amendment one is a technical amendment that we need to do annually. This amendment provides board approval to use opioid settlement funds for the 2026 budget as required by the county's agreement with the state.

for our opioid settlement funds that we received from a a large national lawsuit, those funds are allocated to departments on a non-lapsing basis... what you're seeing here is adding funding to existing allocations that you've approved in prior years. And then also in a couple cases making some adjustments because those strategies haven't needed as much resources and they're being reallocated to other areas.

Category C, it looks like that's 522. When that's in parenthesis, that means it's not staying. But connections to care, I think, would be important to continue. So, I'd like to have an explanation of that. And then this address the needs of paran the paranatal population... and that's 50,000 that isn't staying there. I think it should be a lot more in stay. So talk me through that. And then the last one is there seems to be a lot of money spent in post-mortem. So that's the opposite of prevention.

As to the, uh, pregnant parents, we have a collaboration that is, uh, now funded internally with child protection with Quiy. So, they have a um, a very guided and focused group that is looking at pregnant parents and how we keep the families together... As to the medical examiner's office, it is one of the areas that is described in the MOA as available for funding and that is really due to the increase of autopsies that are requested in opioid deaths.

with the majority of these dollars going towards that post postmortem work, perhaps in the near future, we might see that some dollars can be reallocated back to some of the more um prevention to keep people from dying in the first place.

Amendment two recognizes the final updated rates for Henipin Health along with updated assumptions about the 2026 enrollment. This will result in 57 million of additional revenue and related expenses in 2026.

These finalized rates will mean additional revenues for us as well as some expected increases in claims experience due to emerging experiences of our members. We are expecting increases in membership to continue into 2026 due to changes in our local Medicaid market. Uh we're projecting about a 10 to 15% increase in membership growth in 2026.

I guess what I'm I have concerns about how rapidly you're you're growing and what that looks like for us and what discussions because you're saying that there will be increased revenue but there's going to is that going to be able to cover the cost of the growth and so I just think at a certain point it be it's a conversation we as a county need to have about where is our max point and I haven't really heard that yet.

we do foresee uh with that 10 to 15% growth probably getting around 37,000 members by the end of 2026 and I think we feel with where our reserve levels are that is about where we want to end up too... with what is in this amendment, we are adding to our fund balance in 2026. Um, to the tune of about $9.6 million is what we're projecting right now.

my concern would be let's pretend that everybody exited the market at the same time or I just how how we're seeing the the health access and health stability which I know we've talked about at length and we'll be working on um for all of 26 and beyond I'm sure but I wanted just to flag uh flag that aspect that this growth um is in is in large part because of other products exiting the um exiting the market and therefore residents likely not having a practical path to be insured if I'm saying that all correctly.

Amendment three is also good news. Workforce development department was initially notified of a funding cut this summer. In October, they learned that almost all the funding would be restored. Amendment three provides budget authority for this additional state funding allocation.

North Point has also has good news has been awarded $1.6 million in grant for the time period October of 2025 through 2030... This amendment 4 is adding the 2026 portion of this grant to the budget which is about $322,000.

This is incredible. Um, I learned a lot about the state um, approving something of the sort around recovery sites, safe recovery sites. This is something that has been talked about for a very long time in communities that are hardest hit... it takes care of the basic human needs that people regardless of where they are in life need. And I am looking forward to the day where I see multiple um safe recovery sites just pop up all over Henipin County.

I too agree to this because as we we hear about some of the immigrant places that are they are establishing the government has not provided hygiene and quality care or safe water and those kinds of things and it really matters to people's well-being and how they come out of things. So I'm really excited about this too.

Amendment five provides an additional 200,000 to the climate and resiliency department to support community programs that are eligible to use solid waste enterprise funds.

Amendment six authorizes the Environment and Energy Department to increase the excess cardboard fee from $150 to $300... Increasing this fee creates an incentive for haulers to properly manage cardboard at the point of collection and covers the cost of staff time to work with the hauler and waste generators to identify ways to recycle cardboard instead.

Amendment seven is a companion to a separate board action request... which will ask the board to establish two environmental advisory boards... This amendment will provide funding and one FTE to environment and energy in order to provide staff support to these two advisory boards. The FTE will be repurposed from elsewhere in the county.

one of the things that was brought up was um an urban agriculture initiative grant that was given through our county's climate and action and resiliency funding... they're expecting 20,000 less and the distress that was caused at that meeting... I really would like us to figure out how we can find there. It's going to be 20,000 I believe short.

this is adding $200,000 in funding uh to the budget that will be available that uh Director Chaman Solace will be using climate resiliency. It's our understanding that this will fund that $20,000 program as part of her budget and so she'll have that available.

I I think when this came across I said let's double it. Uh and there was some nods. So thank you for this. I do think that we are bold as a county when it comes to zero waste and what we want to see achieved when it comes to accelerating zero waste. There's no reason that excess cardboard uh coming into the herk... I think that the excess cardboard fee increasing to 300 is the right move.

Amendment 8. This amendment is for a budget increase of $600,000 for the Cedar Avenue reconstruction project between Lake and 24 streets in the city of Minneapolis... we can move forward with the Cedar Avenue project currently scheduled for construction in 2026.

Amendment nine will establish a new 2026 capital project for suicide prevention along the Washington Avenue Bridge. With this new project, a grant of $6 million will be provided to the University of Minnesota to construct the improvements as specified in the 2025 omnibus transportation bill.

Amendment 10 adds the Franklin Library planning study to the 2026 to 2030 SIP with funding available in 2026 to begin work on this project.

Amendment 12 is a package of three items related to the capital projects for district courts... The district court public safety facility administration area remodeling project is being added into the 2026 to 2030 SIP with funding in 2026. Funding for the accessibility modifications project is being reduced as a result... the government center remodeling project planned for the C8 floor is being removed from the SIP altogether.

part of how we arrive here is because of a because of multiple perspectives regarding um quote unquote ownership of that physical area. And I I was I'm wondering how that will how that discrepancy will be concluded throughout this process if possible.

this is a complicated piece of infrastructure in our system. It has numerous uh agencies with interest. And so from a Henipin County perspective, we need to maintain a certain level of oversight of the construction of the project simply because it is major infrastructure.

I'm wondering if we can get a full list of the impacted projects um that used to get to this $6 million... I think we need to be transparent about the impacts that it has when the legislature um grants uh a source of money for the counties to determine how best to use it. and then dictates how it's best used uh outside of our process.

the ultimate ownership of the bridge will continue to be Henipin County and through the maintenance agreements. That's where we will lay out responsibility for maintenance.

I am concerned because our bridges are aging and that not all of them can be retrofitted as easily. And this is not easy. This one is not easy either. and and and so that's that's my general comment is that and I I know as we look to the future to redesign bridges and put them up we will be doing some things differently but for right now we have a lot of aging bridges we have the most in the state I I already know that from the tab um that I work on. So I have just a lot of concern about some of those kinds of things.