Good afternoon. I'm Elizabeth Schaefer and I'm the vice chair of the budget committee. I'm going to call to order our regular meeting for Monday, July 13th, 2026. Before we begin the meeting, I want to offer a friendly reminder to all members, staff, and the public that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation. These broadcasts include real-time captioning as a further method to increase the accessibility of our proceedings to the community. Therefore, all speakers need to be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments for the broadcast. We ask all speakers to moderate the speed and clarity of their comments. At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the roll to verify the presence of a quorum. >> Council member Payne. >> Present. >> Kwanzlee. >> Present. >> Rainville. >> Present. >> Vita. >> Present. >> Warren. He's absent. Osman. >> Present. >> Stevenson. >> Present. >> Chavez. >> Present. >> Whiting. >> Present. >> Chowdry. Absent. Palmisano. Absent. Vice Chair Schaefer. >> Present. >> That is nine members present. Let the record reflect we have a quorum. I'll also remind colleagues that we are using speaker management, so please make sure you sign in. Our first item on the or only item on our agenda today is a discussion around the Byrne discretionary community project funding grants program for the evaluation of problem nature codes. I will invite Will Christianson, offices of the director or he is the director of the design and implementation to begin the presentation from Office of Community Safety. Thank you, Director Christensen. >> Thank you and good afternoon, Council members. I'm Will Christensen, Director of Design and Implementation with the Office of Community Safety. Today, I will brief you on our burn grant work, specifically research and pilots to expand alternative response that keep residents safe and ensure that each 911 call gets the appropriate response. This effort really focuses on diverting appropriate 911 calls away from traditional police response to civilian responses, improving service quality, response times, and reducing officer workload. So, this is [clears throat] also work that supports recommendations identified in the NYU asset and gaps analysis as well. So, we're excited to move that work forward. I will cover some background, scope, deliverables, and the two pilot programs that this this grant funds. First, a quick look at how we got here. The city received the original award in 2023. However, [clears throat] the original scope was not approved by DOJ, and so OCS partnered with Performance Management and Innovation to redesign the grant. DOJ approved the new scope in March of this year, and Council approved subrecipient agreements in December 2025. These subrecipient agreements were for the academic partners that we are working with, uh University of New York and the NYU Policing Project. Uh they'll be doing research and data analysis uh for the grant. Um as I mentioned in partnership with City University of New York and the NYU Policing Project, um we will be analyzing 911 problem nature codes uh to identify call types that can be safely diverted from law enforcement to a civilian response. Um pilots being launched include um non-injury traffic collision response, shifting select uh responses from MPD to traffic control, um a juvenile deflection program connecting at-risk youth to early upstream services. And then a project coordinator um that will evaluate pilots, track metrics, uh and keep projects on schedule. So, uh let me go into the first pilot program first, the the traffic pilot. Um the purpose of this pilot program is to deliver faster, customer-focused um response for minor traffic collisions um while reducing MPD workload. Um this pilot is built on lessons uh from Wilmington, North Carolina and their civilian crash investigator program. Um it's been adapted for Minneapolis. Um we'll be using local uh collision data to target non-injury, non-hazard incidents uh suitable for traffic control to respond to. Um our expected impacts from this pilot are faster clearance, less duplication of work, better resident experiences, um and more MPD uh bandwidth for priority calls. Um the other pilot program funded in this grant will be a juvenile deflection program. Um, the goal of this program is to identify at risk youth early and connect them to supports um, that address root causes. Um, really keeping them out of the justice system. Um, two guiding [clears throat] pillars of this work are um, early intervention. Um, so identifying um, referrals through schools, community partners, families, uh, for those appropriate um, uh, call types, upstream services, looking at things like, uh, restorative justice, um, mental and behavioral health resources, um, and family engagement. And, um, again, the intent with this program to strengthen trust, reduce, um, justice involvement for youth, um, and connect families to stabilizing resources, as well. Um, again, these pilots will be done, um, in partnership with performance management and innovation. Um, at this time, um, I'll pause and, um, available for questions. >> Thank you, Director Christiansen. I'd like to mention at this moment that we have been joined in our committee meeting by Council Member Chaundry and Council Member Osman. Thank you for joining us. I see Council Member Warren. Sorry, I didn't see you sneaking at the end. Council Member Warsame. >> Thank you, uh, Vice Chair Schaefer. Uh, I'm so excited to actually see this presentation. Um, I want to take a moment to, uh, just share kudos to many of my colleagues, um, especially those who've been around for the past four years. I'm thinking Council Member, uh, Chavez, as well as, uh, Council Members, uh, Chaundry, Chetai, um, also, uh, Vice President Osman here, as well as President Payne. Um we've spent 4 and 1/2 years doing a lot of work to champion um non-armed safety services and programs. And I think often times when we're hearing um discourse and discussion and media reports about Minneapolis experiencing some of the lowest levels of violence that it has ever had, um often times the face of that is MPD. And that cannot be further from the truth. It's actually uh been supplemented with so many robust non-armed or non-MPD safety services um that are out in our communities from Violence Interrupters to our Behavior Crisis Response Teams. Um those uh folks are out there every single day also interrupting, mitigating um incidents from occurring. And that's because this body specifically, a number of council members believed in the effectiveness of this work. And we've fought tooth and nail often times um in spite of the pushback from the fire administration to move dollars and move policy. >> please. >> This is on topic. Do not interrupt me. Um this is in spite of that and doing by Vice Chair Council Member by Vice Chair Vice Chair Scheffer, I am remaining germane to the topic and talking about Council's history with this. >> I just want to make one point. I just want to make one point that we don't address administration when they're not here. >> We can address administration. That is not a real policy, Vice Chair Scheffer. Please do not interrupt me while I'm staying on topic on this. This is so unnecessary. >> I just want to mention that something I know you were not at our strategic directions, but that's something that we mentioned. >> with strategic planning. You are creating an unnecessary detour in my conversation. I would like to proceed. So, that said, we have spent a lot of work over the past 4 years to move millions of dollars toward supporting these type of programs and initiatives. And that said, I do know at the leadership of Chair Jason Chavez, and when I was also Vice Chair on Public Health and Safety, we requested a presentation on these pilots because in 2025, we devoted $500,000 towards supporting the gaps and analysis report initiatives that said 47% of MPD's calls could be rerouted to non-armed safety services. So, I at least in a presentation wanted to get an update on what happened with that $500,000. I believe it was relegated to at that time PMI to help do the design and development. But also in that presentation from March of 2023, it noted the original recipient receiving of that Ryan's grant for a number of pilots, and this is the second question. I want to know why did it take two years in order to do the modification process to receive approval because at that time in March of 2023, it was noted that that those funds had already been approved. So, two things. I would love to know what was or what has been the status with the $500,000 that went towards developing and supporting initiatives on like what you're presenting today. And then secondarily, what led to the two-year delay between your original notation of receiving these funds and the needing to resubmit modifications for the scope. >> Uh Chair Cheh, for Councilmember Wanzer, um [clears throat] for the $500,000, I'll have to consult my colleagues on that. Um I believe if [clears throat] it was indeed for uh planning purposes uh for um this accepting this grant and undertaking these pilot programs, there has a great been a great deal of work in doing that planning work, whether it's site visits to Wilmington, North Carolina, or really just building out what these pilots will look like so that when um we receive the grant money that we can implement them um quickly. Um in terms of the delay, it has been um a quite a delay. I think, you know, I want to provide a couple uh reasons for that. Um the initial earmark was given to um the office of performance and innovation in 2023. Uh since then, there've been several staffing and leadership changes um within the city. Um when the new Department Performance and Management and Innovation was created, um they had to receive approval to move forward submitting pilots in this research. So, between those changes, they actually had to kind of uh submit um another request to receive the money. Um then the grant was moved to the office of community safety. Um and then with um working recently on this, um we've had to go through some uh DOJ processes uh within the last couple of years um that have been extensive um administrative processes uh to get approval. Um whether it's uh independent uh um research integrity requirements of the DOJ or conflict of interest um uh forms as well. So, there's just been a lot of hoops to jump through and along with that, a lot of um organizational change. >> So, for clarification, are you saying that 5 $100,000 when it was shifted from PMI over to OCS, those dollars were spent down then in the development I'm I'm trying to get clarity again what happened there? >> I'll I'll uh Councilmember Chair uh Shafer, Councilmember Mosley, um I'll have to follow up to get uh clarification on on that. Um uh and and and just get the details around how that that funding was spent. >> Okay, I would I to know a staff memo for follow-up on that. Um a follow-up on what happened with the $500,000 appropriation that council made uh regarding uh the alternative safety services pilots once it was moved to the office of community safety. >> Thank you, Director Christensen. Council Member Wansley, is that all your questions? >> I wasn't almost done, but I will let you know. Um in addition to that, uh can you share status update on uh the slight just looking back at the March of 2023 presentation um in terms of some of the other things that I guess in scope modification, you did mention potential uh options as being I'm seeing here like victim services. Um there was also something around uh suicide attempts, traffic well, traffic incidents is involved in here. Um tenant and neighbor trouble, so just looking at those. Um wanting to know is the office also proceeding further explore exploration of these even without the 2.5 being directed towards that, but just wanted to get a sense of the rest of those, too. >> Uh Chair Shay for Council Member Wansley, um right [clears throat] now the only two pilots in this grant will be the uh traffic uh collision response uh and the juvenile deflection program. Um I think as you well know around uh and my you get asset and gaps analysis and with the uh safe and thriving communities work, we're always looking at ways in which we can improve um public safety community safety services for residents and alternative responses. Um again, I think these two pilots build on um what is uh a robust continuum of alternative response services that the city has um and will continue to build out that portfolio. >> Okay, so just further clarification, don't have any information in terms of status update and I know uh director of PMI who also joined in on the presentation from March of 2023 is here. Do you have any updates related to some of the other ones that you reported out that was uh talking about future design possibilities? I don't think there's any question about the ones that you're asking for supporting on today. >> on those other uh pilots at this time. >> You said you don't have an update. Okay. Um maybe this is also something to follow up on in the Public Health and Safety Committee. I know we did receive regular updates on the pilots development. Uh follow up with Chair Chavez around that so that we can at least learn what's going on with those and if there is continued efforts that we can do on this body to like support that there is uh financial need. Those are actually all my comments. I'm done. Thank you. >> Thank you, Director Christensen. Uh next up we have Council Member Sorenson. I'm sorry, Stevenson. >> Thank you. You're about to get be the second person to be corrected uh but caught yourself. Um I uh I my question is on Oh, you missed it in committee the other day. I corrected somebody for the first time. That was a joke for those who were there. Sorry. Um Um Sorry, my question is on this and maybe you said this and I didn't quite understand, but um I guess uh maybe asking it this way, how can people expect to see this? >> Uh Chair Shafer, Council Member Stevenson, um if I might uh um presume a response about how how residents might receive it. Um this pilot program for traffic control response, uh residents may see um uh an alternative response model that is not MPD responding to traffic collisions in some cases. Um and so we're hopeful that again that reduces MPD bandwidth, but it also gives residents a different um uh city service to interact with traffic control. Um for the juvenile deflection program, we're hoping this becomes a resource and a service that um families, youth, um and uh justice partners can look to uh for youth that um may be at risk of further justice involvement and see this as a way to um ensure that youth get different services and resources. Um so we hope to see a tangible impacts from um these pilot programs. I think speaking to um the research um and analysis that's done as well, that the target here um that NYU and the city have um jointly um made is uh 20% of responses being alternative response. Um that would make us leaders in the nation. Um I think residents um should we meet that goal, will feel real impact, a real difference in terms of um who is responding to 911 calls um and providing help. >> Do you have an idea of when uh these these pilots will be up and running? >> Um I don't have a a timeline right now. We're still in the final stages of of receiving the money from the DOJ. Um again, we can follow up with more detailed timelines on on what's been done. I can say that um extensive planning has been done uh to make sure these are ready to implement. >> Okay. Does the office have a goal about when you would like to have these up and running? >> As soon as possible. >> Okay, but I'm I guess I'm just asking like should that be weeks, months, years? I mean, just to get a ballpark. >> I'll have to follow up with with a timeline. I don't want to over promise and under deliver on that. >> Okay, thank you. >> Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you, Director Christiansen. I had a couple questions around who are the primary partners around the juvenile program. Could you speak a little bit to that? Is that OCS? Is that county social workers? Who are going to be our primary partners in this response pilot? >> Thank you, Chair Shafer. You know, I'll defer to PMI to speak about the details of the program. I can say that for all this work, OCS is partnering closely with with PMI in terms of kind of the overall direction and strategy. I think we're still looking into what the specifics of each program look like. You know, I mentioned in my presentation that there's a couple of different service types that there could be, but again, some of this too is juvenile deflection is is more of a concept. It hasn't been built into a program. So, there isn't a baked out program here. It's a lot about designing that, figuring out what the community needs, and responding with the services that that the city and our partners can can meet those needs with. >> So, the pilot is not necessarily an implementation, but more of an analysis? >> Chair Shafer, we do fully intend for there to be a service here for folks, but I'm just what I would say is that right now we're early enough in this planning stages that I can't speak to exactly what that looks like. >> Yes, and please introduce yourself, and thank you for the additional information. >> Of course, good afternoon. My name is Kira Haspark, and I'm the Department Director of Performance Management and Innovation. Um, so, Vice Chair Shafer, specifically to your question, sort of what what are we, you know, hoping to do with I think your question was first on deflection. Um as we have done quite a we have done [clears throat] quite a bit of research on programs that have been successful. So it would be a partnership with the county, partnering with county social workers, schools. And again, we don't have a list of who we specifically will start to reach out to. But this is a pro proven program that is working in places like Longmont, Colorado, Duval County, um the city the excuse me the county's juvenile the county has a juvenile auto theft deflection program which I know Council President Payne has talked about. We again have been talking about these pilots for a while and have been working very judiciously on our end. I appreciate that it does feel like it has been a long time. But to really get the paperwork in order with the Department of Justice, we've had a lot of hoops to go through. This started as an earmark grant for those who are new to the council. So Senator Klobuchar's office was able to secure this for us. And then what happens is you go through the process of applying for the grant after you're awarded the money. Which is different than you know how the normal grant process works. So that is why yes, two years later we are still trying to get things like just the other you know month found out we needed to now maybe go through an IRB because now the DOJ thinks that maybe we have to do that because we'll be collecting data right from juveniles where they are I will say requirements that our offices are not used to doing even in what would be a standard process. So um it has been a little bit more technical in nature. I am you know, we have been working consistently with program staff and DOJ even when it was transferred over to OCS. So we have been engaged in partnership and I appreciate that it feels like I've been talking about this since I've I've been a department head, but we have actively been doing that. So for the deflection program, I'm sorry back to your question, we would partner with you know, existing youth redirection programs, but the goal is again to keep youth out of the system. Um, come up with targeted, um, plans. You know, I don't know what the official word is. I'm not a social worker, but official plans that can provide them services. Maybe it's something for their family just to keep them out. Um, and again, um, the county's, um, auto theft, uh, deflection program and the city attorney's office has a small, um, diversion program where here in the city of Minneapolis. So, just really trying to build off of those. So, we've done research on what other communities have done, how they've launched it. Um, and are are hopeful, um, that as soon as we get that funding can go on and start talking with community, talking with you all, writing who are some of your partners are, who you may think could be great for us to talk to. Um, I will take a step back just to explain some information as well on the traffic collision, the non-injury. Want to be very clear, non-injury pilot that is well-designed. Um, we went through a quite a few, uh, uh, designs on that. We're very excited that with the data we were using, we were able to expand it, so it will be citywide. Um, a the project team went down, um, to North Carolina to learn a lot from that crash investigator program. Really have best practices, so we will be set to go. As it relates to timing, um, so I just to sort of hopefully answer some of your questions, um, a lot of that does depend on city process. So, we'll have to hire, we have to get vehicles, we'll have to retrofit those and we're excited to get electric trucks, um, but we will have to do all of that. And so, that is what we are now starting, um, now that we know, again, the funds that our budget has been released and why we're here today so staff can start work. Because I don't want to order a truck, I don't want to order three electric trucks and then say we can't use them because, you know, something fell through with the budget. So, we're now at a different point, um, in DOJ releasing the budget, um, and us coming before you asking that you approve, um, us being able to now start drawing down from those funds. Um, so we have a great plan with the, uh, non-injury, uh, uh, vehicle truck collision response. Again, as a victim service, um, using what traffic control agents who are going to be able to speak languages other than English, really go out there, secure the area, um and then take some of that role on that MPD previously was doing. Um and again, now many insurances let you just snap that picture and put it through the app. So, right, we don't need to send someone out. And maybe someone who is a you know, has a different immigration status or just is uncomfortable with police coming out and need to file a report, it will be a civilian response. Um we've crunched the data on what times um are the most uh prone to those types of accidents. And so again, we will be ready to go from that perspective. I'm going to just need to start the training and get get the vehicles. It's really going to take that infrastructure and and training the agents. So, um feel pretty set that as soon as the internal things are are uh are ready to go that we have pretty solid designs and we'll feel very comfortable, especially with juvenile deflection, starting those conversations with the county and with other partners. >> Thank you for that additional detail. That's very helpful and gives us a kind of a four um preview of what's to come. And thank you for your perseverance in seeing this project through. Uh next up is Councilmember Whiting. >> Thank you uh Vice Chair uh Schaefer and thank you both for for the presentation. Uh really excited to kind of see this this 2.5 million uh here, particularly for uh policing alternatives. Uh really excited about the programs here. Just have a a few questions maybe, Director. Uh and as we are kind of looking through this, uh do you have any um like I'm looking at the slides here. I'm like maybe I'm I'm missing something uh here from the the materials. Uh but just be curious to see right, I'm sure all of us uh on the body want to see these uh programs and pilots be successful in this work. And so just wondering where the the funding is going as it relates to each pilot. Uh where that funding right is the majority of the funding. I'm assuming it's probably not being spent on trucks. Uh but uh trying to figure out where these these dollars are going within each specific pilot. >> Uh Chair Shea for Councilmember Whiting, thank you for the question. Um so out of the 2.5 million total allocation, uh the breakdown among the projects is approximately 900,000 for the traffic collision response. Um almost 500,000 for the juvenile deflection uh pilot program. Uh the project coordinator at 128,000. Um and then NYU in the City University of New York um together approximately 1 million for their research um and data analysis support. Um NYU at 579,000. CUNY at um 404,000. Correct. So that's the total budget. >> Helpful. And then right and sounds like the the larger chunk of that being kind of to to the uh sort of the the research analytics process on if these [clears throat] are successful or not. Sounds like everything. >> Uh I would just say that I think uh combined the uh pilots plus the project coordinator will come out to um approx just over 1.5 million and then the remaining would be the the research >> Helpful. >> and analysis. >> How long is the the the pilot in its whole supposed to kind of take like how long are are we looking at? I guess for for each >> 12 months. >> 12 months. >> 12 month pilot, yes. >> Awesome. Thank you. And then is the hope then uh kind of come back to Council and kind of discuss the the the success or non-success of the program? >> Yes, I think uh part of this is that um that project coordinator role that we have within the budget is really meant to evaluate these programs and let us know uh what's working, what we should continue funding, maybe what we should change up our about our approach. Um so we would come back to Council with recommendations regarding these um alternative responses. >> Wonderful. Yeah, I'm like please let us know how we can be helpful and then and uh hopefully see the success of these programs move forward. Thank you. >> Council member Rainville. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you. Just a very quick question for this traffic new way of doing traffic and for our non-enforcement reporting for accidents. Do we need a change in the state law? >> Chair Shaver, Council member Rainville. We're looking into some some of that right now. I can't speak to the specific statutes and I don't want to get ahead of the the city attorney's office on this but that's a possibility. >> It would be a good to know because we can put that on our legislative agenda to help get a change if needed. >> Absolutely. We'll follow up with Council if that's a a need. >> Thank you. >> Great. I don't see anyone else in queue. Is there any other Council members that have any questions? Seeing no further discussion, I will move to move forward the Burn Discretionary Community Project Funding Grants Program for evaluation of problem nature codes. Um and clerk, all those Do we need a second on this one? >> With approval. Sorry. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Great. We have a motion to move this forward with approval. All those in favor say I. >> queue. >> Oh, Council member Chavez is on queue. >> I'm sorry. I didn't scroll all the way down there. Please forgive me. >> Oh, no worries Chair. I just want to if you can move it with approval with approval. >> With approval? Sure. We will move this forward with approval. All those in favor please say I. Any opposed? That motion carries. With that, we've concluded all business to come before the committee today. If there's no objection, we stand adjourned. Thank you very much. >> Come on, gavel man. Boom. >> Yeah.