top of that uh basic understanding. So, where can we um you know put money and have the the greatest impact? One of my concerns and you know I probably shouldn't be in public record. One of my concerns is that if you were to increase our budget, um let's say we had a billion dollars with our base with with our approach to funding projects, I'm not sure that we would succeed because the approach is kind of severed from you know where the the problems are coming from and we really need to realign um you know the the way that funding gets spent and I think a big portion of that is going to be um pairing uh you know market-based approaches and public private partnerships where you know the farmers uh can adopt best management practices and that'll be supported by regenerative agriculture programs from Cargill. Um we can identify either green port, green airport and consumers can help fund you know best management practice security food sovereignty rather than just a couple of people getting taxed even though they're generating um you know the products the food and the fuel and the fiber that is you know clothing and feeding the rest of the world. How do we make sure that the money returns to the basin, the farmers in the basin um and and generate interventions using that money rather than creating regulatory obstacles to you know their their their lifeways? Yeah, we are um we're a joint you know joint powers agreement essentially is how we got kicked off. Uh but in statute there are really specific requirements of watershed districts. Um and so you know we're we're a we're an LGU but we interact with several other LGUs in a variety of ways. So all of our information of course uh follows the same you know open open meeting uh acts and practices and standards. Um and we would like to ensure that we're generating the data and the methods that um are going to be scalable uh for for future river management. That covers more than enough information from us. We are um I think in about two months we have a planning meeting to kick off our next watershed management plan cycle. And uh we're accepting of course vision vision comments uh up until that and then after that there will be more direct uh you know stakeholder engagement regarding you know details of of past and future plans. Board members I know I have some comments. I um I know I I look young. Thank you. Uh, and I was there when Governor Carlson said what he said and I kind of chuckled. Uh, I grew up in this river. Well, not so much in it in it. I was in the bun. Uh, and I've had the opportunity to canoe this and with my daughters and probably stay overnight illegally on warm sand bars and learn a little bit about the history. And the history is a 12,000year story of Lake Agassy busting open and creating the river Warren, which is the Minnesota River Valley. And it happened really fast. So only 12,000 years ago, that river wasn't even there. Seems seems incredible. But the geology of the thing is um even a light misting rain and that fine I'll call it silica uh goes in into the river. I'm assuming you're not talking about cleaning that up because Father Henipin said it was a dirty, murky river when he saw it. And it and it so I I the chuckle part is the swimmable. Anything is swimmable. Jello is swimmable. Um, uh, I would go to Minawashta Beach and swim in that beautiful park, Baylor. Um, Lake Wakonia. I The last place I would want to swim is in this river. I don't know what's under there. I don't if you saw the log jam by our new uh, uh, bridge under construction by Carver. Huge. Um um I know a lot of people who fish it, but So when we're talking about water quality, you're you're talking about what the chemicals are in this thing, I'm assuming. >> Yeah. And one thing to mention here is that our historic plans and the MPCA and Bowser, the state agency that kind of governs us, they do have specific, you know, recommendations or limits to certain types of chemicals that would put you from that green to orange to red. And traditionally they're looking at nitrogen and phosphorus. What they're not really testing for yet that the public would be concerned with is uh pharmaceuticals in the water, microplastics, POS. So those are, I think, emerging pollutants of concern that might make you say like, hold on, is this, you know, not just am I am I going to um, you know, feel like the water's dirty, but like will I get cancer or will like can I eat these fish without sacrificing my grandchildren's, you know, uh, future. Those questions I think th those topics of pharmaceuticals, um, POS and microplastics, those are the questions of this, you know, maybe this decade. There will be new toxins and new practices over the next hundred years. We're going to have to have a process where we're continually evaluating what is safe to interact with. And right now we're a little bit behind and so the testing is a little bit behind and there is no enforcement. There's no monitoring and so it's really a question mark. Um I agree that there's absolutely it's it's going to be there's going to be sediment in the river. Um, but is the sediment, you know, how dangerous is it? And that's that's still a question mark. >> But I think as you know, excuse me, um, there are fish consumption advisories on the river now. So PCBs, mercury, and the fish. So they're already not safe to consume. And that's from sediment that was deposited decades prior. Um, we do know that Lake Pepin, which is on the Mississippi floor, Lake City, Minnesota, is filling up way faster. And I think the estimate was in about 50 years it'll be completely built. Um, now we're sort of counteracting that with dredging and things like that, but the lake is changing way quicker and way faster with our land use practices. >> It's it's filling with sediment. >> Okay. Well, and that's what I'm kind of trying to get to is how uh what was the 35ount organization back 20 years ago? Um there were a lot of meetings uh >> the authority is that pardon me. >> There was a Minnesota River Basin, >> right? Um and a lot of money went into it. I'm not sure. I mean, when you're talking about nitrogen and nitrates, you're talking about farmers mostly, aren't you? And then I know Governor Dayton with the setbacks for the for the ditches um which was a huge thing. I mean the state has been buying the river bottoms um not now I'm even out of my mind on what that fund is. Um, but it this is a wild crazy river that doesn't always want to stay in its banks and so that's why they've been trying to buy the land. Um, and and keep it from being farmed. So, um, >> I think right now we have the data that supports the impact of agriculture. So, that's the hot button issue, but there are other impacts that we're just not testing for. And so, there are question marks. So I think you know I don't want to overstate that agriculture is the only reason that water quality is is an issue. Like you mentioned a light misting of rain. Um there is more drain tile now. The water is going from the field or wherever it lands into the river faster which is exacerbating flooding. And it's not just farmers. There is you know the water is getting to the river faster. And and a lot of the incentives are the faster you get the water to the river the sooner it's not your problem. And because of where we are positioned, we see the problem. You know, uh lots of you know, bridge issues, the damning at Miriam Junction, um we keep putting in monitoring for uh velocity and uh and turppidity and a number of things. They keep getting washed out kind of no matter where they're placed, which affects flood forecasting. And so we're kind of in this cycle of um at some point we're going to have to identify a way to link the the impacts with the cost of managing the river. And right now those are not linked which is you know one of the challenges no matter how you rebuild the program if those ar if those costs aren't linked then there's going to be a mismatch >> and remember they're always biting at Lake Costco. All right. >> I think you guys' job is immense and most people don't know what you do. So thanks for some of the education. You're steeped in it. It's not unlike us at the board level. Right. This place isn't full of people um interested in what you have to say but it's very important. Um, I'm interested next time you come back, uh, the five goals that you guys or six goals that you guys set out, you talked about one of them being set goals that you can measure and enforce. It'll be interesting as this evolves what what those are because there can be really big things. Like Commissioner Workman said, you want to swim in it, go swim in it, right? You could have done that when Arie mentioned that, but what does that what does that mean? Um, and then just to peique my curiosity while you're here, Commissioner Workman said, I'm fascinated as I see Miriam Junction come to life. How do we get rid of the log jam in an ecological way that's now that we have two pillars there and we'll have a bridge over it soon. Is that in your responsibility? Is it ours? How does how does how do those logs keep moving? >> Yeah, this is a great great topic. So, uh I interviewed for the job in April and before the interview, I put my kayak in and kayaked up just to see the river a little bit to get in the right mindset. And I went under the temporary construction bridge and I thought, man, this is really close to the water level. you know, it's been a dry spring. I was like, uhoh, this better be out of here soon. Well, it, you know, it didn't get out soon. The posts were left in. Um, so as I moved into the role, I kept visiting that site just to see what was happening. Um, and as the log jam formed, essentially the red tape, the the overlaps of all of these organizations flooding, then people have to be pulled off the river, so they can't work on it. And so, um, you know, what I would say maybe the role of the project manager and the construction company, they viewed it as they're not allowed on the river, so that's no longer their liability. We would view it's absolutely their liability. So then we look at, you know, who who's permitting the project. Long story short, Scott County is very political and essentially things like, you know, what's your contingency plan? What what do you do in the worst case scenario? There are requirements of where those things need to be filed. We've been sending a lot of memos and emails all over the place saying what's your plan for if the water level goes up or if upstream somebody's clearing out their their bridge and they cut more logs and they come down. There are many ways that the situation could get worse and essentially there were no there were no plans. There was no financial assurance even though there had been kind of check boxes for it. And so it's difficult for us, you know, we they they they checked two boxes that we needed to look at which was like erosion control, sediment control and interaction with the flood plane. And they had put up sediment, you know, filters, but once it's flooding, then it's an emergency situation. So those rules go out the window. So what we're realizing is we need to upgrade our rules to be more holistic and to have some teeth and to be able to say like we need to go in and deal with this situation right now and we have the money to do that to prevent an emergency rather than you know let's say um what our concern was is if that log jam you know completed there could be a swirl of water next to levy um in in Carver and you could lose the levy. And so right now um not just our wershed district but the agencies that we interact with didn't really have a proactive way to deal with that. So we need to upgrade our rules so that we can upgrade our permit review process so that we can create enforcement mechanisms based off of it. So they checked all the boxes but the boxes that they were checking are just not good enough. >> So we got a log jam. It sounds like it's going to cost us more money if we delay because they can't do their project. It might cost us a levy. I'm not trying to be extreme. Who's responsible for busting up the log jam? And I'm not saying you're responsible. >> The company. The company is. Okay. And and they should theoretically have the financial assurance set aside to deal with deal with it either way. >> Well, I think there techn technically there are a number of ways that they could deal with it and we have given them recommendations. >> At this current current situation, we don't have the ability to just move in and take over the management of it though. Well, so back to my old history. Um, my mother grew up in Carver. I was baptized in Carver. There has always been logs on this spot. >> Yeah. >> Um, I don't know. I still don't know where the car Maybe Molen knows where where's the Carver Rapids, but it was a shallow area. That's that's the reason they couldn't get up further because of the Carver Rapids. and I say this is the spot. So, it's a bend in the river and it's shallow and logs are always there and it might take till the next flood to get them the heck out of there. So, I don't I don't know what the the the bike bridge project did to change any of that. The history is that's where these logs always were and it really got big and ugly this year. the the >> the eventual project of the pedestrian bridge met all of the design standards of 150year flood. The issue was is the temporary construction bridge that set up um >> some causeways and a temporary bridge and when they pulled off the flooding they left the post of the temporary bridge and the causeway. So it it definitely exacerbated the issue, but you were correct. When we go back on satellite imagery, we can see this is a log jam spot. And so we would say we need a long-term management plan. Whose job is it to go clear out logs at what time, you know, in order to avoid a worse situation doesn't mean no logs ever, recognizing this is the spot they'll collect, but whose job is it? And that stuff has not been identified yet, which is, you know, surprising when you say this is how it's happened for the last hundred years. We got logs here. >> We're having lunch at Harvey's >> in car >> and then you can see it. >> All right, commissioner or >> commissioner Anderson. >> So, well, welcome. Thanks for coming. And um as you know, I I'm the liazison for the the watershed district and thank you u manager Savano for being here as well. A couple of things. Um I think river quality or water quality is is super important. Um but it does sound like a scope increase and um from what the original um intent was of the lower Minnesota River wershed and I I I've been in um in business long enough to know that scope increase often means cost increase. So what is the financial impact to Carver County for this type of scope increase? Yeah, I would say what we're what we're really seeing is we've inherited from statute these two scopes and neither of them have been well funded or managed. And so we have this tremendous deferred budget requirement. And even if we were to increase our levy exponentially, we still wouldn't be able to fund it effectively because of our our basin is constrained by areas that are not buildable. you know, we don't have a bunch of really wealthy people living in our district. Um, it should be federal. So, I think that that um we're probably more of in the process of identifying what's the best case scenario for funding the mission. And it may look like certain aspects we either you know delegate or we cooperate on and certain things we need to you know really uh institutionalize within our own you know administrative framework. And the question is is what should be in and what should be out what should be cooperatively funded? It should be, you know, what do we bond for versus in some cases, um, you know, the impacts of planning from previous generations. You know, you build right up to a bluff and so there's erosion as houses, you know, the roofs are draining. And so in some cases, you might um say, well, let's buy that ravine so that we can put in drain tile to deal with mitigate that risk. And the other side would say, well, that that erosion was created by those houses. they should be liable for the impact they're creating. And right now we've got both things going. So we're buying land that is being degraded based off of public I mean public funds uh you know to kind of subsidize uh impacts coming from private development and in other cases it's the opposite. Nobody owns it really and so it's just like let go. Um so so I think yeah >> yeah um and I think other ways that we can look at say federal grants and things like that like even just recently um in my position saw Mississippi River basin fund to basically address nutrients um and I sent it to Lassour for the one watershed one planning the lower Minnesota east and unfortunately we all felt like we didn't have the capacity to apply for the grant so there is this balance of right? Being able to even use external dollars to grow and like keeping all of that in check. And so we're certainly aware of we're not trying to levy more money. We want to think about it holistically, but there is certainly a balance to all of that. I guess >> well and and I think that's one of my other questions is how are we working with other wershed districts? I mean, where is there overlap and you because this is like you said a hot dog bun and Carver County has a very small portion of this. So, what from a governance standpoint, how are you working with other watershed districts uh it for this project? >> Yeah, I I would say how we have worked with other governments is we have I think joint powers agreements with every other unit and we share permitting. So, uh, you know, cities can do their own review so that, you know, it's a little bit more streamlined. Um, we cover public we we cover review of for public entities at no cost. And so sometimes as we grow, um, we're not necessarily double dipping. We're not being we're not charging taxpayer money as well as getting money from the cities to do permit review or oversight. Um, which also limits our budget because we can't charge for services. The way we've done it in the past has been very cooperative but um I would say low impact. I think the way that we need to do it in the future is to recognize that supply shed um of where things are being produced um and tying on things like water quality and quantity credits to products that are being sold. You know, so General Mills buys a premium product from Cargill, which pays a farmer instead of putting in a drain tile, maybe they do uh, you know, they store flood water, or maybe they add beavers to their landscape. It's not that we want to control every decision that's being made. It's that we want to say, um, you know, here's your budget for water discharge, and you can either pay for, you know, water discharge or here are some other options. And depending on how productive your site is, you might choose this option. You know, maybe you'll make a bunch of money growing corn or maybe you could make just as much money adding beavers and then General Mills can sell a a water friendly breakfast cereal. >> So monetizing. >> And I could just add one more thing too. Um that same federal grant opportunity. Um I went ahead and sent all of it to our upstream water Minnesota. And um for me it was important to at least introduce the idea, let them know there are other funding sources out there and then see how maybe we could support the grant writing piece of that. Um again, capacity unfortunately. Um but as a board member in Carver, I want to see us working with upstream watershed districts um and even potentially putting in money for projects because we're going to have that downstream benefit. But at its face, it's awkward, right? It's local taxpayer dollars going upstream, but given our hot dog bun, we kind of have to because otherwise we might have in another 50 years another um Eden Prairie um area three, if you all have heard of that, we have a $5.5 million project to stabilize the bluff in Eden Prairie so that we don't lose houses. And so I'm I'm afraid if we keep going the status quo as Will has been saying that we're just going to keep fixing fixing fixing within the district which is not the best use of taxpayer dollars. So it it's again a balance and something that we as a board and the staff need to kind of figure out what that approach is for the next 10 years and beyond. >> Yeah. And and I think that that scientific model of you know can we apply you know there are huck huck 8 and huck 12 districts for watersheds. Can we apply a scientific model to reduce some of the redundancies we have in staffing? You know, so you know, the the mapping people can be used throughout the basin rather than each district having their own mapping person. You know, where is there opportunities for improving workflow, automation, efficiency and then increasing capacities in the areas that benefit everybody, you know, strategically. And so we don't want to bring in a bunch of consultants to do the same thing that your WO is doing. How do we ensure that we're not duplicating efforts or having redundancies? >> So, I think that that's that's one of the things I've been struggling with since I've watching this and and manager Savano knows how out of my element this is, right? So, we've had conversations, Will and you and I have had conversations with me trying to to to better understand um but this board, the watershed board is very Henipin County focused. Henipin County has more members. It has a very vocal um chairperson and so it feels like a lot of resources are going in that direction and I'm quite frankly it's my fiscal responsibility to ask what is the benefit to Carver County. Yeah, that's it's a great question and I think that there are we we're existing, you know, mix between urban and rural and suburb, you know, growing suburban regions. We have industry, we have ecology and environmental issues. We have this really important national security trade element. You know, uh the port of Savage was used to create warships. it brings in, you know, wind turbine, uh, blades. And so thinking about what the situation is now versus what it needs to be, what's the structure we need for the next hundred years as Carver grows or its boundaries change or its capacity changes. Um, the the situation with uh the way the members are set up is essentially Ramsay County, every county had one seat and Ramsey County didn't have any uh residents. So in in the way the statute is set up, you can only appoint somebody if they live within the district. So Ramsey County has Landon, but there are no houses. So they gave their seat to Henipin because they had shared viewpoints. So Henipin has two seats because one of them's really from Ramsey. Um I think there are many ways to deal with this issue. We could we don't have to have just five members. We could have six members or seven members of our board. They're pretty much volunteers. They're paid a small stipen. I would prefer having more members that can advocate and you know share meetings and we can maintain quorum. Um we could also ask Ramsay to put some houses in so that they could each county could have one vote. Essentially though the way the statute set up is that you know you only get a vote based off of you only get a seat if you know you appoint a manager. So, um, Scott County has there's a lot of conflict here because when the district was set up, Scott County had a lot of land and that land has developed and they have the port and so they would like another seat on the board and they would like to take it from Henipin. The statute is not written that clearly. The the seat that is the extra seat that's held by Henipin is not even though you can only represent the district if you're within the the district, you're supposed to represent your entire county. And so it's the bound, you know, you have a conflict set up in terms of the way the statute is written. So Scott has an understandable viewpoint as does Henipin. And so we could either say each county gets one vote or we could say uh let's reset our managers and have it you know based off of population or land area or um you know taxing capacity. I'm I'm fine with either of those. Also, we could figure out a different situation. Um I think the question is what's the best formation for the next hundred years rather than what's the best formation for the next two to three years of political jockeying. Um right and and that's that's really what we need to figure out. >> Well and I get that and um the governance issues have um very much overshadowed this the work of this board and so that that is something that I would strongly encourage your board chair to um pay more attention to. But I go back to what is the benefit of this watershed, this lower Minnesota watershed to Carver County because we really need to answer that question. >> Yeah. >> Because we're putting resources into this as well. >> A big a big portion is our our permitting uh structure and inspection and review structure. And so when we're doing permit reviews for for you, uh it essentially comes in free and we don't get a charge back. And so for both private and public uh permits and so the way we execute those is it has very close price par. So if you were to extend your let's say we were to dissolve and you were to extend your WMO into you know parts of the the county that our district now covers the cost for residents in that area I think would go up. So we are charging less than um than you would expect for the services. Essentially though, we we're what we think is in the future, we need the Cadillac permitting and inspection enforcement services. And essentially, for the last 30 years, we've only been paying for the bicycle. And so, how do how to fund those so that the services are are what your county desires is something we need to understand. And it and it could be working more closely to send money back into your WO. I think those are those are totally open to those. If I can add just one more thing too and this is again for for my professional job working in the upper Mississippi River Basin. Um the reason that my organization was founded by the governors is because a few different things. One, they realized that they were fighting across this shared water body. Um and everyone's authority only goes up to a certain point, right? They were just fighting and spending all this time fighting and they realized that together on a consensus based issue is that we can work together better. And so my organization is the eyes and ears of the Mississippi River and sort of extends that state's capacity to do more and we catalyze efforts through the federal government too. So I think if you could kind of bring that down, we are the eyes and ears for the Minnesota River. You may not have the capacity in the car in Carver County right now to protect the Minnesota River and Scott may not either. And so we are extension of that and and I think it's really important sometimes to keep those things in mind. At least that's why my organization exists and has been existence for over 40 years. But um we're we want to be value added. U my organization certainly serves that. I feel like the lower min does a lot of great things too and so we want to make sure we're value added for for the county and if there's ways that we can do better let's have that conversation. Well, and and I do think we need to have that. And I know L um I'm sorry, Major Sono, you've done um a really really nice job um on this board and and looking at water quality. Uh, and I do think we do need to have a conversation about the cost benefit for Carver County um, in staying in this district versus other watershed districts um, and and looking at what that looks like in the future. And I think that's a that's an ongoing conversation. >> Mr. Chair, Mr. Hy, if >> I could follow up, uh, thank you for coming in by the way. You're pretty under the radar. Uh but this this change in scope has put you on the radar. Quite frankly, I'm hearing uh some pretty loud concerns from Scott County in particular about since they are more directly impacted and of course your your main mission is dredging the channel and that has a big impact on them. But you know what I would encourage is uh make sure you're listening closely to the counties. I think the the uh the issues governance broader, right? And what I'm hearing from the counties is we need to revisit that. You know, that that uh to me it shouldn't be driven by and thank you for being on the boards of manager, but shouldn't be driven by this agency. It should be driven by the counties and uh and that's always a difficult thing to to go through and but I'm what what I'm concerned about is I'm seeing some sort of blocking and stopping and redirecting versus listening. And I think it's really critical at this stage and we will be working with those counties and coming back to this board and others and talking about the various options. So I think it's really important because you know you're talking about a much different uh scope than than has ever been talked about. Uh and you know you just one little piece right critical but I sort of question you know that one little piece driving the scope and then how how do counties interact and interplay in that? And I think there may be a much better model that at least we should all be aware of and talk about. So, if we're we'll bring it back to the board. Uh Nick Kavi and Paul Molen that are sitting in the audience. Make sure you get to know them a little bit if you haven't. Uh it's it's really complicated options >> uh that we're assessing right now. But it's really important to listen to these county board members and their thoughts and desires because they'll they'll potentially be the decision makers depending on which uh angle is taken. And and will I do have to just say um you know you have really kind of stepped up and come into this role eyes wide open and I I do appreciate that and I do appreciate um your level of expertise in this matter and um but but really do need to to look at working with you and our organization in kind of trying to figure out you know what is what is the solution what best we work for all of us. So, >> I absolutely agree. I think the wershed's been trying its best given this dual mission and uh you know the way it was set up with statute with good programs you know they're they're being as responsible and responsive as they can but essentially we not just our wershed the majority of wersheds in the state cannot continue with this approach or trajectory and have a better a better state in 50 years and so we need to change something and you know so I'm happy to >> figure out what what that new best approaches. >> Yeah. And I too want to thank you for being here and definitely with the scope impact and want to learn more. My commissioner district is the further west and the rural part of it. And you I was on this board last year and I went on that river boat tour and I've canoed this river multiple times and you talk about the sediments and you talk about the murkiness and and then the nitrate levels around the bun are all these fertile fields of Caru County and when you talk about the economic impact from the farmer's perspective with improvement to the seeds and the chemicals and then the tiling and the tiling ing getting the water out of their field and ultimately in the creek and rivers and faster. But you look at the projected yields of what's happening today in Carver County when you're getting 300 to 320 bushels of corn off of one acre of land. But yet today that price of corn is like $3.92. And so the economics aren't working. >> And so what are those farmers going to do? Well, if it's economical to tile more, to try to produce more and then ultimately the nitrates and the chemicals end up in the river and and here we are. And then you talk about the development, the impact in San Francisco Township with right now they have um the policy to build on the bluffs. Well, the value of building on the bluff, people will pay for that lot and then put two $300 million home on that lot just to look at the view of the river. But yeah, what happens when that lot of roads etc. So, thank you for being here. >> That corn question is an excellent one and I think you know 60 years ago the corn went to humans and maybe livestock. It was a food question. And now when the corn's going to fuel or sustainable aviation fuel, it like kind of breaks wide open that identity and the value proposition. We understand sacrificing making sacrifices to feed hungry people. It's a different totally different equation when we're talking about uh you know a green fuel. And so what are the water quality impacts of of those decisions? And it's it's very complicated but you know something we need to grapple with, >> right? We took more than our fair share of time. So, >> thank you very much. >> Thank you so much. >> Thanks for coming in. >> Thank you. >> I did learn that uh jello and the lower Chicago River are swimmable. >> Swimmable. >> Not the no one wants to anyone wants to do that. But >> I just think the Chicago they should stop dumping um chemicals of green dye in it every year and then maybe that would be a healthier river. But what do I >> Well, apparently you don't have a touch of the Irish in you. So, >> you lived there for 10 years. >> By the way, September 17th, uh, halfway to St. Patrick's Day. Celebrate as you can. >> Good. Good to know. >> All right. We are going to go on to our mental health local advisory committee update. >> Yeah. From from one change of scope to another change of scope. Um, my name is Kayla Pasco. I'm the chair of the mental health local advisory committee. For those of you who have done this before, generally this is done in a session, full meeting, and generally it's just a beautiful litany of everything we know about mental health in Carver County. Um, this year we're doing things a little bit differently. Um, I was received requests from a couple of commissioners that we change the scope of how we do our annual report and you're going to see that reflected today. So, please bear with me as we work through this. me and staff, we've put a lot of time and effort into this just because this is a big change in how we do things. And again, for those of you who have been here before, traditionally this is done in June. So that gives you an idea of how much work we've put in to try and get this format change done. So um so the role of the mental health local advisory committee we're required by state law in to go through meet regularly and help guide mental health services. Particularly our job um under statute is to report on the unmet needs of Carver Countyy's mental health services. We have a mandate both for adult and child mental health services. And while some counties split those boards up, Carver County actually cover has decided to cover both within a single board. So we represent both the need unmet needs of the adult community in mental health and the child community in mental health. Um and part of our statutory requirement is that we meet with you annually to update you and give you things to think about as you go forward with how we run mental health services in Carver County. Um, for the last year prior to these decisions being made, we had 10 meetings, four new members, monthly discussions. We updated our bylaws. You guys all saw me in March for that. Um, we also try every year to have mental health awareness month with the community in order to kind of get some more community input. And then of course, we're doing ongoing work to support the independent reestablishment of the NAMI affiliation within Carver County. What we were asked to do this year um was to come up with two to three ideas to meet specific unmet mental health needs in Carver County and also to make sure that they both had short and long-term solutions so that uh you've got some things we can be actively working on now and things that are going to take a little bit longer to take effect. We spent um we typically spend about 8 to 10 months listening to various individuals from Carver County, whether that be the members of our board, um non-government organizations that serve mental health needs in Carver County and decide figuring out where there are gaps in services. Um, we are trying very hard to find unmet needs that are not being met by entities that are not Carver the Carver County mental health um team. So, we're looking for true gaps in our in the services that are being met in Carver County both by private and public services. Um, we then spent about three months working on what our priorities are and what some action plans might be in order to address those in a way that's going to create actual impact within Carver County. So, two things we came up with. Um, the short-term plan for us, the first one is a countywide mental health first a training initiative. Um, so this is based, it's a community programming type event and the unmet need here is that we are lacking in countywide knowledge of how to identify and treat mental health emergencies. The idea here is that mental health f first aid can really empower communities to do self- treatment and to self-identify or to be able to help other people identify possibilities of mental health problems in a time frame and in a way that allows them to get them addressed quickly when there's still time for intervention that is not um requiring major emergency services. Whether that be a crisis management team or first responders, things like that. Um, and generally this a lot of this came from family members of individuals with mental health problems stating how much more empowered they felt, how much more they felt able to take care of their family members and understand what was going on when they received training in this way. Um, we have a number of members of our committee who are family members of those who have lived experiences within the Carver County mental health system. So, what we're proposing specifically is training one to two new certified mental health first aid um, educators in the county. We currently have one. She does a wonderful job working with the school system primarily and the kids love having this training. It's been really helpful to the school system. Um, but she's not alone going to be able to handle getting an entire county to start having this mental health training. Ideally, and there's no such thing as an ideal system, but ideally you if you want the system to work well, you want to have mental health first aid training be as ubiquitous as physical first aid training. Um, and this is working towards that. So the idea is that we would have the educator of the educators, which is what this training is for, and then they would go out, work with community organizations, whether that be parks and recck departments, um, community outreach through hospitals, things like that, other nonprofit organizations, work with these people in order to set up classes for the community to learn more about mental health first aid. and it's identity, you know, identifying issues before they happen and being able to work through some of those issues before you need to call um a first responder. The second half of this um is we would like to eventually and and we're very blessed to have um Mike Duzanne from the CHASA Police Department on our committee um and he does the mental health programming for the Chaza Police Department. He's been working on a presentation. At this point, it's a pamphlet of what to expect when you actually do have to call a first responder for a mental health situation. Um, we kind of all have an understanding of if you're in a crisis, whether that be a fire or a car accident or a heart attack, what happens when you call dispatch, but we don't have a similar system for what happens if you have to call dispatch for a mental health emergency. and it can be a barrier to entry for a lot of people who actually do need that service. So, um the other part of this would be eventually working with a system like that in order to develop programming along that those sides as well. This has been imple similar things similar programs have been implemented across the uh United States. Um, so King County, Washington, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Texas, Charlotte, North Carolina, these are all places that have done mental health first aid training um at a county a communitywide level as opposed to just as part of their individual training for their employees. So, the timeline and considerations, um, this is again, this is our short-term project. So we'd like to see this kind of be a one to twoyear implementation. The first year would be identifying funding options to make sure that it, you know, we can fund it without putting a burden on the taxpayers and then also selecting and training those new educators with the idea being that in year two we would start to launch the public educator and responder programs throughout the community. Um, as you guys many of you know from last year's mental health survey and public health survey, um, these sorts of services are something that we can't just focus in one part of the county. We really do need to spread it out. Um, western Carver County is having as much or more mental health issues relating to calls per capita as Eastern Carver County. And so, um, we really want to see this be a broad, we would like to see this as a broad program as opposed to just this is where the convenient parks and reccks departments are. Let's start there. Um, we'd like to see it reach out more into the more rural areas of the county as well. And so what we want, the expected benefit, what we are hoping to achieve with this is that residents are able to recognize and deal with mental health challenges either in themselves or in their neighbors. And earlier support means fewer crises, less money that has to go to first responders for these sorts of things. And it's going to create communities that are able to better support those with mental health needs in the area. Any questions about this one before I move on to the next one? Okay, next. This is the big elephant in the room. Gosh, it's hard to get people to work in mental health services and it's especially true at the government level and in Carver County as well. So there's a huge shortage of mental health licensed mental health professionals across the region and across the country. But Minnesota in particular has is much lower than its peer states in per capita licensed mental health professionals. It scores very poorly there. Carver County in particular has struggled in recruiting critical mental health positions over the last three to five years. Um, we've had staff positions open for extended periods of time. And so we as a committee have been talking a lot about what are some creative things that we can do to help now and to help in the future in a way that would allow us to build that workforce in Carver County and hopefully build it in such a way that's going to allow us to staff long term but also contribute to the overall work uh force as we go forward. So we've listed here kind of what we're looking at for the solution to this. This is not in the order of priority. This would be in the order of when you would touch the system. So the first thing is we're looking at a high school kind of explorers program similar to a police explorers program allowing people to at a young age discover what you can do in mental health services and how important it really is to the community and how fulfilling it can be. Um people don't realize it's not just about therapy and drugs. You know we have a you guys know this we have co-responders. So you want to be you don't want to be a paramedic. you don't want to be a firefighter, but gosh, that job sounds exciting, look into a co-responder program. Um, and those are things that we want kids to be exposed to early on. The next step up the ladder would be um kind of a traininee um internship situation for college students. So, internships, um, I will tell you from my experience as someone who has gone into a professional position, there's something about that first experience and if it's good, you want to go back there. You want to stay there. You don't want to have to look somewhere else to find a job. So, getting someone in early when they're still young and still trying to figure out what direction they're going is very important to building long-term staffing success. >> The next one would be a clinical trainee position. So clinical training positions um are for pre-licensure. These are individuals that are getting their last little bit of supervised clinical time that then after they get their lensure they can become full employees um and full licensed mental health professionals. We would like to see something like this in Carver County for licensed mental health individuals. Um, right now we don't have a supervisory position that would allow for a trainee program. Um, but also the way that right now our hiring is set up is that if you were to come in as a trainee, you would have to then lose your position and reapply to become a full employee once you're licensed. And that becomes a little bit of a barrier as well. Um, there are counties that do similar programs not for mental health. So, Mloud County, for example, does this for their nurses. Um, so they have a clinical traininee nursing program that allows for trainees to come in and get clinical experience and then continue to be employed with Mloud County once they become fully licensed nurses. Um, there's also private and nonprofit organizations that do something similar for mental health services. So, this is not it would be new to the county, but it wouldn't be a new model by any means. And then finally, um, the next big step in the career ladder is that post-doal fellowship and being able to create a position that would allow people to do post-doctoral work in Carver County, be able to build that reputation and build that really great prestige, um, would be a really excellent opportunity. And what it comes down to is that staff studies show that staff stays where they feel valued and feel invested in and where they feel like there's opportunity for growth. So by creating positions that allow people to continue on their progressing on their career tract is going to lead to more people choosing Carver County as an employment destination for mental health and more people choosing to stay within our system. um as they continue to progress in their career. So um this is a big big big big big one and probably not one we would be able to tackle this year given the budget constraints, but um it is one that is vitally important to how we run mental health services in Carver County because if we don't have staff, we don't have the ability for people to get in to see staff. Um so that is that is our long-term situation. And then finally we discussed some other opportunities. Um the big ones that came up that didn't get final approval for this presentation but I want to highlight quickly. Um we were very much in support of a satellite clinic especially in Chaza um being able to serve our residents a little bit better just because Wakonia is a bit of a drive for most people and that's where mental health services are located now. And then additionally in the long long long term looking at expanding um residential and adult day treatment facilities as we all know beds are very much lacking in this area. So, um, I am happy to answer any questions about either opportunities we discussed, any of the opportunities that were brought forth in front of us, why we're doing it this way instead of listing a b bunch of statistics at you like we usually do. Floor's open. So, please feel free. >> The floor is open. Well, >> Kayla, so much thanks so much for being here and thanks for your leadership on this on this um board. I am the liaison. It's my my day for board leaison day. >> I was laughing because I also serve on the CCWO so I felt very much in your position as well. >> I do appreciate this approach. which I do appreciate. Let's look at and and come with tangible solutions. And one of the things that I I really liked this year was that we looked at kind of lowhanging fruit and long-term >> and um this homegrown solution and really trying to figure out how we develop our own. Um uh I last week or I don't know a couple weeks ago um I was at the workforce development conference and the idea of internships came up and um Carver County is probably um one of the few counties that has an unpaid internship program. most every other county pays their interns and so no surprise that that intern um that internship continues to go unmet. I started my professional career as an intern and um and I and I and I worked for that organization for 30 years. So I think that really when you look at this solution and really try and think about What do we need to attract and retain people? And and I think this should be a a big part of our people strategy as as we have a new strategic plan and really need to look at um attracting and retaining the best and the brightest. I think this is part of it um as well. So um >> yeah, right now our gaps are somewhere between typically between rungs three and four. Yes. Yes. >> But the way you fill rung between rungs three and four is by having rungs one, two, and three. So, >> correct. Correct. So, I I'm hoping that this is a conversation that we can have. Um I know that uh we have an interimm program in our public works area um that that um has has gone unfilled as well. And um al although although we did have a give a little tour to someone um in that program, a potential intern in the future. Um and what I learned during this workforce development um conference is that really you need to look at um recruiting interns 18 months out, 12 months out is not enough. And so if we want to take mental health seriously in this county, um we really need to look at paying our interns and getting serious about how we develop this workforce sooner rather than later. And yes, we do have workforce cont um budgetary constraints as well that we have to to deal with. But my experience is it's way easier to keep good employees or hopefully than it is to recruit. So, um I see this as a long-term solution for for Carver County, not just in in mental health areas, but um for all of our employees. So, but thank you for sharing this and and allowing me to um be laz on this book. Not that you have a choice, but >> yeah, we I also started my career as an intern, but that was 15 years ago, and nobody was paid as an intern 15 years ago. So, there you go. >> The workforce has changed a little bit since then. That's not the norm anymore, unfortunately. >> We're all in a way paid interns for Lyndon. >> He's teaching us every every day. So, >> you do pay and we still are struggling uh to get a civil engineering intern, but I we'll work on that. >> Commissioner, I think you touched on a lot of great things. Thanks for being here. I know you're juggling kids and life and city council duties and all those things. So, thanks for being here. I know it was a challenge to get scheduled, so uh to take time away. I appreciate that. I think you highlighted something that few people understand is that no part of our community is immune to mental health challenges. Um, it was illuminating to me five years ago that the rural community is impacted even more so because of access, because of stigma, because of all those things. Um, I like that you hit a lot of the buzzwords that are floating up on this board. Um, and and they're real upstream. It hits home. Commissioner Anderson has illuminated that talent pipeline has been part of it. And you bring solutions. um your predecessor I think the last time well Derek and then >> Kelly >> Kelly >> I asked them the same thing um that you've delivered on which is what are three things that we can actually sink our teeth into because we can go to a lot of meetings we can talk a lot of talk but you brought three practical things and I and I support those and I want to hear from staff if it's supported and how we can can do that mental health is a big lift it's a huge lift um because everybody comes at it a little bit differently and as much as we want to talk about as a leader level it gets very personal in a hurry. It's my scenario. It's my kid. It's my family life. It's all those things. And so we we do need to build that muscle and we need to build the leadership culture of that. So thanks for being part of the leadership culture of let's do something about it talk. And it's a it's a wildly group that comes together on a regular basis to meet and there's a lot of conversations about specific examples. So thanks for elevating it to a leadership conversation. It's a very it's a very personal committee to be on because um while I personally am not as touched by it as others, the vast majority of our committee by design and by law are either have lived experiences within the mental health community or are family members of those who have had lived experiences. And so because of that the conversations be can become very emotional and very personal. And so it's um it's a joy and a challenge to manage those conversations in the best way possible. >> It's an advisory. So, you know, if staff wants to say anything, I'd love there' be a window for that. But um also like we just freshly, you know, approved the strategic priorities. What you talk about hit on eight of the goals that are stated within it and specifically through taxpayer value and customer service. Um, and people are our strength. And so we do have some really good examples within our county of people doing some really good work um that we like to elevate and we do share with other areas. Um, HHS stands tall, the two people that are in the room. I know it's frustrating space. Uh, I think automation is part of the equation um to do things where we can do automation. Um, I think that uh beds is something that always comes up in mental health and nobody's really figured out a solve for that. Looks like there's some federal assistance that might be coming our way to reopen some facilities that could be addressing that. Um, and I think funding and talent is definitely part of the equation, too. It's so complex. And so, if you want to say something, feel free to do so. But, >> Stephanie and Melissa are the liaison from the staff to our committee, and they've done as much work on this presentation as I have. So, if they have anything to add, they're welcome to do so. >> I'll just um, if I can, I'll just kind of hop in and add a couple of things. First of all, thank you for your support. >> Good morning. >> And good morning. um thank you for your support in doing this. Um you know, hearing our hearing our suggestions and also um as we try to think about the next generation of of services in in Carver County, uh many of these things are going to be uh things that we can take some immediate action on and will have a direct impact on our work with clients. For example, you know, we talk about the paid internship piece and and I'm very very aware of all the budget constraints right now. Um, but where it comes into play for uh our internship, we do have an internship program in our Anika day treatment program. Where it's most salient is that we have two interns typically at the high school. If we are not able to secure interns for that following year, that limits our ability to admit um young people in that setting. and thanks to the board support a couple of years ago, we added a third position at our licensing center that allowed us to still be able to admit to full admission. So, it's this combination of both a business um consideration as well as training the next generation of of professionals. Um, and then just with regard to the mental health first aid concept, there are a number of trainings that are fall under that mental health first aid that we would be looking at that might be more tailored to other um um populations than what we have with our school person right now. So, if there's other questions, >> thank you. I I did want to um comment on the first aid and and uh I went right towards the workforce solution or the um solution, but I I think when you're dealing with a loved one who has mental health challenges or you're even in that, it's it's hard to know how to proceed. And so that's very important um that first aid piece and understanding how that's going to go and what's going to happen. And um so I appreciate kind of looking at that. I appreciate um how that can be implemented and we have a lot of opportunities here in Carver County and a lot of support to make that happen and and um I did want to say thank you for to both Stephanie and Melissa for your being on that board and and um or not we're all liaison but for sitting in those those meetings and providing your guidance and expertise as well. So um just in general it's been a real honor to be able to be a less onto this and I have appreciated the tangible solutions while not easy to implement any of these um I appreciate kind of boldly providing solutions that can really make a difference for mental health and cover. >> Mr. Mr. Chair, if I >> Commissioner Fehee, >> on page 12 of your presentation, Kayla, you had talked about the the committee meetings and with the four new members that have joined this advisory board and and we as commissioners and sometimes there's a lot of challenges to fill individuals um on these boards. So hopefully the new members are engaged and are contributing and attending the meetings and I think one of the great opportunities is that lowhanging fruit I would call it of the community discussions and just those presentations there's not a great cost for that. So, if you can continue to do that >> and to get out into maybe some of these smaller communities and have that interaction at a city council meeting, for example, >> and then just to celebrate more with the awareness of mental health month and continue to to your horn, our horn, the staff's horn. That's one of the reasons why we've reached out for um and been supporting the efforts to reestablish NAMI affiliation for the county. So that's independent of our board that's not associated with Carver County. But one of the things that it does is it gives us access to nationwide speakers trained in mental health and a lot of other things like that that will allow us to have um allow us to tap into a network to have community events to have additional trainings that are outside of what Carver County can do independently. Um and so we have one planned for September um at the end of the month at the Chanhassen Library. Um we did a traumainformed mental health care one in May uh March this year. So um it's it's something that we're trying to do a little bit more of. It started out as an initiative in order to get community engagement because our experience of what's an unmet need is limited to who's shows up to our boardroom. And so trying to get out into the community and talk to some people who are interested in this um that aren't necessarily seated at our table was a big part of why we've done these community events. >> Well, very good. I uh last week we were at the CBiz conference up at Hazeline and to listen to the CEO of Ridgeview Hospital, Mr. Phelps and others and the absolutely uh wild numbers of young people, students who are suffering from uh one form of mental health issues or the other is incredible. And I know that since COVID and all sorts of things going on there, it was a little ominous uh to me to learn about that. I I always say I've been on this board a long time and I don't remember uh the issue being um so talked about which which is good um back back uh early in my career uh as it is now and and uh and rightfully so. And so um it it is easy to sweep behind us and not look at it and act like something doesn't happen. And uh it's not a as tangible as what Lyndon does with highways and make everybody angry. Um uh but um um but it's there and uh I think I think you guys are doing a great job and uh thanks for getting us up to speed and bringing a plan. So Commissioner Lynch, >> if I could. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Kayla, thanks for coming in. Um great presentation. I love that it's uh very well grounded because you actually you mentioned it uh you brought it up with the the budget needs and the ability to hire. I do like uh something when you actually go out and then you have the the mental health first aid as Commissioner Anderson mentioned that when someone's in they don't necessarily know how to proceed and I think that is a to get out with the the the knowledge base that we have to have. Um when I was the leazison I was talked about uh suicide prevention. How do we get ahead of that? Um this summer my brother's neighbor wasn't in Carver County but ended up with a murder suicide and it's absolutely horrible and uh so anyway that we can get ahead of that uh that would be absolutely wonderful. So and I really appreciate the outreach and thanks for coming. >> Thank you commissioner. >> Okay, seeing no other questions we appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you, chair. >> And we are going to take a fourminut break here before we get into the budget. Any maybe you guys want to hang around for the budget. >> I don't want to. >> It won't improve your meal. >> Okay, Colin, we're going to take a little break. No. Okay, we are back and we are going to get into the budget with Mr. Hemsy. >> Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, board members. Uh, an important steps coming up. Uh, the adoption of the preliminary levy. That's next week. we'll ask you to formally do that. So in anticipation of that uh in your packet I uh provided a great deal of information related to the recommendation and we'll go through the presentation today uh address questions, concerns, uh look for direction. I would say every budget cycle is different. This one in particular has been extremely challenging. They're all challenging, but this one has been to the extreme. And there's another a few different elements that we'll touch upon. and in particular the the federal and state legislative issues we're trying to address in the budget. But I would say on the positive side, let's take a strong team and boy do we have one with the with the staff and the division directors and thank you for your help too as we've walked through and added a few different elements. If you recall, for example, the uh discretionary services summary that uh we put together uh based upon your request, that's been really helpful as we're looking at uh not only, you know, sort of the how we're doing things, what are we doing and how can we ensure that we're trying to mitigate the impacts on on all of our services. That's really a common theme that's spread through the the recommendations this morning. And speaking of teams, we're going to tag team this. So Dave Dave is going to look at well sort of the rearview mirror. How are we doing uh 2025 and including a year and savings account update. I will hit on the the top one there the 26 and beyond not only the legislative impacts but I'll provide an executive summary of the recommendations and then Dave will get into the meat of meat of this with the uh taxbased trends and the the overall budget summary. And along the way, uh, even Nick's going to join in the fund here because a real big piece of this budget is the government center project, which at this point is in the recommendation to continue the principle and interest, the $450,000 amount uh, in the second year of five now it would be. So, I wanted Nick and he's done a nice job of putting together a summary of well, what if we didn't do that? Uh, what are the what are the al alternatives and what does a big bigger picture related to that look like? and then uh Dave will jump back in with the long-term financial plan and then of course we have throughout the uh the rest of the year here we have a calendar that that we'll show you with that Mr. Chair I'll have Dave come up he only has a couple slide I'll be at a a couple important ones give you a 25 review and then we wanted to focus on a little bit on license center since that's been a discussion point >> uh thank you Dave uh good morning Mr. chair and board members. Uh the second quarter review, uh we do this, you know, four times a year, three times a year. The to uh just give the board an overview on on where we're doing in terms of the budget, our actual uh overall relatively stable uh continues to be um except for the one big area is in our health and human services um does not qualify. The the DNC we refer to it as the state. As you're aware, the state stopped funding uh July 1st for those costs. Uh we're anticipating uh almost 400,000 in county costs for the remaining six months of 2025. Uh we're recommending uh the funding uh for that out of our year-end savings account. Um the the impact for next year uh is 900 over 900,000. Uh that's included in our 2026 uh budget recommendation. Um I do I did we did move the year in savings uh to later in the presentation. So I will uh touch on that later. Um but that is a legislative priority. Um continues to be the the legislative impact from the does not qualify land records and vitals. They that's an area that um is really driven by the economy. Um the the interest rate um has a big impact on in terms of refinancing. Um they the recording fees are increasing uh as activity starts to to uh increase again, but it's still uh slightly below budget. Um in the jail you're well aware the medical and mental health needs uh those are trending higher. We have made adjustments for that in the 2026 budget and their license centers are projected at 190,000 loss for 2025 which compares favorably to the budget of um uh negative 232,000 as well as last year 220,000. We were on that trend uh uh heading the right direction. Uh but then we when we look at 2026 budget, you can see almost 400,000 um in all driven by wage and benefit increases uh health insurance uh number of people switched from single to family um and as well as uh union settlements and the with flat revenues. Obviously we got increasing expenses but flat revenues um you can see that the bottom line is going the wrong direction. So we're uh considering adding that to our legislative priorities. um in the past. Show you my chart here. Uh you can see back in precoid, you can see a little green down there in the far right that represents um revenues were higher than expenses with the uh the darker blue being revenues and the lighter uh blue being expenditures. You can see a little bit of green. Uh COVID hit and we went negative big time mainly because we uh we didn't have the uh our doors are closed. Uh but we we kept all of our our staff, we kept them busy doing other things, slowly opened uh opened up operations and uh you can see the the the red continued. Um then we started uh going back towards uh break even 2024 projected for 2025. Uh but then 2026 um just couldn't we can't increase our revenues. Fees are set by the legislature. Uh so the only way we can increase fees is is by volume and we can only get so much um volume out of out of the staff um that we have. So it's a it's a challenge that other counties are experiencing. Um we've now joined uh the negative impact u we're seeing on our bottom line. Uh so we're considering to to join in the uh the chorus of other counties that have been um lobbying the legislature for increased fees last several years. Dave, does this reflect um capital expense maintenance and growth? >> Uh I should add that yeah, there's another uh probably 90,000 that would be um in terms of utility costs um that are that are not reflected in those totals. We keep them separate, but we are tracking them. U we are working with Nick on um on at that bottom line. So, we're going to incorporate that into um as well as looking towards the capital costs um you know the ongoing operations the the lights and utilities um those kind of things but then there's also some capital costs in terms of um you know replacing roofs and all that but the buildings are are at least the Chan government center is in pretty good shape um Chesco they are looking at some some you know um bigger bigger projects uh next five to 10 years >> am I right in And at one time it got stuck in my head somewhere 65 to 70% of the people that come through our DMVs are not Carver County residents. Do we have do we have that information yet? >> Um yeah I think that that I think that was high. Uh we have not we have not updated that. Um we did that during COVID. Um we we were curious um and you know where where they were coming from. Um but I uh the numbers I saw the numbers I recall were were were were lower than that. it was it was closer to, you know, 50% and that was uh Carva County versus um you know, Scott County and and Henipin County. Those three were obviously the big ones. >> And then I know we talk about taxpayer value and customer service. Uh I don't know that you guys can do more to squeeze more efficiencies out of the buildings that we have right now. I think all of our bays are taken care of. You're staffed up, all those things. It seems like given the fastest growing county in the state, we'll have to have another facility to service that. Is anything to pay for rent or new building or maintenance included with any of these loss numbers? >> No, nothing's been nothing's been uh we're not budgeting anything for an additional facility. We would look at that separately >> because if I look at a 10-ear horizon, it look like we're on pace to lose about 15 million bucks. If we have to build a new facility, if we're losing losing, it looks like there's a certain percentage of our our um tabs that income will go away as we go um as we go to more digital and people can get them at the vending machines and get them a mail in. I don't see any increased revenue coming from the DMVs in the next 10 years to offset that revenue loss and current losses even if they give us a few more bucks per transaction. And so those are just some of the things that as we have this conversation that I'm thinking through and obviously I'm just talking about the Chasa location because that sits in the district I represent. So thanks. >> All right, Mr. Chair, if there are no other questions for Dave, but let's look forward a little bit and uh by the way, the license centers uh the continued operations are in are in the recommended budget to clarify that 26 and beyond. So, the effort would really be more of a legislative effort uh to ask for additional fees to help offset our losses. And good point on uh other residents utilizing this. Of course, Henipin County got out of business a while back and it's a needed service, something that our citizens really appreciate, but it's a board call at the end whether you want to continue these, of course, but in the in the recommendation, they are continued. So, as we move into 26, let's go back to some good news. How about that? Uh, and you sort of got to temper this. Well, we we did play some good defense. At least this ABC didn't happen to us, right? So, we played some darn good defense. on and of course not only us but others and I would call it quite frankly a raid of a transportation advancement account to the tune of $3 million. So we avoided that. I think we we feel good about avoiding that and you see those decisions related to that funding coming through the boardroom. So good things are happening with that. The other really good piece of surprise good piece of good news was uh a CPS county program aid similar to local local government aid that cities received counties received county program aid. We were one of the fortunate few to receive certainly this kind of an increase an $800,000 increase to our county program aid really due to maybe some good good fortune and good luck with the quirks of these formulas that are set up. uh and and we'll take it because we definitely as I continue the the story here, we definitely have a lot more bad news than good news, but we we've applied that to the budget as we look into the future and Dave will go through that detail. Uh beginning here then looking at well what are what are the negative sides the the real sort hard hits to our budget. If you look at uh we've talked about this many many times, paid family medical leave. That is literally a payroll tax that we'll need to start paying in 2026. Uh Carrie Anda is doing some assessment of that. We might very well be recommending uh going to a private firm versus going to the state and maybe saving maybe some money off that, maybe 30,000 or so. To be determined yet, and Carrie and company will come through with those recommendations. At this point, we've included uh that uh budgetary item in our budget uh recommendations. And then uh the bigger piece of the the the problem I would say are these shifts to to counties. So again, this is 20 26. Dave talked a little bit about even the tail end of 25. Uh but this 1.5 million uh will be a looks like a reoccurring common theme unfortunately. and we'll go through that detail, but uh I would call it pretty unprecedented. We're always complaining about please if you're going to make us do something, help us pay for it or please pay for it. That's literally on the front of our legislative priority booklet. Don't don't shift things to us, please. and and it's again unprecedented in the scope and scale not only what the federal government or the state government has shifted but in addition to the federal government with issues I'll touch upon in a minute here. So, as we move on beyond 206, and this this again is a little bit of a different flavor than past budget cycles where it it seems to be more clear that these impacts uh are real, literally real, because they're in law in 27 and beyond, which relates to some of the recommendations and and really something I typically haven't done before and saying, you know, for for not only 26 in this case, but for 27 728. Here's what I'm recommending that we set ourselves up for. uh not necessarily making those decisions right now, but being thoughtful about how we would address these cost shifts going again not only 26 but to 27 and 28 because again the big difference here is those are in law and and so significant and identifiable that I've literally carved them out of this and identified what you'll see is a a separate uh 2% levy recommendation to address that very significant critical problem that has been caused by our legislative shifts and decisions. Uh other items, we've talked about these inflation and tariff costs. Uh those tariff costs are real. I just ask Brent and facilities, you know, the the uh dollar amounts uh uh or the costs rising. Inflation of course is u easing. So that's a bit of a bit of a good news story. Hard to predict, but but they're still real. They definitely aren't aren't being reduced. Uh so you know in terms of the overall budget picture we need to keep up with that. Uh likely this is continuing the guessing game here but very likely similar property valuation trends. Dave Dave will dive into a little bit of a summary on that. Uh continued expenditures as always. Wages and benefits are the biggest part of our uh budget uh issue as we're as we're looking into the future and we are looking at continued pressures on wages and benefits. But as usual, the the market is shifting. There seems to be uh a shift toward more of an employer friendly market. Uh jobs are a little bit harder to come by that will likely uh impact wages and benefits. We'll have to see. Of course, we negotiate those. Uh we do have contracts through through 26, but definitely definitely continued pressure. And again, it's not just wages, it's benefits, health insurance in particular. And as you likely noticed in in the packet, uh the the FTEU requests that have come through are they're significant. There's 24.7 here, uh unfilled requests in the mixture in 26 plus new requests, including an element that I would like to talk about addressing, which is the the new Chesca Library in 2027 that that is uh literally in the planning stages stages. But I would add, you know, those new requests come of course through division directors based and they uh provide justification. I did not provide any any sort of hard guidance up front to say, well, we're only going to allow you to submit uh new requests for mandated services, for example. That was intentional. I wanted to see what all the requests were and then as we continue to sort through and make some decisions based upon uh the sort of scale of discretionary versus mandatory we can do that as we move forward but that's one of the reasons that it was a higher relatively higher number uh in terms of the request anyway and then I mentioned this facility needs but not only to clarify for the government center but beyond that and we do have a facility master plan uh we've talked a lot about those items including uh uh we just talking about the mental health issue. One of the critical pieces related to that is the facility uh that facility in Wakonia definitely needs to be uh likely torn down, upgraded, etc. It's not addressed in this this budget cycle. We we're going to need to address it as we move into 27 and beyond. >> Dave, uh you say plus new Chaza library in 27. I know that city of Chaza has $20 million for a new library. I've had opinions about a regional thing that would work for everybody if we look out 20 25 years. Um, but I think the budget buster we've talked about is somewhere between eight and 12 incremental headcount assigned to that library at least numbers I've seen over the last three years. What numbers are you using for Chasa Library staffing? And do we have a precedent of um uh of saying if somebody's going to build this, it's on us to fill it and to staff it traditionally. Is that is that contractually obligated or is that something that just has been precedent? >> Uh Mr. Chair, Commissioner Odman, uh there's a long story behind that and I'll go go into the summary of that as we move forward, but but really to me, you know, I talked about let's let's try and mitigate the impacts on our services. How are we providing library services is is the issue that I'd like to focus on and in particular uh electronic access to those facilities. Making sure that we're trying to stay open as many or more hours. Uh the catch to that is can we can we afford to have the staff there that long? No, absolutely not. But yet it's sort of that balancing act of providing the service in a much different way but yet controlling those costs and and you know that particular service is for the most part discretionary although interestingly there's a a mandate a mandated maintenance of effort is called uh put on us by the legislature for roughly I don't have the numbers right in front of me half of the discretionary amount I think that is in the $5 million plus range total so two and a half as mandated but but how can we do that different not only built into this cycle there's a reduction in vacant FTEES and it's another intentional strategy to to put the softies on to create vacancies to reshift and reshape how we're doing things but not only for this cycle but the future I just see the significant challenge I don't know how we would address adding several new FTEEs for Chaza given what's going on with all these other pieces in particular these cost shifts, but yet can we provide this service in a different way? Uh can we potentially offer a model that uh provides an option to cities for example to say well okay we understand you can't afford it but maybe maybe we can contribute in a different way those are the discussions that are occurring and you you'll see those built into the the FTEES in into the detail right the I think it's 1.6575 6575 uh in the library area reductions 65 right we're always going these increments of full-time equivalence FTEES because of the in some cases the part-time nature so that and I and I'll keep going with that story because it's blended into this the whole budget recommendation again that I'm giving a lot of credit to Nick and others because you know those are the kind of solutions I think in the end I'm hoping that you can support versus us just saying well we're just going to cut libraries library hours or worse yet, we're just going to carve out and close a library. I think that not not to mitigate or minimize the impact on this change that's going on, but I think it it's helpful to keep offering a good service, albeit in a much different way. And that's built into these strategies. Uh starting at the top here going back to this this real big problematic issue. Uh in the recommendation you'll see built in a carve out I'll call it of that 2% levy searchcharge sort of debated with about that that term searchcharge pretty harsh but it this is harsh. These are literally direct costs we're going to be paying the bills on that have been pushed on to us with no choice. So to try andident identify that specifically that 2% which uh to do the math on that so it's around 750,000 per percent. So it's one and a half million that ties back into that one and a half million number. And by the way we have listed here in a different spreadsheet. What we are estimating now uh in terms of that total cost it doesn't quite cover it. Uh that total cost estimate is more uh above above 6 million. So wouldn't quite cover that but I do think other strategies should be should be uh focused on including of course legislative changes but also can we do things differently to min mitigate the impacts of those cost shifts. So those questions will be worked on hard and and over a period of years. So hopefully maybe we could eliminate that search charge in future years. I don't I don't see it being eliminated in uh 26, but maybe we ideally uh that that would go away. I now is that going to happen? Probably not. I mean, that I think the federal uh shift in uh welfare to work, etc., and the impacts on our staff. I doubt very much that that that's going to go away. Maybe some of the state things we can mitigate those. So that's one of the big strategies here was to cover that mandate with this portion or an identifiable portion of the levy as we move forward not only into in the next cycle but then for at least two more cycles beyond that and hopefully that would ultimately get us to that better place where then our base budget is built up to cover those shifts. uh other things that are or other strategies that are uh inside this budget of course I've already mentioned this is a real difficult one you know looking at discretionary services typically those are among our more popular uh more identifiable with folks so it's not easy it's kind of the nature of what we do unfortunately is that those things are are are uh seemingly more difficult to cut right uh but not it's not always about cutting it's about how could we do those differently. How could we reshape those? And and always keep in mind, you might hear, "Well, geez, you cut us." Well, in many cases, it's not necessarily a cut from where they're at. They might have requested more than they're getting, but in many cases, or almost most, it's a reduction to the to the request or it's a cap to equal what you're getting for 2025. So, keep that in mind as we we move through the process. And you'll clearly see that because there's a a a relatively large levy increase, right? So the levy is going up to to meet not only the requests that are related to uh the mandatory services but some of the discretionary ones and and we're also identifying you know it's not always appear well that's that's uh mandated. Sometimes it's about how we're doing it. maybe we're doing it a little differently and above the level of mandate and we we we're trying to unravel those and we saw that in the the exercise we did. Uh and then one of the key key items in in budgetary setup and and one thing that's I think really probably the fundamental thing behind our our triple continued AAA bond rating is what always watching the base budget making sure that we're so we're not shifting things around and covering things with one time that are ongoing. So that's always a theme in uh that I'm watching out for along with Dave and others and those are built into the uh recommendations. >> Is the levy search charge our language or is that what people are using across the metro? >> Uh Mr. Chair, Commissioner Workman, uh we'll see. Uh I brought it up with my metro colleagues and they're like, "Yeah, it's a great idea." Now, will they do that or not? Uh I'm not sure. By the way, my colleagues are saying we have in the end I want to be a spoiler alert here, but uh the the the recommendation is uh 8% to that is the search charge. Uh you'll see these other metric counties are same similar or higher and I I know that that they're going to do one thing. They're going to identify these costs and separate them out and talk about them. Right? Now, will they go as far as we did? Part of this is to me communication, right? It's talking about it. It's identifying it. It's making sure everybody understands what is happening when we're asking for a levy increase. That that really is behind it. But whether you carve it out or not, they're all going to have to address it. It's not just the metros. It's across the state of Minnesota. >> There's no path to have that appear on the taxes that way, is there? >> No. That would be interesting >> because I mean like when when we had $4, $5 gallon gas, everybody saw a search charge and they blame the gas, right? when they see it on their tax bill, they see the city line, they see the county line, they see the school district line, and a whole bunch of other stuff. >> We've taken shots at changing that statement mostly to simplification >> because it's so misunderstood. But yeah, good good point, Mr. Chair. Well, I'm thinking the search charge is to address address what might come out of a special session in the legislature or other and I'm getting no feedback that a special session is likely due to the chaos of the legislature. So, um if the legislature doesn't have a special session, do we need the two? Is there what what is something going to come directly to us from the feds because the legislature would have to act in a special session to change anything that would affect our budget. But so I'm getting nodding from HHS that the feds are are going to Okay. So then is that is what the feds are going to do in that 2%. >> Yeah. And we'll Mr. Sure. We'll we'll show you the the charts built into this presentation. Uh yes, and I would say, you know, certainly 25 is a hard number. You know, this this still amazes me that that the majority of the 1.5 million in 25 is one individual that has a has is is required bet in an NOA County. It's uh last I heard the price went up 950,000. >> Yep. almost a million dollars for one individual that again historically has been it's needed don't get me wrong absolutely critical but historically has been a state covered cost and so that shift is is more dramatic and more identifiable thus that this pretty a lot different right different feel even it feels almost so harsh but yet you know these shifts have been harsh and and they are identifiable and they are real so I think this understanding And again, communication is a big part of this this understanding of well, how much is that? Because it's easy to point fingers and in the end, I think most taxpayers just, you know, well, they want you to figure it out. But but this is so real and so obviously big of a shift that I felt this obligation to to identify in a different way. But we'll get to the the chart in a minute. Uh but to finish up, I got another we have all sorts of strategies going on here, right? One more slide here, but in the end or the last bullet point, this maintaining uh capital financing plans are I also had Dave and Mary K put together a chart on that. Uh I had thought well maybe we could put a pause on some of these investments that we're making as we another longstanding strategy we have is is to over a period of years try and set aside and build up the base so that we can address these ongoing needs that may look one time but they're really not when because they are cyclical right so in the in the budget strategy and Dave will go through the numbers uh is a maintenance of those items as we looked at the life uh the the age and life expectancy of our various equipment etc. the need for the government center. Uh all those items uh in the budget there there are additional dollars to to build up those items. And then the last set of strategies I believe it's the last set very important ones. Uh revenue opportunities. Sometimes we for forget because we're so focused on boy what what can we cut? Don't forget about the revenue opportunities. How many times we had th those discussions right with division directors and others. I'll point out a really good one uh which is in Heather's area. You know, as as we're working on closing the the gap and trying to get to the uh the uh 8% levy recommendation there, we're trying to reduce, but you but again, you can add revenue and uh Heather Heather I asked her to do I think it was $260,000 uh either gap or revenue increase and she went to work. So, a lot of credit to her and her staff. uh that in the end that last piece was revenue. It was related to interestingly uh discretionary service our school link service. So credit to those staff. I think you know maybe a silver lining behind a crisis. It really sort of forces you to look harder and uh be get more creative and and press, you know, press harder on that kind of solution, which in my book is a heck of a lot better than cutting while albeit a discretionary service, a pretty darn core service, right? We just talked about mental health. So there is not in this mixture a reduction in those school-based mental health services, but there is that in increase in revenue which staff is going to have to keep working on. you're projecting these things, but you still need to keep the pressure on, do that extra effort to collect those dollars. So, great great story there. And there's numerous other ones that I won't go through built into the budget. And then, of course, the last set of items here, always the key to our budget is a wage and benefits and a personnel. Of course, they're we're in the service business. That's the biggest portion of the expenditure pie. and uh the the soft hiring freeze which I've gotten a little grief over. It's like why you know why why you slowing things down. I think maybe there's some misunderstanding even the the recommendation at least from my perspective isn't about trying to build up a pot of funds. It's about create watching these opportunities as they open up. I think it's a smarter way to approach a personnel change through a vacancy as compared to an incumbent fil position and you'll see that in the budget recommendations I oh and I do have the next slide I asked uh Dave Mary Kay to put together related to that because looking at vacancies you need to understand uh in the end uh some of those are discretionary man man versus mandatory etc and the funding streams are different so I'll go through that in a minute here but it does relate then to creating those opportunities potentially uh doing some work workforce realignment. Can we look at uh how we're doing things in some cases or maybe we don't do some things we're doing today. Uh a couple of examples I've already touched on the library example. Uh in employee relations, we're looking at a a relatively smaller uh reorganization, taking away a a deputy position and uh turning that into a more of a line staff position or a middle business partner kind of position, which saves money, right? So that that's built into the uh into the recommendation. Uh another one we I think we've all talked about this is communications. uh moving some of that workload over onto the public works side and with that comes revenue on on Lyndon side some I think it's CASA money county state aid highway money but external revenue helping us I would definitely recognize that just doesn't magically happen we oh you know move these staff over there and on goes life there will be some reductions through on this countywide side of communications and you know I'd prefer not to do that but but I think you know again uh when you boil this down to priorities and strategies. That's an important piece of this recommendation. Uh outsourcing, another uh good solid strategy. We need to be really selective with that of course, but uh built into the recommendation is almost $700,000 from the crisis services outsourcing. Uh it's a great example. These don't don't happen quickly. That took uh months if not years. So that actually was accomplished last year. Now it's rolling into this year and we're seeing that those dollars which are part of the solution as we're we're looking at coming up with uh different funding streams. One of many uh we will also be talking about uh our parks area, one of our discretionary areas and can we potentially partnership with Three Rivers. We'll bring you more information on that. And in some cases in that one I think maybe it's not as much about uh significant reduction in cost but but there are ancillary things that really are impactful like the impact on our overhead we've talked some about that uh employer relations finance uh nick area facilities the pressure that's put on those folks it another big one pressure that's put on those folks as we build up our FTE count so looking at maybe uh some some relief to that pressure if nothing else. But definitely we always want to make sure it's a a a good service that's provided efficiently and effectively. Those are all the fundamental principles as we carefully look at those things. A couple new policies that that we're uh looking at rolling out a voluntary furlow and the the work work week the 4 day would be also voluntary and it would be uh supervisory approvals to make sure the services are uh not impacted or they can be managed. So, so we had we struggle with putting a number on that. We're not sure. Henipin County came out with some pretty big numbers, but they're sort of with this different different budgetary world. I think in the end we put a plug number in. It was an odd one like 52,000. I think maybe to to tie some things together. 58 I think. I think it's going to be higher than that. But the the game plan with those would be we're going to create the policy and then uh ask employees if they want to participate and then make those decisions moving forward which would then solidify the numbers. Hopefully we we'll shoot for prior prior to December so that hopefully it's better news. Hopefully we can come up with you know double triple that number. But just it was such a hard number to pin down. We felt comfortable with that uh that 50,000 in this case. And there are other strategies too. I can't it's I'm not going to go through them all. But I will point out uh this was an important one because I think in part it's misunderstood because if you look at the the vacancy list and and this is always evolving. So this is a snapshot. This was back in in uh July of this year. It is attractive. You look at boy this there's 55 FTEES. Why can't we just take those and solve the budget gap? But so I I wanted uh thanks Dave Mary Kay and Carrie. They worked hard on this one. uh to boil this down and and first take out this is this is how we're looking at this. Starting with all those positions if you added up the total cost of those $6.4 million a real significant number. However, uh not all of those are uh funded by the levy. So if you took out those that that are not funded by the levy, I think the way this chart works as a little get a little confused by this. Is it taking out you're you're take is does it leave 24 Dave? >> Yep. >> So you're so you take out those those that are not funded by the levy there's 24 left basically is the way this chart is reading. So those are those are identifiable levy dollars that you could work with to say okay let's if we reduce those all that's a big number still right 2.4 million. However this is where there's some policy choices that come into play. Okay. What about those that are maybe maybe to some degree discretionary, but I I would label them as top priorities, and this would be up to the board, but certainly public safety, the county attorney's office, mental health, those have all been sort of in this category. Well, maybe some of that or all of it's discretionary, but yet they're top priorities. Well, we better not cut those. So, that leaves you with 17. And then you take out, don't want to leave the engineers out of this mixture, right? I think Lynon would label those as pretty critical as I'm sure the board would. You take out those FTEEs. Uh you're left with uh 11 and a half and then built in my recommendations. I did use the remaining uh vacancy list to look at okay what what opportunities are there. I've already mentioned for example one of them and employee relations. Uh the library is another one. If you took those out, uh, you're left with 6.7 FTEEs at the bottom line. So, in that remainder, some of those are being recruited, uh, in the custodial area, for example. I think we may have to redo that one, the supervisor, >> and maybe rethink that one. Maybe that's an area where we'd look a little harder at outsourcing. But I would definitely wouldn't recommend cutting our custodial services. We're pretty bare bones here and or this vacancy. But it does if you think about well maybe we want to do a portion of that outsource it great opportunity here because we do have a vacancy or two. So so it really boils it down I think in good good graphical form where where it looks like a significant amount to grab it really boils down to uh much less in terms of dollars. Okay there's no questions on that. Dave's going to jump in. I apologize for the length of this but >> a lot of information. Uh thank you county administrator Dave Hemsy. Um in terms of our tax base trends let's start big picture. Uh overall taxable market value is now almost 24 billion. Uh that's up over 6% compared to last year. New construction is always a number we're focused on uh because we can we can tax that uh new construction without having an impact on uh the rest of the tax base. and that new levy dollar, we could increase the levy, the board can increase the levy by 2 million um from the new construction. So that would not have an impact on the rest of the tax base. In terms of valuation increases, those are significant because that's what's that, you know, is driving uh people's property taxes are, you know, what's what's happening with their values. You can see the egg is up over 5%, residential for commercials is negative. Um and uh Assessor Ryan Johnson, you know, gave the board a presentation on that. Um that and the key to that is regardless of what the the board does in the levy, there's going to be a tax burden shift from uh commercial to the egg residential properties just because of the way the the values are shifting, who's paying the taxes. Uh so keep that in mind uh as we go forward. Overall, the budget summary, you know, this is where all the numbers come together. I added the we've historically added the prior years just to see how we kind of uh balance the budget in different ways. Um this year the the uh for the 2026 the administrator is recommending the county levy increase uh 8% as as he mentioned the 6% increase on the base plus the 2% uh search charge for legislative impact. You can see how that compares to the past uh levy increase of 6.8% for both 2025 and 2024. The biggest line item as Dave mentioned is in our wages and benefits. Uh we projected that uh increase for 2026 and these are with settled uh union contracts that that 5.7 million. Um the legislative impact as as Dave mentioned 1.5 million. Uh and I I have a slide on that. I put that in red. You're going to see red on the next slide because it just it really jumps out at you. Uh we have had legislative impacts in the past. That's what those asterisks are from the previous years, but we haven't separated them out because they didn't they didn't uh they weren't as significant. They didn't all add up to be a big number as big a number as we're dealing with for 2026. Uh the next line is the debt service or master space plan. You can see 2024 we we did not do that. Uh this would be not we did it in 2025 recommended for 2026. and then we'd have three more years of that uh 450,000. Then the countywide levy changes, that's a net number. Uh you can see back in 2024 was a it was a big increase. Uh this year um still positive, so still helpful. Um and I have a slide on both that as well as the division levy adjustments. Um you can see that numbers moved around. Um but this year another 680,000 uh of positive levy adjustments. I did highlight the FT levy changes a net that's in green on purpose because that actually represents uh levy savings uh as Dave mentioned there's several uh vacant positions that are being eliminated some reorgs that are going on and that uh add those up and it's a positive 325,000. You can see back in 2024 we actually used levy dollars 800,000 um mainly because of the the positive 2.3 million we had that money available so we're able to add uh FTEEs uh for the uh minister's budget we're actually saving uh levy dollars of that 325,000. So now the next slides will we'll break out uh some of those uh numbers on there. Starting with the 1.5 million uh you can see in the 2026 budget uh and as Dave mentioned the biggest cost is at 910,000 uh for the the uh that did not qualify the um the where the legislature used to state used to pay for those costs. They're now being shifted to uh the county that as I mentioned before that started July 1st. Uh so we have that uh impact on the 2025 budget anticipated and this is looking ahead to 2026. Um uh the other there's another state um number there at at towards the bottom 206 and then you can see 340 160 I guess I can point that out. Um so those are the ones those are state those are uh increases to the base as Dave mentioned those are those are and these are in law already. uh we're anticipating these cost shifts coming to us uh those numbers and then um also in the very top line that is uh the paid family medical leave ad the payroll tax that that Dave mentioned you can see that's 400,000 impacting the 2026 budget we have that built into the to the base levy it's part of the uh part of our projection for 2026 um and but the others the other ones are all separate uh you can see the federal uh the build uh better the act from the federal government. Uh you can see that is a cost shift uh 260,000 in estimated for 2026 291 increase in 2027 and the 450 in 2028. Uh there's actually uh workload requirements. Um, so that's the additional FTEES that's on attachment B and those are costs um along with the SNAP cost shift. Um, and then so that's that's 2026. The administrator's recommendation is to increase uh have a 2% levy search charge uh for 2026 as well as 2027 and 2028. And you can see in red that the 3.4 4 million. Um those are those are costs that are in law. Uh and and the pro the pro the real concern uh about that this new state requirement is that the child protection costs are going to be ter determined by court order. So this is not a staff decision in terms of of what these costs are going to be. These are these are coming from a judge um in a courtroom and saying, you know, these are additional services, different additional costs that the counties can incur because of the state mandate. Um the total for 2027 is 4 million. Um and then 2028 610,000 and as Dave mentioned, you know, the total levy need over the next three years is over 6 million. Uh the 1.5 uh the 2% um and then adding to the base it actually 1.6 1.7. So total of 4.8 million is not going to cover the 6.1. Uh um you know, but as Dave mentioned, there could be legislative changes. Uh there could be delays. There could be um uh other ways of uh of not uh getting to that total. Uh but it it gets us the start. gets us it gets headed uh towards the total uh which is which is the plan to try and set aside uh some some additional levy uh going forward to address that uh additional cost. So the these are big numbers. Um we have talked about um most of this before. Um just I'll pause here in case you have any questions. >> Dave, I know that school districts haven't talked about referendum. So it makes me think and I know Commissioner or Anderson has been attached to that. They have a reserve budget and sometimes school districts dip into that reserve budget to pay for short-term stuff and then they delay it. Do we have a number for what our reserve budget is and are we required to hold a certain percentage or dollar amount? >> Um um Commissioner uh Workman and uh Chair Workman and Commissioner Woodman uh we're not required but we do have our year in savings account. Uh and I got a slide showing that. So we'll um I'll show that to you guys >> that uh focus on the levy increase uh the recommended uh 8% which as I mentioned is the 6% base plus the 2% search charge. Uh that would generate a levy increase of 6 million. Uh the monthly county property tax increase for just the county's portion would be $6.80 80s on that average value at home uh which is now 490 495,000 and the annual the property tax increase would be 5.6. Uh the difference between the levy increase of 8 and the property tax increase of 5.6 is that the the benefit from the new construction as I as I mentioned before. Uh just add some there's some other numbers on there. 6% base increase 2.9% the caption new construction um just for a reference point. Uh and you can see in 2025 the 6.8% levy increase that I mentioned uh had a county tax impact of 2.4 and in 2024 the difference between that 2.4 that was we had fiscal disparities uh numbers which is where the the seven county metro areas sharing the commercial growth in commercial uh tax base. Um and that that's a number we can't predict. We get updated numbers in August and we had a big shift come our way for 2025. the the amount for 2026 was more in line with what we've seen in the past. Uh did not have a significant impact. Um but that's the that's the impact on the average value at home, the county's average value at home, which should have a 4% increase in value. Um so the the um the the monthly uh property tax increase I mentioned, as well as the overall increase for the county portion of the uh of their taxes. Uh there's some just some more details or the details are provided in the packet. Um I did mention the 450,000 levy increase. Um we would the the plan is to increase uh in uh include that again for um 27 2027 and 2028 and um to to accumulate levy dollars to pay the principal interest on a a 2028 bond sale for a new government center. uh the addition the uh additional adjustments for um levies. You can see these are across the county. Um county administrator Hemsy mentioned the 800,000 in increase in the state uh program aid that based on the formula. It's up to now 5.7 million. And then our vacancy savings adds 200,000. We're not changing the percentage u but just the growth in the wages adds 200,000 to the vacancy savings. uh the slide you guys have uh seen in the past. Mary Kay uh updated this um just highlight a couple things. The um Oops, pushed the wrong button. Sorry. The uh 2020 showing up for you guys. >> Um >> where is Mary Kay by the way? >> What's that? >> Where is Mary Kay today? >> Uh she has the week off uh taking getting her kids ready to go to school. >> Okay. For her preschool. Y >> good answer. She is she is listening I I believe. So we can say >> hi Mary Kay. >> Uh in 2023 you can see the actual the budget for vacancy savings was was right on 8.4% to 8.5%. Uh 2024 u dropped the actual compared to what we project. Um and we did in 2026 we are showing a a projection of 7.8% reflecting um that that number uh did go down in 2024. We expect to go back up again in 2025 slightly back somewhere in between 23 and 20 24 U but we're comfortable with the 7.8% as the projection. Uh just reflecting that uh we are not going to be fully staffed at all times during the year. Uh so we we acknowledge that there's going to be um a certain percentage of our of our staff is of our uh staffing compliment going to be um vacant. Um, and we're merely trying to reflect that in our budget. The state CPA, you can see the significant increase in 2026 and it's in the in that those dollar that increase is going to the general fund. Um, as county administrator mentioned, that's the uh the overall increase um and where it's being directed. There's a a small change in the blue on the top um which reflects the uh one-time projects on attachment E and then the 295 continues to be uh in our going into our capital improvement plans. This these are this uh individual division uh needs and trends uh and additional revenues as as county commissioner mentioned and then the uh budget gap levy adjustments. These are all all the details are are provided in your packet. Um the uh ongoing sheriff is on the top with the uh increase in the jail medical and meals and supplies. Um public services with it uh and and various costs, utility costs, that's the 210,000. Um then down at the bottom, the 365,000's positive number. Those are revenue increases uh overall from the various divisions. And then the targeted levy adjustments uh just over a million dollars um in terms of um strategic ongoing adjustments uh to the levy dollars. Um that reflect add all those up that's the almost 700,000 um in in positive levy adjustments provided by each of the divisions. Attachment B in your packet. Those are the staffing changes. Uh we talked about these um in in general, but here they are all kind of all added up. The employee relations um you can see the eliminate deputy director. Uh there's some levy savings in that. Um there's the li library reorg should have mentioned public works had a reorg with their uh parks. Um young sheriff uh is eliminating a jail nurse and uh adding back a supervisor. there's a slight cost of that. Overall, the uh recommended FT is a reduction um in a net of the 1.55 these and as I mentioned, they're all vacant positions. Uh but then the levy sir charge is actually that part of that 1.5 million uh would go to uh increase the health and human services by the three FTs that I mentioned before uh all related to the big beautiful bill. Um and there the overall cost for that is uh just over 200,000. So the requested total requested FDES uh 26.17 and administries recommended a net increase of 1.45 >> um there's a a chart just kind of giving the board a uh a snapshot of how $100 Anderson ask real quick question. And I I meant to ask this before and this might go to um administrator Hemsy. The the library um reduction does that already um we combined a collections we combined a position collections and law library. Does that already take this into impact into effect? >> Uh Mr. Chair, Commissioner Anderson, that's in the in the mixture. There's there's savings due to that and that's part of the recommendation. >> Okay. I just wanted to be clear. Sorry, I should have asked it earlier, >> but but I was just >> another sort of mini reorg that >> Okay. >> that we're able to add some money to the next. >> Thank you. Sorry to interrupt. >> Oh, and the photo of you. I'm so sorry. [Laughter] Uh so $100 of county levy uh allocated and thanks to Commissioner Anderson for our um our breakdown. She helped us uh kind of re reorganize this um this chart, but you can see the the big ones are community health and human services. Uh then the county sheriff the middle in the middle there the operations um and we highlighted all the different departments for that. Uh then all the way down um general government has a tube by it that's um several of the departments related to uh property um as well as other services. Um but it's a good visual uh representation of of how where that $100 would go of county levy. And then looking back uh historically going back to 2022 uh Mary Kay put this um slide together and to show uh you know personnel in the in the far left that has been increasing been been steadily increasing um as you might expect and then the impact from non the non-personnel cost u that service is a is a sliver in there um that will would uh increase as uh as we go forward. forward with the um the government um center and the bond sale. Uh we plan to do that so that when we issue the debt, we'd have the principle and interest already built into our budget. Um and uh and then obviously the capital outlay with road and bridges primarily, but there's some there's some other projects in there too. But you can see um how that's uh uh impacts the overall budget with the with the darker blue on the right in terms of the uh the projects that um the the uh public works is planning for each of the budget cycles. Looking at those numbers uh for 2026, these are in attachment C in your packet. 28 million for road and bridge with the funding provided by um other uh non levy uh sources other than 2.2 million that county tax levy for road preservation. That's the same amount as 2025. There's uh almost 700,000 in park and trail projects um with and there's 200,000 of county tax levy for repairs and maintenance. that's included in that and that's a $100,000 increase from 2025. Rest of the funding comes from the state, some CPA money um and other other participants um billies and miscellaneous and the region rail authority additional uh capital projects identified and uh and for those attachments, but no county levy is going to e either one of those cips. And then our attachment D has our five-year replacement schedule. Uh there's 1.9 million of county tax levy uh for that scheduled replacement of of all all of that facility facility vehicles and equipment. Uh it's also 100,000 increase from uh 2025. And both of these were um county mentioned we looked at um not increasing these for uh 2026 as part of closing the budget gap solution. Um but there there need the need was there. Um it is consistent with the board's new strategic plan uh to uh continue our investment in our physical assets. Uh so these are included in the uh county ministry is recommended for 2026. Um thanks asked us to put together a higher level summary of uh where our um dollars are going in into the future for our capital plans. Um you can see that the parks and trail uh that's 100,000 was the first year we set aside levy dollars for that in 2025 is recommended increase 100,000 for 2026. Uh we anticipate that increasing another 100,000 for the next couple years. Uh but we're not we haven't identified yet how many years and what's the final goal. Um that's um under consideration evaluation by um our parks department and the parks commission. Um but that but that's a a task they're working on. The road and bridge cip that has the 2.2 million I mentioned uh no increase for 2026 and that's our final goal the 2.20 uh 2.2 million. Um it was a it was a 10-year plan. Uh it took us 11 years to get there. Uh but that that's now ended uh ended in 2024. Our uh facility vehicles equipment uh that had the 1.8 8 million I mentioned 100,000 increase and that again is uh we are continuing to increase that we do evaluate it. Um but for the foreseeable future we think the the cost for replacing all of that equipment that's on that schedule is going to continue. Um so but we will we will continue to look at that each year. Our one-time projects on attachment E uh that's uh funded with the CPA. We've been redirecting part of 100,000 each year out of our operating budget and put it towards the one-time uh projects. Uh we plan to continue that. Um it it it's a it's a good strategy to to have the funding for the one-time. It also takes the um some of the pressure of the CPA out of our operating budget. The state was to uh cut that in the future. uh we we would have um be we'd be able to uh not fund our capital projects which is easier to make that adjustment than it would when it's going into the operating budget um in the cut in the and the if the state would then cut that. Uh so that's the strategy that's in our long-term financial plan. Um as I mentioned the the government center master space plan um will eventually be the 3.5 million um of debt service levy um that's either already been paid off or will be paid off in the next few years. Uh and then if we increase that uh with the levy increase of 450,000 and do that for five years. This is the second year of the five as we mentioned, then we'll get to our goal of 5.3 million. Um and that um would would would end in 2029, the $450,000 increase. Dave, will you stay there for just a minute? Sure. That's a big beautiful slide. I'm just wondering once those things roll off in 24 and 29 if we'll add the stuff that we know is coming too. So I'll give examples. First Street Center needs some attention. I know we have what over six, seven roofs that are 20 plus years old in the next five years, $3 million plus parking lots, etc., etc. Will those start to populate here once we knock out some of the ones when we get to close to the final year? >> Um, board chair Workman and uh Commissioner Rudman, uh, that depends. Some of those costs with roofs and and parking lots. Um Nick and his staff already have budget for and that it's part of a plan um that they're working on and they've got other dollars that are put towards that. Uh but some of those costs that you mentioned are outside of that. Um and they're not going to be able to fund that with the money that's available to them and in which case um it potentially would come here or it could go on to our one-time project. Um all depends on the magnitude. The the 450 for the $82 million government. that one jumps off the page obviously. Um but um it's an ongoing um uh evaluation that that Nick and and public and the public services staff are doing. Um but when Nick's coming up in in another slide, so he maybe can do an >> I think it'd be helpful especially and I appreciate the three-year look. I don't know that I've seen that before. So I think it's good um for a couple reasons. One, it seems to be working well. when we plan for it, we get it done. And there's transparency across the organization. We can grumble about headcount or this or that, but if we're like, "Oh gosh, dang, we got 82 million bucks facing us." It also helps us coordinate with our leader uh peers within the cities. Um when a taxpayer sees two or three or 4% on the bottom line of their tax bill. Um they don't really look any deeper. Um but when everybody's taxing 8 n 10 11 12%, then you're like, "Oh my gosh, Chask is five years in a row a double digit tax increase. county has been holding it, you know, at six or seven percent. School districts actually been negative. Those are some of the stories that are going to be told, particularly in the district that my kids go to school in in the next six months that are poant. And then this stuff once we put it on there, we talk about it, maybe we can go from a legislative priority standpoint to find some bonding money for some of the things that we want to do or get creative with partnerships um or areas where others can contribute. I'll elevate one. We were at workforce a couple weeks ago, had conversations with Eric who leads the Henipin Carver workforce development. All of us that were there had those conversations. He's got grant dollars available that I didn't know he had a pocket for. Now, it costs money to go do grants and it doesn't not dollar for dollar and it takes staff time, but we discovered maybe a quarter million dollars that we can add to it just by having a line of sight to what the future looks like. And so, I'd support this being a fiveyear lookout for anything that's $100,000 or more, which would include parking lots, roofs, and buildings. >> Yeah, I'm going to change my answer now that I thought about it. Chair Workman and Commissioner Woodman. Um we we have uh Nick everything that everything that Nick wants to do that I'm aware of uh we've got in our plan he's got in his uh we have a database and it's all funded. So, you know, uh, beyond this, um, we don't have any plans for needing additional money that, but that's not to say, um, the board isn't going to say, well, now we got to do something and now Nick's looking into that, and Nick comes back to me and says, okay, board now wants to do this. We don't have money for that. Um, and then we then we start coming together with plan. But, you know, we're looking out as far as we can see and the the ones that are on this list are the ones that we have a plan for and we need money for. Um, but anything anything else that's out there, um, you know, Nick's Nick's got a really good handle on it. Um, but you know, Nick Nick's probably got a list that he's not talking to me about, which, um, you know, I'll let him answer that. But in terms of terms of our plan, we are and and uh, even in Lynen's areas out 2040, we don't have money set aside for that in any levy dollars for that, but that's because none of that's funded by levy dollars, right? It's all federal, state, whatever. So, you know, I I I'm I'm I can't think of anything because we got plans. >> Change your answer. I'm gonna change my question. >> Okay, fair enough. >> If that's if that's your if that's your answer, then how much have we budgeted for a update and or a replacement of the First Street Center? That'd be a specific question. >> Yeah, that that that's a Nick question. >> Come on up, Nick. C can I just add um we need to be careful that we're not to to not collapse capital improvements with long-term deferred maintenance because some of this is um deferred maintenance, right? Resurfacing the parking lots, re- roof, things like that are deferred maintenance. Capital improvement is building. Am I correct? >> Yeah, that's that's a great point. That's how Nick's going to answer that question. We need to be careful that that we separate these two two funds. >> Yeah. I'm going to I'm going to change my answer again. I'm going to say, >> boy, >> we've got money set aside for deferred maintenance on everything we can think of. >> Money set aside and and that I think Nick and I are on the same page with that. To the extent that there's a building out there that that we need to replace like the First Street Center and it's going to cost us money, um I I'm going to answer for Nick. We don't know what we're going to do with that. So he can't give me a number to say here's what we're going to do for that particular building or that if we ever get the board priority and we get board direction that um Nick now needs to do something with that and Dave you know then they'll come to me and say yeah we we've now got this particular uh project that we want to do and we need funding for it then we go through and start looking and and um and develop a plan for that and then we come to the board and say you know here's here's what the board wants to do uh here's our financing plan for that. So, anything that that is a board priority that Nick's working on in terms of a of a project, um, you know, then he comes to me and says, "We need the money and then we we set it aside and figure it out." >> Well, maybe it's two slides. It just I I appreciate the point. There is difference between deferred maintenance and capital improvement, but they do bleed together. So, maybe those two slides should be side by side because if um deferred maintenance is being like, "Yep, we got it." and capital improvements like wait a minute the best decision 600 buildings an example first street center is an example it easily shifts from a lot of years of deferred maintenance to maybe the best decision is capital expense so it's the same conversation it's two different pieces of paper I don't want to I don't want to split I don't want to >> split hairs but if we're going to do it we should probably have both of the slides at the same time I don't know that I don't know that our organization knows if it's a replacement at first street or if it's deferred maintenance but I do know that the deferred maintenance is piling up so it probably leads to the to an answer. >> Mr. M >> before freshman changes his mind again. >> Kind of a blending of things. I think it would be good to paint that picture and take a you know budgets are forecast guesses. Uh but obviously if you look obvious to me if you look at this 5.3 million what what I refer to as base budgeting that's really the key here. Once you hit five million 5.3 then you're paying for you don't have to add to that. Yeah. you're paying your principal and interest, >> right? >> So that frees up in effect that 5 million. You could, >> you know, reduce your levy by that or you could keep it, right? And that's the likely game plan, right? Would be you take that 5 million and redirect it. >> But I I think we owe it to many folks, our staff and citizens to say, >> uh, we have to do something. We can't just let that First Street Center sit there like it is add infinite, right? and at some point it just becomes >> it's a waste of money to to start continue investing. So we'll do that as we >> unroll this uh further. >> So what I'm hearing is if Nick were to find other employment suddenly we would save all this money and we wouldn't have a single problem. >> I don't think so. >> Isn't I think >> Wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's not start that rumor. >> However, >> get rid of Nick. that will not be in the plan. >> But looking at deferred maintenance does help, right? Because if we find that we're spending more money on a building than it's worth >> or or you know, like where do we stop the bleeding and and does that change um does does that change our facility plan? Yeah, M. Uh, Commissioner Anderson, that exactly. And that's what Nick and his staff do a great job of. And they do a great job of letting us know, hey, we need this. And we, um, you know, not too long ago, they said, uh, we we got roofs. We got need to replace roofs. We need an extra 200,000 going over here. So, we set that aside and in five years that was a million dollars. And they had they stretched out their plan to to make that work. So, we're we're uh constantly uh looking at what the what the needs are and what the dollars that are available. Um that's what our long-term financial plan does. That's what our caps do. That's why we have AAA bond rating because we are looking at those things out in the future. We're setting aside money for deferred maintenance. And as as we get to them, we're prioritizing um what needs to be done in terms of the capital projects that need to be replaced. First Street Center being top of the list after the government center. And Dave, just to that point, this whole discussion reminds me of what we did for that Encore building and how we moved those services and moved that staff. And maybe just for Commissioner Anderson to in a side conversation to talk with her about what we did that that was because we talked about that building for a long time and then the services went away and what we did with the staff, etc. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. I appreciate that, Commissioner. >> Great example. Okay, I got uh one or two more slides and Nick Nick's coming up. Uh attachment E. Uh we we kind of we're just talking about that one. So we have 4.1 million of one-time funding available for 2026. And there's the sources of where that money is coming from. There is a uh just over a million dollar transfer from year in savings and that'll be in my next slide. U just to let the board, you know, know where this money is coming from. Um, and included in the administrator's recommendation is 4.1 million of the of capital projects. 1.6 of that came from the long-term financial plan. These are things that are in our plan that that uh we've scheduled out. We've been seeing that they're coming and then we've roll them up into the annual budget. Um, so those are one-time projects. U pavement, jail, uh, HVAC. Um, in addition, 2.5 million of division requests that came up this year, uh, 2026. So, as much as as long-term planning and discussions we have, um we don't we don't always get them into the plan and sometimes we don't know what they are. Um and then when that happens, then uh they come in as a as a this particular year, uh the big one this in the Baylor Park and site improvements. Um um and then a few other things that that have popped up. So, u just this that's where our deferred maintenance is rolling into our these are one-time projects on attachment E. Uh the year in savings update. Uh it started the year at 8 million. The county ministry's 2025 budget attachment eet one time onetime cost. Uh there was a transfer of 1.5 million with which the board approved to do projects um for for and we're doing those this year. Um I've mentioned the July through December the cost that were shifted um 381,000. Uh we're we're recommending we take that out of the year end savings account. And then there was good news uh IRS rebate related to the Paradise Commons project was 630,000. >> Um that that we were able to get from the IRS. We we haven't counted on it because uh and we didn't budget for it because we weren't sure it was going to show up. And even when it showed up, we weren't sure the check wasn't going to bounce. So we >> What is this >> reduction? >> Oh. Oh yeah. Yeah. Internal revenue. >> Yeah. They don't give money back. >> Oh, thank you. >> Yeah, it was IRA. Yeah. >> Uh so we were making sure that the we didn't but now it's here and uh we got it. Correct. Yeah. >> It's a refund from the IRS. >> Well, sometimes you get IRS rebate, but not on this one. But that was related to the geothermal. >> Yeah. Yeah. Something related to energy. >> Um so complicated. Uh but 630,000 uh that that's coming into the United States are recommended. We did direct that towards that um towards the Baylor Park uh and site improvements um in in the county ministry's recommendation. Just so I make that uh make that link. Um and then the 1.08 million that's being recommended for 2026 uh capital projects on attachment E uh would would put us at um available balance, you know, over five and a half million in our year-end savings account. That's our reserve. >> What's our health what's our target or healthy? I don't I don't 5.6 Six is just a number, but um is it a percentage of our overall levy? Is it >> it's it it um it had I can say historically it's uh since I've been here it's been in a range between zero and um you know close to 8 million what we had before was a little higher than that. I would the average has probably been around in the three to five million range is where is where it you know if looking back um but it you know it's all a factor of of what's out there and and what's um what are we nervous about um so that that's that's probably on the higher side compared to uh previous years but uh you know we're drawn it down. >> I just want to interject I I think that yes was started as a noble thing. I just think there's unnecessary heavy reliance on it and and and I don't think people are saying like keep maybe they are I don't know keep positions open to fund our budget but ultimately we're relying on year-end savings that gets fed by vacancy savings right so if if if HR says we're going to go from 16% turnover down to eight it kills our budget because we're reliant on it and so I think that this is maybe a moment that we stop and pause and say it was a noble cause should we revisit what year in savings really does um again it deincentivizes us as an organization to turn our turnover down. That's at least that's what I've seen over the last five years and so >> could I could I respond? >> Uh the objective of this budget is not to add to this year in s county. The objective is to hit a number and obviously it's very difficult to do. We definitely don't want to go on the red, right? But we're not we're not intentionally trying to add to this account. And um I I would say you could create a policy on year and savings account. I think most organizations likely blend it into unassigned fund balance and talk about >> you know it's going to be between 35 and 40%. That does that sort of thing, right? >> U but again the the objective is not to add to this. Uh obviously we're subtracting from it intentionally. But that's the shot at. But again, full well knowing it's so hard to hit that number and things evolve and change over over the even the months here. You know, as you look at these vacancies, I didn't I didn't think we would be where we're at with vacancies right now six months ago because of how fast this >> Mr. Chair, I would add, Commissioner Udman, um, finance does not, uh, try and and control that vacancy savings number at all. Uh, all we do is we just track it. We just trend it. We just we just watch where it's been. We historically look back and use that as a gauge for where where we're going as an organization. But we're not uh we're not encouraging people or not putting any pressure on the yard, hit numbers or anything like that. It's it's literally uh looking backwards and where has it been um as a predictive of where it's going to go in the future. So um it it happens um and I I owe comm uh administer I don't know how many beers because we were always low on that. We always we wanted to push that up the budget up and and and for a number of years we were well then all of a sudden 2023 we actually finally got close between what we budgeted for vacancy savings and what we're actual but prior to that we had always been we always been lagging. Um so but yeah it's a it's an ongoing uh target. Um but it's but it's based on historical trends. >> But but to make the point if we took our current run rate of turnover and we cut cut that in half we would have a budget problem. Well, we have a budget problem every year. That wouldn't be any different than any other year. It' be a challen How about a challenge? It'd be it would be a new challenge, but we have we always deal with challenges. If if they were able to do it in one year, that would be dramatic. I you know, we might see it over time kind of kind of trend back. Uh they are working on it. We're all trying to get people in here and keep them and retain them. Um, but the his history, the trend shows we're not going to turn that around, you know, overnight or within a short amount of time. >> But I I just to finish that because this is an important issue. Uh, we would all love to reduce our turnover rate, right? We'd love to have zero turnover. Kristen's back there. Well, how how are we going to >> we don't want zero. >> Uh, that's not going to happen, right? So, we're realistic. These assumptions are reasonable realistic assumptions and we could set goals targets that are half half of our turn. It's not real. You know, we have all sorts of strategies to attract and retain and looking for mental health folks to engineers and others. I mean, we're scrambling here, right? So that again, it's a balancing act of but let's be real real reasonable realistic. Let's set up intentional strategies to try and reduce that number full well knowing that there's going to be a pretty healthy dollar amount added to that. >> Commissioner Warfund may to me it's less about urine savings because every organization has um this in there. It's about our unassigned fund balance. Um and you know back to commissioner Udman made a comment about unassigned fund balance at the school district. It's very different because we need more working capital here because of how we're funded by the by the state and federal government, but this rolls into our unassigned fund balance and we have money in in those accounts and and I think that that's a conversation kind of looking at all of those accounts and um finding out where those fund balances are and and how how those are being used. I is is the bigger picture question that I >> every time I talk I I I'm so sorry. >> All right. Thank you. Um now for Nick, >> you're still here. >> I am still here. Yes. Updated my resume though. >> No, no, Rick. Good to see you. >> Thank you, Dave. Uh, Mr. Chair and commissioners, I wanted to uh provide a financial summary of the master space plan uh as it relates to the budget. Before I do that, I want to give just a quick overview of the master space plan to refresh everyone's memory. Uh the objective is to address uh current and future. And we talk about future, we're talking about 20 years. Uh the space requirements, that's the building space requirements. uh and phase one is focused in at the government center. The scope includes uh demolishing the two oldest structures on our campus. So for reference, that's where like um veteran services is located, taxpayer services, uh assessor's office. So those two uh buildings within our campus would be demolished. We would build a new threestory facility. uh on this campus and then renovate uh the building that we're in right now, the 602 building. So that's the scope of phase one of the master space plan. The timeline to accomplish this is we're hoping to start demolition in late 2027 with construction kicking off in 28 and lasting into 2029. Our estimated budget right now for this project is $82 million. uh as uh Dave Freshman mentioned, we would bond for that that $82 million. So when we look at the principal and interest, it would take $5.3 million uh to make that uh that payment. We need 5.3 million in levy. Uh also, as Dave mentioned earlier, we have $3.5 million in uh debt services that have or uh will be retiring that can go against that. So that leaves that gap where each year we're building up $450,000 in the budget to make up that $5.3 million levy payment. So what would be the pros or cons of potentially delaying this project? Uh shortterm, of course, there'd be some budget relief. Uh as Dave Freshman uh pointed out in a number of the slides that $450,000 kept popping up. uh if we were to push this project off, there would be that short-term relief uh to this budget cycle. Uh also, we're projecting that there'll be higher operating cost. Uh you have a bigger building, so there's going to be some more cost related to that. The big one is cleaning. There's going to be more square footage, so we're going to have to clean more uh of the building, which will cost more. Maintenance, even think looking at things like uh our snowplow contract, we're going to extend the parking lot. So that'll go up. Uh utility is we'll have some cost savings because it'll be more energy efficient building, but it will be more square footage. We're anticipating some utility increase. So when you factor all that in, we're looking at probably around 175 to $200,000 per year in increased operating cost for the new facility. On the con side, uh each year the cost of building goes up. uh we estimate uh on average about 3 to 5% per year that it would go up. Of course uh it's tough to look in the crystal ball that trend did not follow through COVID. It went up much steeper. Uh other times it goes up less but on average about 3 to 5% per year. So if you take that $82 million and multiply it by 3% you get an increase of 2.5 million. 5% is 4 million. So you're looking at up to 4 million per year in additional costs just through inflation that we push out this project. So if we push another year, instead of being $82 million project, it would likely be $86 million. Another year be 90 million, etc. when you look at the bond payment needed for that incremental increase. So instead of $82 million if we're at $86 million is going to cost an additional $150 to $200,000 per year that we push it off. Uh so that $5.3 million would go up to 5.55 etc as we push it off. Also delaying other projects push pushes back other capital needs. We talked quite a bit about First Street Center already. uh if we you know right now the long the master space plan calls for the government center phase one being the first step in the in our process. Uh later on we'll come first street. So the more we push this off likely will then impact when we can get to these other projects that are high priorities as well. Also just the workspace limitations. Uh our current buildings are not the the greatest places to work. um and the greatest work environments. So, it would be been great for our employee uh recruitment and retention to uh update our facilities here and uh move on with the master space plan. Looking at deferred maintenance, which was brought up some as well. Right now, facilities has paused uh wherever we can investments into these buildings. uh you know knowing that they're going to be demolished or remodeled. We don't want to put in you know a you know new hot water heater unless it's you know broken. So it's much more of a break fix attitude right now and a band-aid attitude to our facilities uh you know on this side of the campus. But with that we have a number of aging systems with a higher risk of failure. We're already at past uh end of life on a number of these systems. So each year we push off or were to push off the project, the higher risk that we might have a failure to, you know, expensive component, an elevator and our HVAC system that we'd be then have to force to make an investment knowing that soon we're going to be demolishing anyways. So again, that's some of the pros and cons on delay in the project. I was also asked to look at what would be the option if we switched directions here and look at more of a renovation option uh versus a a demo and and build option. With that, I worked with uh Brett and his team to figure out what it would take to increase our current building to current standards. So things like our HVAC system are very dated uh and past end of life, our roast need replacement. Uh you all probably parked in the parking lot this morning, noticed a number of potholes that's in rough shape. Entry doors are in rough shape. Our elevators uh do not meet uh well, they meet code. They're not up to today's standards. Uh the building envelope uh also needs some work just as far as you know, cocking around the windows, tuck pointing, that sort of those sort of items. So, if we were just to take the building we have and bring it up to standards, it would take about $16 million. Then, we also looked at, well, how about uh, you know, if we needed to uh do an extensive remodel in the uh interior spaces to improve the layouts, furniture, modernizing our workspaces and technology to meet the hybrid work environment. That's estimated to cost about $26 million. Even with that, it would not meet our long-term space needs. Our current current footprint wouldn't ne meet our future needs when we look out that 20 years. So, we need to construct a an additional building offsite to meet those long-term needs. Uh I say off-site because one of our strategies of staying on site here is to go higher uh because we have a constrained site. But if we stick with the current footprint, we would have to move off-site. Uh, and I'm estimating that we need about 20 to $30 million for an off-site structure to meet our long-term needs. Wouldn't necessarily need that day one. Uh, but looking forward, we would have to make that investment. So, with that, there'll be some limitations uh including uh a split campus, which I think would reduce efficiencies for our staffs. Um, may not address some of the building environmental concerns that we have today. and the space layout would be better but not optimal, not like starting fresh. Uh we would be constrained to the footprint of our buildings. So that's what I have on the master space plan. Any questions? >> Uh I I um I'm just curious um as to so sorry. um I need to better understand what services are going to be in in this and so maybe it's another conversation and I I understand having this conversation in addition to like uh this budget conversation is challenging. So I guess my request um would to have a meeting specifically to discuss kind of the square footage and some of those needs within because um I I am a little concerned about putting the same services back in this building. I think we have an opportunity to push some of the services some of our services currently into the community and that would reduce the size of this building. Um, and so, um, I would like to kind of better understand what is all going to be in here, what's what's expected to be in here. Are we building um, the building out fully or are we going to add on potential expansion space? because if we if we if we reduce the amount that we're building now and have um potential expansion place space then we have an opportunity to reduce the amount um of that bond. So I guess I have a lot of questions around this. >> Sure. >> Way more questions than we have time um as I have to leave at 12:15. >> Yeah, Mr. Chair, >> I did not >> 15 >> 12:15. Yeah. >> Uh Mr. Chair and Commissioner, uh we are coming back likely in October to do an update on the master space plan. Uh but I'd be happy to sit down with you as well. Uh and over the years we've had a number of presentations to the board. Uh but I can sit down with you and go over some of those as well as far as what services are going where. And the short answer on the expandable space that is part of the plan. Uh we're building the the framework to meet today's needs, but yet have it expandable to meet our 20-year goals. and and that and that would be good. And um to Commissioner Udman's point, I it is difficult to talk about this space without talking about First Street Center because we have an opportunity at First Street Center to do things and expand services into the community. That would reduce our footprint here. So, um, I'm having a hard time decoupling the two, um, with with how I'm and I'm probably thinking about First Street Center differently than most. So, yes. So, if we could pause this conversation for the moment, that that would be helpful. >> But, but I appreciate you sharing this as it does have a major impact with that 450,000 um, onto our budget. So creativity I think is the word to be do something different. Um uh like I'm hearing if the first street center is a obvious need in the near future here, how can we dovetail that? If Chaz is building a library, how can we uh also deal with that? Um I uh a resident of Chanhasson am watching the uh Chanhassen community center that they want to build hockey rinks and everything. I I'm positive it started at 40 million. The plan then became 80 million and I think they might be pushing 100 million uh now and I think there um there's a lot of alarm up there about that. I'm talking about within city hall. Um, so that 82 has stayed pretty firm and I don't know if that's a 2789 number um or if it's a number today and what that might be and and but to the best of the ability uh to you got a pretty good detailed idea about how much more it might cost every year, but um to keep it keep it in line and then maybe use that creativity with the other needs that we have to >> to make it all work. So, I don't hear anybody saying back off, >> right? >> The new building. Um >> but cuz thanks to the tour down there, that is a mess down there. Um but yeah, no surprises, please. So, >> and and Commissioner Workman, to your point, I mean, I've I've been involved in several building projects. um and uh only one of which was a community pool which increased in cost a million dollars every year. Um so I I I would like to look at I was like can we build it before it breaks us? Um and uh we updated numbers on on what that would be um as well would would be helpful. So thank you for that and um Sorry, I have to leave. >> Okay. Are we about getting done here? >> Yes, sir. >> Was Nick the wrap-up? Dave's the wrap up. >> Oh, hang on. Hang on. >> Uh long-term financial plan highlights. Um talked about some of this. Uh but the road and bridge cap. Um Lyndon's got that out, but as I mentioned, um we match it with some of our transportation sales and wheelage taxes. Uh but the primary funding source is federal government, state government. U building miscellaneous CIP um talked about those mass placement study Jes library one time stuff uh parks and trails here we are uh I mentioned this one we're looking at trying to um have a goal of very poor condition none and the five-year goal poor condition less than 25%. um still working through uh how do we get that done? How much money do we need to get that done? But that is a a project we're focused on. And then in operations FTEES, we've me talked about that several times today. Uh how do we minimize those requests? Um and then employee health insurance. Just to remind the board, we did have a two year we did a two-year contract in 2025. So we have a rate cap 12% on 2026. Uh but for 2027 we'll be having to go back out to the market um on health on employee health insurance. Okay. And then uh just a reminder of the board our budget calendar. So the the lighter uh yellow is today's uh work session and then uh next Tuesday we'll be asking the board to adopt a preliminary 2026 levy budget. Then we have a few more meetings. uh the public hearing as we'll also ask the board to set that public hearing uh for 6 pm on Tuesday, November 25th next week. Um then finish um in the boardroom on December 2nd. And with that, uh looking for any board input and direction on the 2026 preliminary property tax levy on budget. Um, Chair Workman, before I um take take off, uh, a a couple of items. Um, I think we should consider I think my understanding with the the do not meet criteria, um, we're looking at one-time money for half of that >> for uh, Mr. Mr. Anderson, for 2025 >> for 2025, >> then a levy increase to address 2026. I I would like us to consider um using onetime money with that. As I understand um how that law reads and what that is, they are already looking for another location for that individual. So, that looks like it will be a one-year solution. So, I'd like to to consider um looking at that. Um I also I first of all, I need to go back. I'm I'm sorry. I'm feeling rushed suddenly. Um thank you for all the work you put into this. This is a yman's amount of work both for our administrator and everybody in this room. So I want to I want to thank you for all that work. I think I think it's difficult as I'm reflecting on this I I think your job is very difficult to do this and make these recommendations without um seeking the input from the boards and the board's priority. And um so I'm trying to understand this process and um as as this is my first year round and and um kind of trying to take a a wait and see approach, but I I I would encourage um the the board to have a a little bit more input into what priorities um there are and um we have and and I was looking for a conversation amongst my board members what those priorities are to make it easier for you to recommend. Um, I personally um struggle with um recommending changes in service levels to community services. Um, so I I would not be in support of reducing um the driver's license center for example in Chesca as as my constituents feel like that's a necessary service to our community and I and I'm glad that that has stayed in. Um but but my priorities would be to to look internally first to make sure that we're a a a well-run organization and then and then consider external um services um at a later date. Um and uh but I do want to thank you for this work. This is good work and I'm I'm relieved that the numbers are less than what we talked about back in uh February and March. And um I I look forward to continuing to learn more about this budget and our plans for 2026 um in the next few months. >> Am I next up? >> Yep. Sure. >> So, I know that we've got the strategic priorities. Um, but I put two filters on before that. Is it our responsibility? >> Um, I don't know. Do we want to query the board if they support the six plus two or wait till next week? >> It'd be good to know if the if you have a direction to change it. Having said that, you know, specific changes aren't 100% necessary. For example, if you wanted to take uh and apply onetime money to the DNQ that, you know, it's over over a percent in the levy could be done almost on the fly, you know, during during the preliminary levy to knock the number down. >> But up to you, Mr. Chair. >> Yep. >> Doing that onetime money would save us a percent. But I do think that um we have time for that and and we have time to to talk about that and and and throw that around. >> So the 6 plus two at this point >> at at at this moment in time >> not committing it's not committing you to >> yeah at this moment in time it seems reasonable. >> Thank you Commissioner Udman. I apologize we got sidetracked. >> Uh I think there's a lot of pieces to it. I'm I'm a three and a half% guy, so not in on the eight, but uh I think that the filter that I look through is um is this is it our responsibility? Um is it going to have long-term impact if we do or don't do it. I'll give you an example. We don't statutoily have to fund a communications department, but I think if we got rid of them, it would cost us a lot downturn. Um and then I look at the priorities as as they're written. And so in going through that, I'm I'm excited by some of the creativity that you brought forth, some solutions that I hadn't seen or heard before um in in board presentation. So encouraged by that. As it relates to the DMV, um I'm not on board subsidizing the 50% of people that come to Carver County every year to the tune of 12 to 15 million a year um for something that's not a state issue or it's not a it's not a mandate. We're doing the job of the state mandate. um yet the last six months we've um pointed out that the state is shifting a whole lot of stuff to our direction. And so if we continue to take on stuff that we don't have to do anyway, it doesn't really give us a leg to stand on if we're going to try and push back on the things that we do have to do because they're mandated. And so I just point to Eden Prairie and I think it was 2012 u projected that they lose $300,000 in two 2012 money and in their press release they said you can go to you can go to Carver County and go to Chesa and Chanhassen is the DMPS. Um so I think they're still operating just fine. Um, and and I I don't I don't like the thought of closing them, but it's it's probably a weekly occurrence where somebody in the softball groups or basketball groups or neighborhood groups is is not happy with the level of service we're able to offer because we're crammed in there, right? Because the state is burdening us with a lot of other things. So, I think we should let them take care of their own problems. Um, and I think that one of the ways we could do that is consider an RFP model because there's others across the state that operate as an independent third party. I think everybody on this board at one time or another has expressed government shouldn't do what the private market could do. So maybe the next step is to consider going out for RFP to have somebody take our great staff and our buildings, all the things we've trained up and make it available for a third party to operate them. Give them our buildings. It would actually save us a lot of money if we just gave them our buildings versus continue to repair and invest in them. And it's probably not an easy conversation. I think we need to have those services there. I just don't think we need to do something that the state mandates. So that might be a next step. Um, we've had the luxury of having Lisa in the boardroom for the last or commissioner Anderson in the boardroom for the last three years. And so she does know the budget process from the school district side and she knows it from the county side. And so um, uh, I'm interested to see some solutions from her and the rest of our board as to how we can whittle this down because if we don't get this thing under four or 5% um, our tax rate will go up. And I think we've all at one time or another said, how do we bring taxes down? Our tax rate continues to fly up higher. And so I'm encouraged by some of these things. Um I'm a 5.5 headcount per thousand ratio guy. Uh when I came in we were at 7.1. It was the highest in the metro. We have brought that down every single year. I think we hover around 6.5 6.6 uh right now. Um I think as we grow our goal should be 5.5. And if we did so we could lock in at 720 headcount today and wait till we hit 130,000 in population before we add net headcount. And so, uh, I've shared it in one way or another. I'll just be succinct here. I think if we had 720 staff with no headcount reduction, uh, other than whittling down on some of the vacant items that have been vacant, if we, um, had a 3.5% levy, which would lower our tax rate for the average residential home. And if we were substantially um the same or similar to what our our 25 and 26 packages for employees uh through the next three years 27 28 and 29 uh we could have a budget that we're proud of bring our tax rate down and deliver phenomenal services. So those are my comments. I'm going to stake at 3.5 and not support eight. Thanks. Okay. >> Thank you Mr. Chair. when we talk about just the budget strategies that uh both days went through and also Nick and to address the long-term financial these cost shifts and what we're going to do and to target the service levels etc. and then to maintain the capital financing plans and road preservation equipment and the government center. Um I was at um an AMC conference three days last week and you get a great opportunity to sit down with these other commissioners from these other counties and they're going through the same process as we are >> worse and some of them talk about 6% 8% the 12 14% numbers and same challenges Uh, I'm probably assuming they got a lot of the the same challenge or same strategies that they're they're putting in place and and I I do support uh what's been presented today. Uh we are a growing thriving county and it just surprises me that people continue to move here and why are they moving here? Well, just because of the chair Tom Workman, but just everything that we have to offer and so I think we need to continue to invest and and be prepared and this budget will help us get there. >> Thank you, sir. Commissioner Lynch, >> um I've never heard that before. They're moving here because of the chair, but anyway, I support that. not >> um we already went through and we're very very wellrun. That's a reason why we have a tripa AAA bond rating. Um Dave, Dave and Nick have done a great job with this budget. I'll even throw out one I think as the chairman has done a wonderful job in this budget talking with Dave and Dave often and given direction. That's why we're at a eight and not a double digit. And as you all you can see the the transfers that the state has done to us. they keep the mandate and then uh pull the funding. I would like to say that uh I I was dragged kicking and screaming into the the new building and uh there are needs and we it needs to be done and I don't want to I don't want to uh kick the can down the road because the the construction costs do go up. Everything escalates. But I would like to look at the renovation office option much more than I would the new building. Uh at this point, the numbers presented to us is 42 million. That sounds a lot better than 82 million. Um, and then if you build another building on off campus, uh, you just you would um spread out the the pavements instead of paying uh everything right up front for the 82, you could actually do the 20 or 30 million down the road. So anyway, um, I would like to explore that more, but yes, I will be. It is a preliminary levy. It's 8% and uh as you know we can move that down. We can't move it up. So we're capping ourselves and as uh we we uh moved it down many times. We moved it down last year substantially. So I will support the 8%. >> Okay. Thank you. Um yeah I mean I can say I don't like the number. I prefer a lot different numbers and uh you know this this board voted for some pretty s substantial payraises last year and our people are are uh are a big part of us and so we we felt like we needed to do that. That's a big big chunk. Um uh we did bring it down last year. Uh, I plan to bring it down again this year with everyone's help and I don't think three and a half percent is uh going to be possible, but I'd sure like to entertain the idea. So, um, uh, you know, and we haven't talked about things like the historical society and the county fair and and all sorts of other things that we like to do that are going to take a hit. And um, and maybe we'll have some of those conversations next week, but we don't need to. We'll we've got time between now. Doesn't December 2nd seems really early to be passing the budget. Um I thought we were usually about two weeks in into the middle of December by the time >> public hearing I think. >> Was that the public hearing? >> Yeah. >> Okay. That's truth and taxation. >> Yeah. That actually the it just uh worked out. We usually do it on the first board meeting in December is when you adopt the budget. Uh in part so that you have a second you have the second if we can't get it done on the on the first there's still one more meeting without having to do a special meeting and stuff. Okay. Um everything I think just got pushed up. It's usually Oh, some Well, you're right. Sometimes we um I know what you're thinking of the that first week you guys can be gone at AMC and then we cancel that and actually uh schedule it for the next week. So, that I don't know that's not happening this this time, but the public hearing was set for November 25th. >> Um and then we just picked the first board meeting in December as that with the idea you have a second one. So, if we're going to cancel that for the AMC, then it's still nice nice to have a second one in case we need it. So, first meeting in December. >> Yeah, Christa just sent out a note on AMC December 8th or 10th. I think that's what happened. That is the final. We'd recommend a final on this second. >> Okay. >> Okay. Well, David, thank you. And David Hemsy, thank you. And Nick and everybody in the room, thank you. Um, let's keep working at it. Um, you know, that slide about uh the losses we've had since CO on our license center might be a good slide to send our legislators to show them. Now, I don't want to go down and beg them to raise fees on our taxpayers to cover the the deficit at our license centers u while I'm telling them on the other hand, stop giving us things to spend money on. Uh but I I get that. Um uh but but anyway, I think I think it's been a good job and uh and uh I can I can support this uh with the idea that we're not going to have to. Does that make sense? Because we're going to work even harder. So anyway, that's all I got. Anybody else hearing? None. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you. >> We got that court.