Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] Well, welcome everyone. Good evening. Tonight is Monday, August 18th, 2025. This is a study session of the Minnesota City Council and the topic tonight is the preliminary 2026 budget review. But we will start first um by doing introductions and uh we'll go around and uh Miss Diamond or Miranda if you would start. >> Yeah. Miranda Diamond, assistant city manager. >> Scott Barbin, police chief. Eric Nelson, city attorney. >> Sarah Sopol, senior management coordinator. Darren Nelson, finance director. Mike Von, city manager. >> Paty Foster, Bolton, Ward One. >> Kimberly Wilburn, city council at large. >> Rebecca Shack, W two. >> Brad Whome, mayor. >> Ky Ky, weren three. >> Deb Calvert, at large, Julie Wish, community development director. >> Darren Ellingsson, public works. >> Leslie Yetka, natural resources manager. Dirk Mezer, deputy fire chief. >> Kevin Fox, fire chief. >> Kelly OD, recreation director. >> Tom Stalker, resident. >> Very good. And we have someone online, but I think you you will get introduced. So, welcome. And um let's see. Um good to see everyone. And uh beautiful night here, but uh we've got work to do. So, um the uh first business item um is a spective by decision-wise presentation. Mr. Funk, I will Mike, I'll turn that over to you and uh looking forward to uh listening to this presentation. >> Yeah. Uh thank you uh Brad, council, good evening and and staff and and of course anyone in the audience. First going to before we get into tonight's presentation, just to spend probably just one or two minutes uh talking about why this is in front of you. I think you've seen this uh before from me. It's probably been a little while. It's really referred to as the Baldridge Excellence Framework. And and for me as city manager, it's something that um I use in terms of uh the organization. And really again, not to spend a lot of time breaking this down, but on the left hand side of that graphic is leadership, which is where council, mayor and council, that's where you reside in in leadership. Uh you as council set strategy. um it's often impacted by uh customers or in our case residents on the right hand side of that graph then is really how this all comes together in terms of our workforce our operations and then ultimately leading to results and in the middle there is that integration and alignment and that's where for my role that's where I live uh as I work with you mayor and council and working then with the integration to our staff when you set a strategic plan putting that all into motion And one of the things about the Baldridge Excellence Framework is it's a proven nationally recognized model for driving high performance in organizations by focusing on leadership, strategy, operations, and as I've already noted, results. Uh it helps cities like Minnetonka align resources with community priorities. And again, this kind of aligns to our budget discussion later on. uh with community priorities. It measures our progress and continuously improves services for our residents. And and really tonight what we're f focusing on is workforce. And uh I'm going to turn it over to Sarissa here in just a second to introduce our our presenter. But part of that workforce and why we talk about workforce is that with a strong engaged workforce is essential to delivering excellent services, fostering our innovation, and achieving strategic goals. And it's I think our staff knows it's been a priority of mine that we really make sure that we have a solid culture here at the city. We often talk about how strong our culture is, the importance of our culture. And uh we wanted to measure that. And so we would say, well, we've got a strong culture, but how do we really know? And so about 18 months ago, uh we internally did an employee engagement survey. uh had positive results then and um certainly there's always something to work on uh in those results and we've spent some time working on again continuing to improve our own workplace uh because having a strong workplace as I've noted really drives favorable results and that's something we're all interested in doing is making sure that we deliver on our strategic plan uh that we deliver on our goals and objectives and the way we do that is making sure our staff um comes to work and enjoys their work and that we have a great workplace So, in that workforce, uh, as I noted, we did now another engagement survey. We asked our staff over 30 questions. Um, we'll get into those here this evening, but I thought it would be a good opportunity for you to get a sense of what does that look like? What is you as a mayor and council, what's truly happening here at the staff level? So, I wanted to share that with you here this evening. This is something beyond tonight that I work with our directors on um as part of our again ongoing efforts to make sure that we continue with a strong workplace environment. So with that really want to turn over to Sarissa to introduce our speaker uh Sarissa as our senior management coordinator was instrumental in working with our consultant in the survey and working with our directors on on the results and certainly more to come. So I'd like to really recognize Sarissa for her work behind the scenes in really pulling this all together. So with that, maybe Susa if you want to introduce our speaker here this evening. >> Sure. Yes. So we worked with decision-wise to conduct to conduct our survey. We conducted our survey. It was June 17th to July 8th and I worked closely with Thomas Olsen who is unfortunately unable to be here tonight. So in his place we have Charles Roguel and he is consultant with decision wise. So I will turn it over to him and let him give the survey. So go ahead, Charles. >> Testing to make sure you can hear me and also see my screen. >> Can we can? >> Yes. >> Yes. >> All right. Well, it's good to be with you. Yeah. My name is Charles Rogale. I work as a principal consultant here at Decision Wise. I've been with the organization for 21 years now. I do work with a lot of other uh local governments. time. In fact, we'll provide some benchmark and comparison with some data for other um similar organizations uh like yourselves. Um I have a few items that I'll go through. It's relatively short presentation and I want to touch on kind of what we measured in terms of how we're measuring engagement. We'll talk about the overall results engagement and then look at the highs and lows and then um maybe have a conversation about next steps, what the city's planning on doing with results. Um as we go through this uh our methodology is really based on this model. So we're trying to understand people's perceptions not only when it comes to engagement but this element of satisfaction. Satisfaction really forms a foundation upon which engagement can grow. So when people think about their jobs um the components that factor into satisfaction are things like pay, benefit, stress, workload, safety, that kind of stuff. And if people feel those are on par with their expectations, they generally don't think about them like they don't uh you know contribute much or get track. We generally say they drive retention because if those things are working for you, you will tend to stay longer with organizations. We tend to see higher uh tenure rates within uh government organizations as well. Um that satisfaction element however isn't very motivational. That's where engagement comes in. So we also try to measure engagement to understand people's passion and motivation towards their work and that in turn drives performance. So I'll touch on these two different topics as we go through and point out some of the different questions that we measured here. Um, overall we had great participation. 82% of people took the survey. That is right on par with our benchmark in terms of what we typically see with other organizations. It's also a robust data set. In other words, if everyone else took the survey, the overall results wouldn't change uh because the the level of um of uh the margin of error is very low. And so uh we got really good information here, reliable results that we can take action on. The way we're calculating the data here is by looking at the blue bar. So, we're going to be focusing on what we call the favorable score. It's basically the percent of agree and strongly agree responses. And I'll show you some benchmark comparisons based on how much people agree with these statements that we asked on the survey. We don't count any of the don't know responses. And then neutral also pops up a bit. You'll see this happen on some of the questions where people we might see a larger gray bar as opposed to a red bar indicating that people are kind of on the fence about a certain topic. Maybe they're observing it occur uh sometimes well and sometimes not so well. So they'll some say neutral instead of don't know or unfavorable. Your overall results are very positive. So 86% of all the answers to the 32 questions that we asked on the survey were agree or strongly agree. You'll see only 11% were neutral and then very few disagree or strongly disagree responses. Only 3% there. That compares very well to a couple benchmarks. And we look at all the questions that we could compare to. 32 of those questions we have benchmarks for in our global database. And in our global database those average 77% favorable. So you are nine points higher than we typically measure for those same statements in terms of favorability with other organizations. We also have a smaller benchmark, our public administration benchmark. The global benchmark includes over 500 organizations that we work with over the past four years. The public administration benchmark is a subset of that which is about 25 organizations that are local city and county governments um that we've worked with. 72% is what we typically see there. So on average, local governments score lower than we see in our global benchmark. Your organization is scoring much higher on these 32 questions. So this these are very positive results. Generally, when I see an organization at about 80% favorable, I can sense that that's a pretty healthy organization to work with. So 86% is very high and I very rarely see organizations score higher than that. So I might see every once in a while 90% favorable, 87% favorable, 85% favorable. This is on the high end of what we typically see. We did another thing to measure engagement. And so I talked about that before. We have 32 questions on the survey. We use a subset of the questions on the survey that we call anchor statements to understand how engaged people are in their jobs. You'll notice these statements are very similar to each other. Um they're kind of what we call outcome statements about the job itself. Whether I enjoy it, love my job, look forward to work. Again, most people are answering positively to these. They're saying agree or strongly agree. So the way to read this question 12, 88% of people said agree or strongly agreed. Do I enjoy the job that I perform? Only 10% disagreed with that statement and only two sorry were neutral on that statement and only 2% were disagreeing with that. That is six points higher than we typically measure on our global benchmark. So normally globally we'll see 82% favorable. And in the public administration benchmark that same question when we ask that with local governments we see 81% favorable. So again much higher than we typically see with other organizations and uh you'll see the same in all these statements here. Now we create profiles based on how people answer these statements. So, we're trying to understand how engaged people are in their work. And so, as an individual, if you responded to these four questions and you said strongly agree to most of these statements, we put you over here on the left hand side in this uh fully engaged category. Now, what also is very good about your results is that 49% of all the responses here kind of fell into this fully engaged category. That's higher than our benchmarks, which I'll show you here in a moment. That's 114 people. found another 90 people that were basically averaging about agree to those four questions. Only 12% or 27 people were kind of in this opportunity group and really only two people disagreeing with those statements overall. So very positive engagement score and as I looked this up earlier um 88% for an engagement index score is in the the top 25th uh percentile of our database. So top 25% of all the organizations we work with are scoring at 88% and above. Compared to our benchmarks, you'll notice that it's 10 points higher than we see for the global benchmark. So we add the two green bars together here. Um and it's also much higher than the 74% for public administration. Notice again the dark green which indicates the fully engaged population which is very high compared to what we see uh in other organizations. The next thing that comes up is usually people say, "What about those 27 people that are less engaged?" Remember, these are the ones that responded more neutral to those engagement questions that we asked earlier. And so here I'm trying to find out why are they um why are they not feeling engaged in their work? What are the other questions on the survey that they scored low on? So you'll notice this question number seven, uh find meaning and purpose in my job. Only 15% of these 27 people said agree or strongly agree to that statement. 59% of people are neutral. They're just kind of on the fence about meaning and purpose. And 26% of people disagreed with that one. Of this population as well on question 24, 37% of these 27 people disagreed with this valuing feedback topic. Feeling like the work I do makes a difference. That ties into question seven a bit. The mission and goals also ties into kind of meaning and purpose here in question seven. And then working effectively across departments and function scored low for them. So when I look at this population, I say why are they less engaged? It's really they're not feeling the meaning and purpose uh from their work. Now generally in local governments meaning and purpose is derived by serving the community. So people have a lot of pride in terms of really their work making an impact on where they live and the people that work there or live there. So this is where we try to tie meaning and purpose to people's jobs and these people just aren't feeling it as much as other people that are engaged. Now on the flip side, so here we say, hey, what we could do is help uh drive meaning and purpose. Now a lot of times what gets in the way of meaning and purpose, it could be workload, it could be um uh just barriers or other things that aren't fulfilling for them. So those are some things that kind of play out or this valuing feedback and suggestions. Maybe they don't feel like their ideas are very valued. So then on the flip side, we want to say, well, what's contributing to people's perceptions of engagement? So we do a driver analysis on those questions to say, oh, all the other questions on the survey, which ones contribute to the most to how people think about those engagement anchor questions that I showed you earlier. So notice question seven is a driver of engagement. That's why people are less engaged. It's also why people are really engaged in their work. So if you're experiencing meaning and purpose, you'll be more engaged in the job that you're doing. opportunity to do what I do best every day kind of fits in with meaning and purpose. Work life balance is here and also supervisor feedback about my performance. I show these to say that these are more actionable statements that help us then create uh a more meaningful and engaging workplace. Notice again that you all according to our benchmarks are scoring much higher than we typically see with other organizations. These plus signs indicate you're six points, nine points higher than our global benchmark. And typically with a population of your size, the the threshold of significance, in other words, that it's not just due to chance. I'm looking for differences of five points or more to say, yeah, this isn't just uh you know, anomalies. These these are uh real differences than we're seeing compared to our benchmarks. We also did a simpler analysis to understand people's intent to stay. Now, generally in uh government organizations, people tend to stay longer uh for a variety of reasons. And here we're seeing as we look at these different statements, we'll do the same exercise in terms of breaking people into these groups, but we see really high perceptions. People are agreeing with these statements, 91% of people said they recommend the city is a great place to work. That's 15 points higher than our global benchmark, 23 points higher than our public admin. So, you got a bunch of good recruiters out there uh recommending this to their friends. Also, question number 31, choosing to remain even if a similar job with pay and benefits were available elsewhere, very high compared to what we see on our benchmarks at 82%. So, doing the same exercise, we'll get some really high numbers here. 89% uh slightly higher than that engagement index. So very similar profile. We will find that a lot of the same people are fitting into these different buckets that we've created here. Notice that 10% are undecided. Only 1% really high potential for turnover. And compared to our benchmarks, it's very high. 89% compared to 75% and 67% with other organizations. So this is another strong indicator about people wanting to work for the city. Now I didn't go through the same exercises there. we we would see kind of the same uh questions appear as we did the same type of analysis we did on engagement. So let me walk you through some of the the data points. I like to look at the high scores and low scores and I'll point out a few topics or themes that emerge in your results that speak to why people are are having such positive experience. So number one or number three here I know what's expected of me at work. Uh so clear work expectations 95% of people agree with that statement. much higher than we're seeing on our global benchmark and public admin benchmark. Here's materials and equipment. That's very high. Training, I enjoy people on my team. Now, generally, question 16 appears on this slide when I look at other organizations, but some of these other ones don't. Like, for example, question 32 rarely appears on this slide. Um, you know, materials and training a lot of times does not appear as your top five scores, but we're seeing that play out here. We also looked at the benchmarks and we said what's scoring high compared to the global benchmark in this case. So there's that expectations question number three. There's work life balance. Communication scored really high. So 82% a little bit lower than what we've been seeing but still much higher than our benchmarks. Um working effectively across part departments and functions and training to do my job well. One other benchmark we'll look at the public administration comparisons now. So now we sorted it. What are the really highscoring questions compared to what we see in local government? Well, same questions appear slightly different order. This inclusive culture question 27 appears on this list. Um, and there's a great place to look as well. Now, I'm going to flip uh slides here and talk about kind of lower scoring questions. Now, your lower scoring questions aren't very low. When we look at our benchmarks, these are all scoring above what we typically see. There's a couple items that scored barely uh uh lower than our benchmarks, but even your low scores about valuing feedback, 73% of people agree with that statement. That is a harder question. It normally shows up on this slide. And you'll notice your seven points are 19 points above what we typically measure. Here's stress. Um here's working across departments and functions. 22 is always a tough question. recognition from my supervisor still above our benchmarks and communication about what's going on. Question 23 is a really important question overall on the survey. Normally we find that most organizations struggle with communication. Here we're seeing very positive responses on that topic overall. And then looking at the benchmarks, I'm scratching a bit here to find some opportunities really. What's low compared to what we typically measure? Well, notice that all of these questions are kind of 80% and above in terms of the level of agreement that we're seeing. Even these top two questions here, the global benchmark, they're only one point lower, which isn't significant compared to our benchmarks. And we've got people on my team treating with respect. There's the mission and goals, collaboration. So, some of the teamwork questions appear here, as well as the work I do makes a difference. Still though, most people agree with these statements and uh really close or above our benchmarks. And even when we look at the public admin benchmark, we didn't find any that scored lower than what we typically measure in uh local uh city governments or county governments. So enjoying people on my team. Notice we just basically have three of the teamwork questions here. Work I do makes a difference and the mission and goals. So I'm looking at this and saying very positive results uh overall. Um and again not um not anything that really stands out uh from our benchmark. I think the key takeaways here as I go down to kind of next or before we talk about next steps are those that engagement analysis piece. We found that meaning and purpose is a really strong driver of engagement. Those that are less engaged in their work are not experiencing meaning and purpose and don't really see how their work makes a difference. And so as we can help cultivate that and help people understand how they're making an impact on the community, that then helps them feel more engaged in their work and happier about their jobs. >> All right, I will turn this uh back over to Mark. Is that right? >> Yes, it's Mike. >> Thank you, Charles. >> Oh, Mike. Sorry. Yes, >> thank you, Charles. We obviously this was not scripted or rehearsed. We're all good. >> Turn my mic on. Uh so thank you for the presentation. Uh just really some next steps like I I well before I talk about next step as I said earlier when I teed it up really just wanted you to get a flavor for what's happening internally with it with the organization. Very proud of our staff as you know I I say that often and I think this really illustrates that to a great degree. Uh and so next steps really involve uh working with our directors. Directors have results go these go a little bit deeper. So they do break out by department. So we have analytics on each department. These are overall city and so be working with directors on their scores because the scores vary a little bit depending by department to department. So directors have these they'll be working with their teams. Um directors are fully engaged in this and I think hopefully you get a sense that not only for myself but our directors take great pride in the work that we do create take great pride in serving the community and I think that's very reflective in the results that you see and you've got a good work for a good workplace and hopefully you feel that as well. So really nothing else besides that. Uh mayor and council u if you have any comments or questions be be open to that. But I think that really kind of concludes where we're at unless um sissa or Miranda you have anything to add to what I just mentioned. >> So I'll ask council if they want to make any comments or have anything to add any thoughts >> other than nice job. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Great. >> Anything? >> You know I'm I'm going to touch a little bit on what you said at the start, Mike. Um, you know, we I mean, it's challenging. We like to think we have a good culture. We like to think we are a good place to work. We, you know, we we have a lot of pride in that. We take pride in that. But how do you really know? And, you know, and I do think that the, you know, a survey like this is very helpful. And I think getting granular with the different departments is is good. and um you know but I think that kind of our numbers speak for themselves in terms of we do not have high employee turnover. We hear that um Minnetonka is a place that people aspire to work. Um we have a we have a we're known for having good culture. Um we do a good job of recruiting. The people we've brought into our organization in recent years have have really been excellent. And I think, you know, those are those aren't quantitative measures, but that's that's where the rubber meets the the road, but I appreciate doing this because, you know, it is good to put a finger on the pulse and um you know, particularly as well, you know, you know, uh you know, we we changed city managers a few years ago. Uh um Gerlyn retired. Um we're having we have changes on the city council. Things do change. So I think it is good to have these benchmarks and and put a finger on the pulse because I I think um I think the the people in this room make a real difference um in terms of how people feel about working here. So I I think this is uh very instructive and well done. >> All right. Thank you. Nothing else to add to that. Just again just want to spend a few minutes presenting those results and this something that I work with our team on internally and and again I probably sounding over repetitive and I don't need to be again just really complement our our whole team but I think we have a very common we have a shared vision of what what kind of workplace we want to have. I think our employees take ownership in the work that we do and I again that speaks to the results. You're right uh Brad that you look at the folks we've been recruiting the last few years we're getting such high quality candidates. Um, we're not trying to steal from our neighbors, but uh, at the same time, we're getting really good candidates that are coming from other cities and and private sector as well. Um, we do have a solid reputation and and it certainly shows. >> Great. So, >> thank you. >> Nothing else. >> Charles, I don't know if you have a last comment if you um, >> no great results. Keep up the great work and I'll be signing off. Thanks everyone. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for being here today. >> Bye now. >> Bye bye. All right. Well, we're right on schedule. Holy cow. And maybe even a few minutes early. Um >> Jinx Jinx Jinx said that. >> Excuse me. Excuse me. I misspoke. I frequently do. Um uh so item item B is the preliminary 2026 budget review. Um we we know that uh this is a work in process. And Mike, I'll turn it over to you. >> Yeah, thank you again uh mayor and city council. Um, it's always weird to say Brad, but yeah, Brad, city council. Uh, Darren and I will will tag team this one as we always do. Uh, so we've got about 20 I think 24 27 slides. We'll try to get through those as quickly as possible, but again, we are talking about one of the most important decisions you make as a council regarding the 2027 tax levy. And so we'll talk about timelines coming up. Uh, so we'll just go ahead and dive into it. See who's got the clicker. >> Oh, here's the mouse if you want. >> Nope. Thank you. So, before we tee up the the discussion questions, again, these are at the end. I first want to again just want to recognize the work of Darren Nelson, our finance director. He's certainly got a team behind him that help uh throughout our whole budget process. I want to also acknowledge our directors who spend a great deal of time preparing their portions of their budget and present those to to Darren and I. So again, there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes uh with our staff as we pull together a lot of different puzzle pieces. And so tonight, we're mainly focused on the operations side of uh the equation. uh council, you know that our we've recently talked about our EIP, which is our economic improvement plan as long as well as our CIP, but tonight really focused on again general fund operations and then again how the potential tax levy will start to shape up for 2027. The other thing I'd mention as we build budgets you think about the how we build them and I think it's important to note that they are needsbased that it isn't just a matter of taking last year's budget and and adding numbers to them that we do spend time looking at our needs looking at how we fulfill those needs. Uh we reflect back on our community survey uh what might be um issues related in the community survey. We also then align our strategic plan the best we can to our budget. And I say the best we can because until we get the priority based budgeting um some of it's anecdotal, some of it is uh intent, it's all intentional, but we really make sure that we align your goals through the strategic plan and make sure that those are reflective not only in our CIP that we've talked earlier budget study sessions, but certainly here tonight as we talk about just the general operations. So with that being said, uh these questions are at the end, but I want to tee those up on the first slide. So as you think as you presented the next 20ome slides that this is in the back of your mind. Uh so first off the first question that we have is does the city council support a base property tax levy increase of 7.2%. Which includes 2.6% for the continued implementation of the public safety master plan. There is an element then of potential bond issuance that we'll talk about, but certainly looking at that base levy increase um as of tonight uh being a proposed at 7.2%. The second question that we'll get to at the end is does the city council support I guess I already touched on this an additional 735% for new debt service related to the community center and fire station improvements which would increase that from 7.2 two base levy to a 7.935. And then last, does the city council agree that a total amount of 300,000 should be certified for the HR preliminary levy? And that's the same that was presented during the EIP discussion back in June. So those are the three questions at the end. Uh as we roll then into the formal presentation. Uh again, mayor and council, some of this is very repetitive. Uh mainly just also want to make sure that we are transparent with uh those that might be listening later on because as you know we do record these sessions and then certainly we do have folks here in the audience. So really making sure that we're thorough in our whole budget process. So bear with staff here a little bit because I know you're aware of much of the things that we've um discussed up to this point. We often refer to our budget as our budget season. And so we tend to have about an eightmonth uh window if you want maybe it's a big door depending how you want to look at it in terms of the time we spend at our budget as as we all have discussed. This is such an important document. It sets the goals and priorities uh for the coming year. Um we do a long range financial management plan that takes a longer look out. But going into all of that, there's a lot of different inputting factors. And so dating back to our first discussion was in March uh we had director presentations. So our eight directors presented their budgets included in that was they highlighted their challenges opportunities uh organizational structure and really gave you a snapshot of the current climate in each of the departments. That really is the backdrop then into really kicking off and putting the in context um from an operation standpoint from directors. In April, we had the community and business survey presentation. Again, that's certainly valuable input for you to consider as you think about priorities and issues that you may want to address in our upcoming budget session. Then in May, we actually then had our what we call our actual budget kickoff session. Perhaps we should call that when the directors as the the initial, but certainly in May, we we dove into some preliminary discussions just about the budget, some parameters, and some initial thoughts that you have. uh regarding 2027. Then in June, we transitioned to our capital improvement plan along with our economic improvement plan. So we had pres presentations from myself and Darren and Miss Wishnack uh back in June and that kind of propelled us into then tonight. And so with our August study session, we are talking about our operations uh here this evening and what a preliminary tax levy could look like because that will need to be certified in September which is noted next is that um in September 8th we look to have a preliminary levy and budget adopted. Again that's preliminary and I'm sure Darren will mention it later as well. when you adopt a preliminary levy, it can it can go down, but it cannot go up as you look to approve a final tax levy in December. Then in November, we come back for um a study session where we again kind of relook at the budget because a lot of things can change between now and even in the coming months. And the hardest thing to do in budgeting is looking at 2027 budget and it's August. And so we we take into consideration changes that might be happening in the economic world in terms of revenues that might be coming in, expenditures, etc. And and Darren's going to touch a little bit on that here coming up on where we at year to date so you get a flavor of that. But things do change even monthtomonth. >> So we'll come back in November uh with some updated numbers and we'll also in November review our enterprise fund budgets and some of those special revenue accounts. And so we'll dive into those at that time. And then December, we package all of this and have our public meeting where we do have take public comment and then you as a council do adopt a final budget and levy. We do note that in later in December, December 22nd, we do have an alternate date there just in case if something arises out of December 8th or even there's a something weather related on December 8th. So we do have a backup date on December 22nd. um to approve that final levy and budget. To kick it off even further, um we're talking about our budget. It is worth noting in our strategic plan and and again, council, you know, this one of our major pillars is financial strength. There are three desired outcomes. So, as staff, this is certainly at our uh forefront as we pull together a budget. It's important to note those three desired outcomes. And I've already touched on the first one which is approving Susie improve alignment between service expenditures and identified priorities. We've talked about some of those action steps being priority based budgeting. There's going to be more of those action steps uh in this coming year and I think I talked about that here recently just with the last half of 2025 as we start to gear up for priority based budgeting initiatives. I've noted already that this budget being presented here this evening does do our best to align expenditures with those priorities especially with the strategic plan. Uh the second desired outcome is to expand sources of revenue for capital improvement projects and really we've had a focus this last year and a half or so on grant writing uh as we look to again really tease out as many grants as we can and look at other revenue sources aside from taxation. As we all know, it's getting harder and harder and certainly the reliance on property taxes is getting harder as we look to fulfill many of the needs that we have in our community. And then last is our high level creditworthiness. As you know, we're AAA bond the city. Um, very few cities in the state are AAA bonded. And so we take great pride in that and that speaks to the uh management of the mayor and council over our budgets and certainly our internal staff as we um manage the city's finances on a on a day-to-day basis. A little bit about uh just communication and feedback. Um it's been certainly also I think a priority of the city to make sure that we're transparent in this process. Uh we have numerous ways that we communicate our budget process. Um throughout these number of these eight months of what we call the budget season uh we do rely on certainly the Minnetonka memo. We've had a I think already one budget article. We'll have certainly other budget articles coming out. Uh we also use our citywide email list server system where we have I believe over 20,000 emails in our system. So we use our email system to notify residents of of the budget and provide opportunities through that email notification for people to provide feedback. We also use Minnitonka matters to communicate our budget. So we do have a project page on Minnitankka Matters as our engagement tool. So residents can go there as well and provide feedback. And then anything that is received through whether it's emails, uh Minnitankka Matters, we do share all those with the council. uh and in September and December council meetings, you have an opportunity to review all those statements as you determine those final um final uh tax levy and budget in December. And then the second to last bullet point, and I didn't mean to skip over that, which is really about truth and taxation. There's also some sequencing that happens um in September when you approve a preliminary tax levy. That information is shared with Henipin County. They do their uh administrative work and then send out those preliminary tax notices in November. That's when residents receive those and that's often times when we hear most from residents on what those impacts look like or those potential impacts look like which really sets the stage for public comments coming up in December. This is what that looks like. I don't need to really Whoops. Uh two screens going here. This is what that looks like. Uh this gives you a sample of the communication work done by our communications team just using our variety of media channels. Again, we use our Facebook social media, other Facebook social media uh is certainly a big one. Uh using our Minnetonka matters and of course our website and and other means. So again, being as transpar being very transparent is important to us and making sure we get feedback about our budget. >> Now you thought you might see the not night may not see that middle illustration, but it will never escape you. So, as as I noted earlier, >> an internal debate, >> as I noted earlier, our our projected property what's being presented tonight is a pretent projected property tax levy of 7.892%. And so earlier I said 7.9, so I was just rounding in my statement, my comments. It's 7.892%. So if you were to break that out and again I'm speaking on the right hand side of this illustration operations is 8.1% of that and if you further break out the operation piece of it general operations is 4.8%. And and Darren's going in some coming up slides Darren will break that down further for us. Mainly that's attributable to salary and benefits and some other budget drivers that we'll touch on and those were noted in the staff report. I would say I think as I've talked with many of you today council if it's business as business as usual and there's no such thing as business as usual but if you were to put this in as business as usual um our tax levy at a minimum would need to be at that 4.8% just given um obligations for union contracts in our pay system and the benefits um especially related to health insurance and some other costs related to that. Uh we have then our um some acronyms there is our uh special revenue uh funds. So SRF special revenue funds. IIA is the ice arena and the marsh. And so what is being projected in the tax levy is 200,000 for the ice arenas and 200,000 for the marsh. So 400,000 total represents that.7%. that's been in the budget before, but we've broke it out separately this year. Those have been more internal transfers within the general fund. But again, just for a level of transparency and to asssure that um everyone's aware that with those special revenue funds that we do allocate tax dollars for those two operations. We also then have the public safety master plan implementation that is 2.6% and again we'll discuss that a little bit deeper uh in the coming slides. and then pivoting. So that's operations at 8 8.1% the capital or capital improvement plan is a lower levy which uh.9% lower than projected. Uh so we will see a slight decrease or proposing a slight decrease in our CIP of 0.9. And then what we'll talk about again later is a potential pathway for debt service for community facility improvements related to the community center and fire station 2. Again, we'll get a little more detail in the coming slides that being representative of 735%. So that's uh being presented here this evening and that will certainly pave the way for the discussion questions that I teed up on the very first slide. Now, I just want to pivot to the middle illustration. And again, this really for educating um residents that aren't as familiar with our budget and aren't familiar with um where taxes go because our city budgets are are very complicated. They're complex. We have over 40 funds. And so, this really is a way to kind of break down where do taxes go. Um and so there are three what I call three different categories. One is capital or what we call our CIP which is capital improvement projects. The second item is operations then certainly debt. As we look at um how we how that is broken down uh the blue illustrates operations. So 78% of the tax levy would go towards operations, 18% which is that yellow shaded area towards capital and then 4% for debt. This is an illustration of 2025. So, kind of a backdrop on expenditures. Um, again, this is 2025. The biggest portion of the general fund operational budget is for public safety. That's at 44%. This is very typical. As I think Darren would attest, as we analyze our budget and compare those to other city budgets, public safety is the largest portion of any city's budget. you typically see it around that that 45%. So, we're certainly in the norm regarding public safety. And again, for those that are watching, observing or listening, uh public safety is police and fire. So, that really is related to police and fire. >> Environmental health and legal are also in public safety as well. >> Okay. >> Thank you Darren for the clarity. >> Sorry. And then then just moving around the piraphph, the next largest expenditure is in general government. That's 16%. Uh that's where you're going to see admin, finance, um >> HR, assessing, IT, more of your internal services, general government. Uh street and utilities are next at 16%. That's going to be your public works uh type expenditures. Uh parks and environment will be for Mr. OD where not parks and environment would be um public under public works would be Darren Ellingsson. Um Leslie Yeka falling in at that 9%. Uh recreation that's where we find Kelly. So Kelly and his team and recreation at 8% and then community development at 7%. So you'll see Julie Wishnack and her team and all the activities in community development in that piece of the pie. So that's where we are in 2025. Again, not uncommon as this as you really kind of compare this city to city. Now, we don't have a chart on that, but I guess based on our experience, this is again pretty common uh breakdown of expenditures, and it's all based on community values and and what are the values of the communities, what are the priority of each community. Just to give you then a sense of our 10-year levy history, uh this again dates back to 2017. The blue represents our capital improvement or our CIP part of the levy. So again going back to the taxes support three pieces CIP operations and debt. The blue represents capital improvement programming. The orange illustrates operations and then that gray piece represents debt. debt is has been and is expected still to be the smallest piece of our tax levy because uh when if we do analysis on our debt service ratios, we we have very little debt uh in the city compared to many many of our neighbors. We do then uh I know you've seen this before and I think I've mentioned earlier in my comments, financial management planning. I really credit Darren Nelson and his team as we look at future levies. And so that's really instrumental in our future outlook because we do look at yes, we talk about the 2026 budget and the 26 tax levy, but we look further out and that's just part of good fiscal planning for an organization is particularly here in the city. And so we do that forecasting and there's a lot of assumptions that are built into that. Uh what I want to point out in this graph is again this is the the uh tax levy. uh kind of the same chart you saw ear in the previous slide. So it's really taking this data and putting it in a line graph form and instead it forecasts it out in future years. So these are current levies up through 2025. The why you see then an orange and blue line the blue line represents projections from earlier this year. um as Darren and his team have looked at revenues and expenditures done some other forecasting more current numbers uh that is represented then in the orange so we were seeing a little bit higher levy in these out years previously but that's dropped a little bit and the thing that I would note here of importance as I go back to this slide and again we're going to we're going to talk about debt this 735% So that is reflected in that orange line. So as we forecast out potential debt service um just know that we are forecasting it actually the city performing better um than than previously anticipated. Now we show this as a as again it's just illustration because it's nice to know what's happening with our neighbor cities. This is not a graph to suggest that this is where we should or shouldn't be, but just more information for you as policy makers to understand where does Minnotonka compare to other cities. And it's more of our peer cities uh not necessarily our neighboring cities, but peer cities compared to population. These are the cities that are that we consider in our peer group. So, anytime that we do analysis or bench analysis, so these are the cities that we use. This takes a a 20-year aggregate look at uh property taxes in the cities noted here. And those those different colored lines represent every represent 20 years worth of levy history. So what we've done is taken a look at all the cities noted there and looked at the last 20 years and where's everybody landed. And so for Minnetonka, we're right in the middle. Uh, as noted there, the 20-year aggregate history is a 99% increase over the last 10 years. Uh, the average is 99% Minnotonka's actual um is slightly less than the average at 96%. And I think that's relevant because I think as from from my perspective and I think I think the former city managers would say the same thing and former staff would say the same thing is that we try to position it's about positioning. How do we position ourselves uh to provide excellent community services yet making sure that our level of taxation isn't the highest? And I think as we've talked about community values, you also can have the lowest taxes and provide the services that we do as well. So there's a real balance in between service level objectives as well as where we align with other cities in property taxes across our again our peer cities. So again, for illustration purposes, uh this is the same information. I know you've seen this before. I think Darren calls this the spaghetti chart. Um Minnetonka is the dark blue line. I'll point that out with the mouse. So again, this is that same data over the last 20 years. Why we show it this way is part of our fiscal management in terms of part of that long range financial management planning that we do is to ensure we don't have these big swings, big ups and downs in the tax levy. That's hard for residents and that's good. I think staff would say that's not good financial planning. And so what we really try to do is really try to keep an even tone with our tax levy. That's why we put a lot of effort into our forecasting. That's why we put a lot of effort into our CIP planning is to really ensure we're not seeing big increases. I don't want to point out other communities by name, but you can see this is what we're trying to avoid. We want to avoid these bigger, wilder, what I would call wilder swings in tax levies uh that you might see in other jurisdictions. So, that's part of our management here at the staff level is to ensure that consistency um from year to year. At this point, I'm going to hand it over to Darren and Darren's going to dive much deeper into some of the details. Uh again, kind of what's in the staff report. A lot of detail in the staff report about what's in the budget, a lot of budget considerations. This is where Darren and his team put a put a lot of effort into um putting forth what you see here this evening. So, at this point, like to turn over to Darren and we'll continue with probably the last half of our slide deck. >> Perfect. 45 slides to go. >> All right. >> Good evening, Mayor, council members. Thank you, Mike. Um absolutely. I'll kind of pick up where Mike left off here. Uh really talking about the community survey as well, too. Mike talked about that in um developing our budget earlier as well too. And that these are kind of our out of the community survey. These are the ones that deals directly kind of with taxes and how residents feel about their taxes and how supportive they are of the the services that those taxes provide and such like that. And one of them that we kind of always measure is that question 31 there is how would you favor do how how you favor or oppose an increase in your city property taxes to maintain um your current service level on that end of it. And I believe it was the mayor last year asked us to kind of look at that over the over the course of time to see if that's you know we've always had good support to that but is it wavering in one direction or another on on that end of it. And so we looked at we looked at that information last year and now I've updated again for for 2025 and we kind of see that that um the people that favor that it's actually gotten a little bit stronger over the last you know six seven years versus on that end of it and such. So there is good support in the community to maintain that level of service that we have provided over the last you know many decades on on that end of it and such like that. So just a little bit more information to kind of see how the general pulse of the public is on on that end of it and such. So then we kind of dive into kind of some of the details here. So um Mike went over some of the high level stuff. We're going to dive into some of the some of the details tonight on kind of what's driving the budget levy and and those types of things. And as Mike mentioned, there's a couple two there's about three factors that are really driving this year's budget. It's the public safety master plan, which we've been in. This is going to be year three of the public safety master plan. And then we're going to look at the kind of that general operational piece of it that Mike talked about that kind of, you know, to do the continuing operations piece of that and then looking at some of the additional debt service piece with uh community center and our fire station um enhancements on on that and and such. And so when we look at the community or the public safety master plan for 2026, um there are no new firefighters um being added to the 2026 budget, but we did hire in 2025 as part of that 2025 budget. Nine new firefighters that were that's just started here now on July 1st on that end of it. And so we budgeted those as mid-year hires in 2025. And so that was nine full-time firefighters coming on board July 1st, which in reality would be about 4.5 firefighters if you hired them for the entire year. So we funded them for the first six months. And now for 2026, we got to we got to fund them for the full 12 months. And so it's kind of similar to hiring almost 4.5 new FTEEs for 2026. We have to fund that second half of those new firefighters coming on board. So that's about $630,000 for 2026 attributed to that piece of it. Um so I think at this point in time that the fire chief um the fire department isn't requesting any new staff for 2026. Um kind of give them a little bit time to to breathe and get these nine on board and and see where they're at facility-wise as well too with with that as as we kind of continue to implement that plan. Um then we're also looking at a little bit of the the compensation for firefighters. We've um come to find out that the firefighters are kind of below their market on that end of it. Um we do have capacity within the 2025 budget to accommodate those and um those increases to kind of get them back up to the market with our comparables and such like that and um moving forward in 2026 uh there is sufficient budget in the it's been in the budget right now um to include their kind of market values adjustments that would be similar to the other bargaining groups and or the non-union groups as well too on that on that end of it. Uh the next item would be our axon service agreement and this is more related to the police department side of things. And so this was an agreement that police department entered into about a year ago or probably a year and a half ago now at this point um to kind of bring a number of different software applications and equipment uses under one umbrella. And so this accounts for tasers, body and and um squad car cameras, training equipment, and then a records management system. Um rather than having that kind of peacemeal, uh we have it all under one agreement now with Axon and so that's going to be a 10-year service agreement. Uh we got some a little bit higher costs on the front end as we kind of work through that implementation, but then in the out years, it'll come down in price a little bit and be that flat dollar amount going out for 10 full years on that end of it. And this will supplant um some of our CIP items too that we had in in out years as well too that we need to replace such as tasers and cameras and things like that as well too. Um and then within the police department, we do have one personnel request for a community engagement officer. Um number of community engagement um activities and and touches with the community has been going up dramatically on that end of it. And this was part of the the public safety master plan was to um to hire a community engagement officer on that end of it. And so this is uh the one request there for a for an officer to um um be located in those in those services and perform those services on that end of it. And then lastly would be the drones as first responders. I think you've you've kind of all heard about that and the excitement that uh the police department has with that coming out that both police and other departments as well too I believe over the course of time as that gets implemented. Um that's about $300,000 annually for the next 10 years. And um that isn't in the 2026 budget. We have that actually budgeted in the CIP for the first year. Um but we will need to look at bringing that into the operational budget for 2027. So that'll be a a levy impact item for 2027 on that end of it. Um however, this does kind of supplant the need for any um a couple additional officers that were within the public safety master plan. So, um, having this at $300,000 annually with no, um, future increases is is a good savings part from from our end on that end of it. And I believe, um, with that community engagement officer and the journals of the first responders, I believe that's the last going to ask for personnel type stuff um, through the public safety master plan for licensed officers um, for the police department on on that end of it. Um, going back to the fire department, I know we do have we're not at requesting any uh firefighters for 26, but then we still do have um 12 that are um kind of requested within the public safety master plan and with plans to kind of bring those on preliminary in 207 and 28. Um and then we always we are always applying for grants as well too. We have the safer grant out there that we've applied for the last number of years on that end of it. I didn't put it in the report this year because it we haven't been successful the last number of years on that end of it. So, we'll keep our fingers crossed. Maybe we'll we'll hear something this year on that. Uh they did change up the the funding formula. So, maybe it's a little bit more u viable for a city like of like like our like us at this point in time. So, kind of a wait and see uh piece on that end of it. So, that was the public safety master plan. as we look at the community facilities, um that's or not the community facilities, but just the facility improvements in general. That's kind of that second piece of it. That's that kind of additional add-on that we talked about um either back in May and and now. Um and so we looked so council looked at and approved the um community facility study back in May of 2024. And so we went this time last year, we had in the budget, we had an additional 2% added to the levy. Um, I think our levy was up in the nine, mid nines, somewhere in that ballpark, I think, is what we were projecting to kind of get enough funds on hand with a plan to levy a bond or issue a bond for improvements to the marsh and other um community facilities, the community center and the willist. Um, some minor improvements there as well, too. Uh, that was going to be a three-year implementation plan. I think it was going to be 2% a year for three years to get us up to that full funding of what we need to pay for that debt service which I think it was um it was $30 million plus I think think on on somewhere in that end of it and so at the time the council decided well let's not move forward let's just kind of wait and see have another year of operations under belt kind of see where we're at moving forward with those and so we put that on hold and going well on that end of it and then again this past May we review the council reviewed that again and and um didn't necessarily seem like there was an appetite to move forward with that big that big bonding piece of it, but there was a maybe a little bit of an appetite to move forward with a little bit of something to maybe start putting some money aside to see if we can do some um as a community center. It seemed to be a priority as a renovation there. Um and then as a reminder, we did have the community center actually bid for renovation back in 20 late 2021, I think it would have been. Um and that's when the marsh um purchase came up on that end of it and such. And so, um, looking to kind of start putting some money aside to try to get that renovation done, um, in the near future as best we can. And I believe that estimate came in, I think that bid came in at about 3.2 million or somewhere in that ballpark back in December of 2021. And so, I would assume inflationary factors. I'm not an I'm not a engineer. I'm not anything like that, but I'm going to say it's going to be $4 million just from sitting at my desk thinking what those renovation costs will be. Um it may there'll be less but um I would assume that'd be somewhere in that ballpark moving forward. So it's kind of where we're sitting with the community facilities related to um community center improvements. And then we also reviewed council also reviewed the fire station satellites um stations back in April of this year. And so with the public safety master plan, um, with the recommendation there that we have staffing at all five stations, our four satellite stations aren't really set up to have 24hour or 7 days a week staffing on that end of it and such. And so went through each of those stations, kind of determined what was needed to be done or what could be done at at all those locations. Um, fire station two is kind of the most immediate need at this point in time. Fire Station 5 is currently going to be having full staffing shortly or maybe it already does. >> Um, and that was kind of due to some of the renovations that took place during the public safety renovation here in city campus. We did some minor renovations there to be able to house people temporarily up there. And so that place that station can house people. Station two um not so much at this point in time. So we need to to figure out a game plan for that. Um and remodeling or rebuilding that project is anywhere from two and a half to $9 million for a full rebuild at this point in time. So obviously financing is a challenge. Um we did we did request um state bonding dollars last year for the marsh and um the opus open space area. And so I think we requested $15 million a piece for both of those projects. Um, legislature did not pass a bonding bill or they did pass a bonding bill, but we were not included in that obviously. >> Bonding bill. >> Um, granted those weren't for fire stations or for uh the community center, but you know, if we would have received that bonding, they would have been able to um offer us some flexibility for some other other projects as well on that end of it. So, um, we did submit another request for this year. Um, council approved that or that resolution. I think it was back in late June, I believe it was, and we kind of switched our priorities for this year. Now, we kind of looked at what had been successful in gaining public support from the legislature in the past, and it seemed like it was more it was revolved around public safety. It revolved around utilities, water, and sewer, those types of things. And so, we thought, well, let's see if we can get a small amount. And maybe our ask was too big. um if we can get a maybe a smaller ask and maybe they are more accommodate more accommodating to that um that's that's great on that end. So we looked to add a fire station too. It's not to say the marsh and opus aren't a priority still it's just trying to get something is better than getting nothing at this point in time. So uh we are we put our efforts or our support behind a fire station um not a remodel. It' be a rebuild at fire station 2 if we were to to do that. So we requested $5.33 million. I'm assuming that a rebuild would be in that $10 million range or so given inflationary times and you got to up the estimates u moving forward and such like that. So a $5 million ask becomes 5.33 with inflation as the as as it dates out when this would be approved. Anything else? No. So then we also other options that we've been looking at for the last couple years a sales tax. Um there's been a moratorum by the legislature as you're well aware of for the last two years that no city can implement or even ask for a sales tax um legislation at this point in time. And they did that to do a study and to maybe come up with some sort of you know resolution rather than cities actually having to go to legislature get approval for each ask individually and then having the the legislature have having to approve that. They're hoping to set some standards or some rules around it and uh they came up with nothing. So which which is I didn't surprise me on that end of it which is disappointing u because we were sitting on the sidelines and we weren't ready to ask prior to this um and I don't know that we are ready right at this point in time but it would be nice to at least have that option if we if we wanted it. And so um moving forward kind of reverts back to the old way of doing things if a city wants to ask. I think this next legislative session, you'll have to we'll have to put in a request to ask for it at that point in time and see if they actually approve it and then before we can bring it forward for a voter referendum. And then lastly is financing uh the facilities would really come down to at this point in time a property tax levy. Um, so we're looking at the the 735% which is about $45,000 which would be um about half of what would be needed to fund a $10 million bond issuance. Um kind of came up with that $10 million based off of the $4 million for the community center and $5 million for the fire station 2 piece of that. um not knowing if we would get state state bonding or if we would be in the the position then to either think about a remodel or think about a rebuild or whatnot on on that end of it. I think that's still up in the air at this point in time. But um understanding we would need money to kind of set aside at least to start get the ball rolling on what our our game plan is moving forward. And so we do have a little bit of an opportunity. We have a um park bond that the city issued back in 2016 which was for the um an Cullins Smith property. So it was $2.5 million bond issuance back in 2016. There was a referendum levy bond levy park referendum levy back in 2001. I think it was actually on September 11th, 2001 when that um park referendum went through and it wasn't until 2016 is when we purchased were able then to purchase that piece of property. Um, but what happens is that according to state statutes, we have to levy a little bit more each year than what the principal interest payments are for that bond. And so we have to levy 105%. So what happens over time is that we have a little bit of fund balance now in that fund that we're able to pay off the principal and interest, the remaining principle and interest on that ahead of time. And so we'll we would need to levy one more year theoretically under the um bond covenants, but we have enough funds available to make our principal payment in February along with the um principal payment the following February along with a couple interest payments along the way um and not have to levy coming up in 2026 here. Um the only part of that is and the savings is isn't much. It's about $10,000. It's actually about $9,000 or so on that end of it, but it's still interest savings that uh we want to take advantage of if we can. Uh what happened then is in 2027 levy, that park bond would no longer be on the books. And so when we issued the 2020 public safety bond, we could see that we were going to have a debt service falling off at that point in time. And then this kind of goes back to that levy trying to keep that levy as flat as we can. And so our levy in increased in 2020 with the public safety bond coming on board. Um but then in 2027 the park bond was going to fall off. So it would actually reduce a little bit. But really what happens is instead of reducing it stays level and that additional bond then the debt service has increased on the public safety side of things. And so instead of a million dollars going to the public safety facility, $1.3 million will go to the debt service of the public safety facility. So that gets us through that 25-year bond on the public safety facility a little bit a little bit quicker and saved us on the front end of that without having to levy additional dollars. So So that's where we're at on that end of it. You'll see that next week. Um I'm happy to have formal council action with a resolution to call that bond. So, we'll end up calling that on about and or about um October 1st or so. But that will um allow us and so my plan is then so we should not decrease the take that levy off the books because what would happen is that we'd reduce the levy by $300,000 this year, but then we have to increase the levy by $300,000 next year because our debt service on the public safety bond um increases by that 300,000. So, what I would like to do is take that $300,000, we're leving it for debt service. Let's keep it dedicated for a debt service type project and move that into um a separate little savings account or a fund for community improvements um or fire station improvements, anything to that nature. So, we have a little $300,000 there to help kind of start that project with. And then what we would do is um the $45,000 of the new levy would go into that same account. Now, we got about $700,000 in there at the end of next year. Um, not knowing if we're going to bond next year or if it would be the year after or not on that end of it. And then in that in that bond fund as well too, there's still about $200,000 or $250,000 left in there. So, we can move that over into that as well too. So, now we're getting close to almost, you know, $900,000 sitting in there, which would help us either reduce a future bond issuance or help us with um the costs associated with that pro those projects. So, so we kind of have a little bit of a little bit of some financing stuff to be able to help us build a little kitty of funds. It's not a lot, but it's it's something to kind of get the ball moving. Anyway, so any questions on any of that because I know that's a little bit complicated stuff. >> Council, any questions? It was >> I was getting a deer I was getting a deer in the headlights look from Mike. So, I'm like, well, I better ask the council on that one. >> So, any any questions on that for clarity? >> Go ahead. Passing. So I get I get the first part about the you know um keeping keeping the levy level y >> so that we don't go up or go down and calling in the park bond but the second half of that of that I didn't get >> what you said >> beyond so we can buy down so so we're keeping the levy the same so we're not increasing the taxes we're just keeping that level Um but then and so I didn't get the next part actually. >> So the next part would be the se the additional 7.35% that we're >> looking at on the levy. So go from that 7.2 up to the 7.9%. >> Right? >> That would be an additional levy. So we would go from, you know, right now we levy $1.3 million for our bond, our debt service. We would go up to $1.7 million, >> right? And then and then for next year for 2026 just a million dollars is needed for the public safety facility >> because that doesn't bump up to 1.3 until the the next year on that. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> So rather than going So right now our debt service is $1.3 million. So rather than dropping it down to to a million dollars for for next year if we call this bond >> and then having to bump it up again. >> Yeah, I got that part too. I did get that part. Yep. So then the next part we would on the issuing the new B the new debt. Is that what you're asking about? >> Yes. >> So we would had new on top of that. So >> Okay. >> So right now we levy 1.3 million. We ask for another $400,000 on top of that. >> Okay. >> So it gets us to 1.7 million. >> Okay. Yeah. I think I got it. >> I'm going to probably lose it again, but I >> Okay. We're putting we're putting it in the piggy bank. >> Yep. >> Right. So Right. We're saving. We're not going to use it. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> We're saving. >> Absolutely. So, >> yeah. And and and theoretically, we could have as >> we could have we could have reduced it, >> right? >> Um but we chose not to because there's only a year gap in there and then we'd be raising it up again. So, let's just That's the part that $300,000. Boom. Let's put that in the piggy bank and keep things level. >> I got that. I did. >> Um Yeah. and and say as you continue to absorb just make sure you ask questions on this one if you don't understand it because really what what staff is getting at is Darren pointed out when you kind of rewind the clock this last year as we've talked about many of the needs whether it's the community center uh we had fire station um study presented by Wool and certainly our chief and deputy chief was involved in that uh we've talked about other facility needs whether it's um the marsh the Williston uh center. If you add up all of those needs, you know, we've been we look longterm, there's there's a potential of $80 million of potential capital needs. And so what Darren has um strategizing is how do we get there? Because really, it'd be very difficult uh to for even staff to suggest to council, let's go out and borrow $80 million. And so what we're trying to do is set up a way that strategically being creative with what Darren is outlining trying to find a way to ease into it because we know we can't um eat that entire elephant at one time. It's the proverbial how do you eat an elephant? It's one bite at a time. And so we're trying to be strategic about how we can kind of phase into these improvements at a at a in a way that has very that has minimal tax levy impact. And so what Darren is outlining is some strategy in terms of utilizing this tax potential tax levy of.7 400,000 and then in terms of then utilizing some of the other um financial strategies to in essence to the mayor's point a good way of saying kind of a piggy bank if you will of about 1.7 that's going to give you the council and us the city the flexibility to make um I know more decisions along the line just depending on what happens with potential sales tax, what happens with state bonding dollars. So there's a lot of puzzle pieces that have to come together and and for us to best position the city, this is a strategy to again get there in a way that provides the most minimal tax impact and yet still satisfies some needs that we have in terms of these capital improvement projects. >> Okay, thank you. >> Thanks. other >> he really >> um so on the the state bonding so the the 5.33 million that we've asked for for state bonding um and the okay the the the 405,000 would be debt service for half of that amount. So, I'm just like it says we have to match the state's contribution if we get the binding. So, is that that's money that's already been um proposed in the levy? And so, so what's the difference if we get the if we get the state bunding dollars versus we don't. >> Right. >> Right. So, I I Yeah. So, great question. So I think u with state bonding dollars, we are required to match a 50% piece of that. So I think when we when I came up with the $10 million amount, it was just kind of a starting base to help figure out what that levy amount is as we're going to need some dollars in the bank to help with these projects. And so requesting 5.33 million from the state means that we're obligated for a match of that. So another $5 million um that would provide for a full rebuild of fire station two. that station would then be said and done and have to think about it for 30 years. Um, so then that would leave us $5 million remaining on that $10 million bond issuance. And so the other $5 million or whatever we needed to issue would be dedicated then theoretically to the community center improvements. So maybe we only need to issue $9 million or $8.5 million or um whatever that amount is. here was just kind of a starting point to get me some figures of what what the cost of a $10 million bond is. And it's about $810,000 a year over 20 years at kind of the current interest rates or slightly above the current interest rates just to be on the on the safe side. So, >> okay. And then if we didn't get the money, then we would have a a second bond in issuance to to make up that difference. >> No, not necessarily. I mean, you could look at um in in still in the works obviously maybe you look at a remodel then for fire station 2 versus a rebuild. Is there a way to get through 10 years or 15 years of of a remodel at station two um until we can figure out because we got to figure out solutions to other stations as well too where we may not have a remodel might not be an option on some of them. So um if that makes sense. Y >> other other py >> so I I I noticed you said that you know the firefighters that the pay isn't up to market value >> and we talked about that at another study session but you said we we had the funds to bring them up to market value. >> Yeah. Um I Yeah. And >> is that >> and I I can show you that I have included in the in the council packet the kind of the budget to actual report for June 30th in there. >> Okay. Um, and I'll go through that at the end and it'll kind of show kind of where we're sitting at midway through the year and kind of right where our revenues are sitting at. We're we're above our projections on that end of it and our expenditures are slightly below budget at this point in time, but our revenues are >> are above um above that 50% threshold as of June 30th on that end of it. So, we're projecting to have a good fiscal year, which would give us enough um reserves in place to to fund that fund that adjustment and then move forward be have them in a good spot moving forward with um similar markets for everybody else as everybody else. >> Okay. I just heard that it was going to be incremental. >> We want to not talk about >> That's what I thought. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sorry. That's what I I wondered if that was the bad question. Okay. One thing just to put in the context um the bonding dollars as you know council we as a city we we haven't historically gone and asked for state bonding dollars. We started doing that a few years ago and just given the dynamics at the state capital there's been not a bonding bill. There was a bonding bill last year but it was really not community focused. It was more skinny as you mentioned mayor. By June 13th of every year, MME at the state of Minnesota requires that if a city or government agency has a bonding bill request, we have to submit that. And so by June 13th, as Darren noted, we pivoted to fire stations because that's where we've seen more traction, uh, more requests get funded more for public safety or utilities. Um, some cities have gotten money for water towers and water treatment plants or sewer projects, lift station projects. That's not our need. I mean, we do have infrastructure needs to that degree, but we will find, I think, greater success with the fire station asks. If we're successful there, we then reallocate for those other needs that we talked about. Still not holding my breath. I think is setting the expectation is that um with all the requests that were made to the state of Minnesota on June 13th, it's $2.8 billion in city requests. And so we're we're five million requests of that. And so I still think it's a pretty uphill climb to get state bonding dollars. Doesn't mean we're not going to try. Doesn't mean we're not going to work with our legislators. Doesn't mean we're not going to be part of the bonding tour. I think I just say that putting it all into like reality of we're going to ask for it, that's our strategy, but knowing it's a there's a lot of demand out there from cities. So, competition for state bonding dollars. >> Other comments or questions? >> I just had a question about the um 2016 park bond. Um that money was used for the colon nature, you said. >> Yep. that was identified as a as a as a project within the the park referendum is that um that two it was $2.5 million for the purchase of that um open space and so that was used for for that and we did all the remodeling of all the refurbishments of the parks. Gosh, that was would have been 2003 through probably 2012ish that we did all those um enhancements of the of their rest of the parks. And so this was the last piece of what those um what that referendum was allowed for. And >> Okay. And so are you saying you'll use that money to cover some of the other expenses now? Um >> so we'll use um so we'll pay that bond off. So we issued $2.5 million. We're going to pay it off early and we have just due to the way that we're required to collect sale property taxes, we're required to collect a little bit more just because of potential delinquencies in taxes and things like that. uh they want to make sure that the bonds have enough fund balance in there to pay the principal and interest payments. So, we have a little bit of excess sitting in this designated fund that was specifically for the debt service payments. And so, we'll pay that bond off and then we'll um transfer any remaining balance over to well the council approve a motion or a resolution to transfer the remaining balance over to another project fund on on that end of it to use for one time. >> Okay. But the color nature uh part has already been >> the purchase of it. Yes, the purchase of it was done back in 2016ish. >> Okay. >> Um and now we we've then paid back that loan that we took out to um purchase that property. >> And just for a little bit more history on that, so um the decision to to pursue that property happened well before in 2003, 2004, whatever. But the property did not become available until Mrs. Smith died. And so when she died, that was happened in 2014, 15, 16, that's when the purchase took place. So it was approved, you know, 10 years probably before it happened and the money was earmarked for it, but it didn't get spent because um she owned the property until her death. >> I think that's pretty close. >> That was the only question I had. I was just wondering like >> um the remaining. So, and then and then the other thing is so because we're paying the debt off earlier, >> um we we have we have an interest savings that we're holding on to and putting in the piggy bank, not the >> 10,000. Yeah. So, >> that's the interest the 10,000. >> So, so other uh questions on um from council or otherwise I'll >> keep going. >> Keep going. >> All right. Please do. Uh so, kind of that third leg of what's in the budget. So, we talked about um that kind of general course of continuing to do business and this is kind of that piece of it. Um so that's part of it is a non-union class and compensation study that we implemented a couple years ago. We're in the in the third year of that. Um so that's within the budget and then also the market value adjustments for the the U bargaining units as well too. And so those market value adjustments range from anywhere from 0 to 2% and then our COLA are based off of kind of a 3% um cola increase across the board there. So that um really is about $1.45 million. So that's a big driver of our budget. Our general fund budget personnel makes up close I think it's 78.5% of what our 2026 budget is of in within our general fund. So we're in the service industry and so that's expected that personnel is going to be our driver of costs on that end of it. Um health insurance again is is going up 8.9%. Um, I think I put in the report that it felt like a win anytime it's under 10, which as sad as that as sad as that sounds, but um, unfortunately that's kind of the name of the game these days. Um, and typically we we split that between employees in a rough roughly approximately or roughly 50-50 split between employees and the city on on that end of it. And then we have u new for 2026 is the Minnesota paid family medical leave um, requirement or act on that end of it. And so that is going to have the city impact of about $150,000 as well too for next year. So that's new dollars um associated with um with that new law. Then we do have one additional FTE request. Um so we had one in the in the police department for the community engagement officer. Then we have one within the the legal department for um um a legal assistant or a a parallegal um of something to of that nature. uh to help with prosecution and with the civil both civil case load and the prosecution side of things on on that end of it. And that's about $115,000 a year um budgeted at this point in time for that position. So those are the only two FTEEs being requested within this budget. I know in other years we've had others, but um I know staff has done a a good job of trying to maintain where we're at, knowing that our budget levies are are a little bit higher than uh where we want them to be just due to some of the projects that we have in place at this point in time. Uh 2026 is also a general election. So we have increased election expenses for 2026. So that's about $145,000 swing we see between um general or even years and odd years on that end of it. Um we also have $67,000 for the priority based budgeting that Mike's talked about as well too. So we've signed an agreement with Tyler Technologies to implement uh their priority based budgeting um software going forward. And so we should at this time next year be looking at a different budgeting outlook or different process a little altogether on that end of it. So we're excited about that. Um I did in the finance that's coming out of the finance department area on that end of it. And so I did have a retirement earlier this summer with that retirement and I knew this project was coming on board. We did kind of reorganize our department a little bit and have reduced our FTE count there by about a half of FTE. So, um, the $67,000 kind of is kind of a wash between that reduction here in the in the ad with the new software. Then we have $80,000 for a request for a one-time squad buildout. And so, um, postcoid, we had a delay in getting vehicles, if people remember the demand for vehicles and the delay in supplies and all those types of things. Um, so we weren't getting vehicles. Then all of a sudden now we got a lot of vehicles and so we have um some vehicles sitting in our garage that are ready to be built out but um the cost to build out squad cars is not cheap these days and so it's uh it's a big um it's a big ask on that item. So I think this is probably for about four squad four or five squad car buildouts on that end of it and this would get us kind of caught back up again and get those cars into operation so they're not just sitting there um collecting dust and and and aging in place on on that end of it. So, um, and then we have, um, about another $75,000 for software subscriptions. We've seen big movements across all departments where all their software is moving to the cloud. And once you're in the cloud, they got you. And the the annual increases are 5% minimum across the board, it seems like, on that end of it. So, we're um seeing some a lot of pressures there on every department on trying to keep keep pace with the rising costs on on that end of it. And lastly, just $16,000 for additional contracted services within the legal for specific um uh specialty areas on that end of it and such like that. So, nothing not a lot of big additional ass on the budget outside of kind of our general three areas that we talked about. Um, so those are those are those. And here's a little bit of a more of a breakdown of that um of the levy increase over from 25 to 26. And so you can see um our staffing cola is in there that $1.4 million. That's about a 2.6% levy increase right there. Um our health insurance is 0.9% that paid for medical leave is another.3%. Um parallegal position is is a 0.2 two pos.2% and so all those is that 4.8% kind of cost of continuing to do operations is is in there at that 4.8. Um Mike touched on the ice arena and the marsh and so in the past the ice arena we had always for the last number of years we've been transferring $100,000 a year over to the ice arena. We collect the money in the general fund and then we would do a journal entry transfer over to the ice arena. And so, um, the ice arena in 2026 is going to have, um, the refrigeration, um, system in ice rink B replaced. And so, they're going to be down operationally wise for, you know, four or five months on that end of it. So, that's going to hit take a hit to revenues on that side of it. Um, so we are going to bump up their um, operating transfer to $200,000 for 2026. Um, and I decided to break that out as its own special tax levy to be a little bit more transparent with it just to see that, you know, here's dollars that are going towards these uh community facilities on that end of it. And including with that is the marsh. Um, when we purchased the marsh, we had two mill extra $2 million set aside um to help with operations that we planned that would last probably a year and a half or two years. Um, so we're coming up on end of this year to be two and a half years, I believe, on that end of it. And I think from what our projections kind of um lay out is that we should be able to make it through about halfway through next year with that current $2 million. So we'll need about $200,000 to get us through 2026 as kind of an operating subsidy on on that end of it. So that's new there. And then the CIP, the capital improvement program levy is reducing by 500,000. there. We were able to take some of our excess reserves that we had in the general fund um after having a good year in 2024, reallocate some of those reserves over to the the CIP. And so that helps the plant and the street improvement levy um capital replacement fund with vehicles, equipment, those types of things. Um forestry fund I think got a little bit as well. I think we split that out across a number of different funds um in the CIP. And that leaves us then coming down to the public safety investment. Um that's the public safety master plan piece of that. That's the 2.6% for 2026. And then the facility improvements is a 7.35% that we talked about earlier as well too. Bring us down to 7.935% when you look at just the city levy. Then when you bring in the HA, which is u suggested or recommended to stay at $300,000, you combine those two levies, which they're theoretically separate levies, but um city council kind of has control of both of those. So we show them in aggregate brings you down to the 7.892% um total levy increase for 2026. Here I was tried to pull teeth as best I could to try to get our comparable cities um to give us some information. I think everybody's budgets are tight and everybody's bud levies are high and so everybody's reluctant to share information. Um but I was able to get a handful of our comparable cities to kind of see where they're sitting at prelim preliminarily. Anyway, um should be noted that every city has its unique story. Um I know Apple Valley just passed a park like a 80 some million dollar park referendum last year. So now they're issuing bonds to pay for that park referendum. So that's why their levy is substantially higher. Um, so each city is unique. They have their own issues. They have their own things that they're paying for. They don't know if there's new debt service coming off or falling off or whatnot. But here we broke it out um just between that kind of the general operations, the public safety master plan, and then additional debt service to kind of show you where we would be at if we didn't have those public safety master plan, the debt service there. We'd be sitting in a pretty good position at this point in time. Um, so obviously lots of other cities out there, but um, kind of from rumor rail I've heard is that it they're everybody's in that same kind of area that we are at or higher on on that end of it. So other than our friends in Eden Prairie and I keep giving them a little bit of grief of why they're always so low, but their day will come. >> We keep saying that. >> I know. I know. >> It's always seems like it's like free beer tomorrow. It's just not quite happening. >> Great. I hear you. Um so then looking at the homeowner impacts as well too. So um number of different factors in place here as well. Um our median value home went increased in value by about 3.8% for up to um about $521,000. Um that impact is going to be about 9 and a half% half percent right at the moment. We don't have all of our tax information from the county yet where fiscal disparities information is yet to come out. It should be out probably this week. Um I'll have it before we have our preliminary levy um setting in September, but I don't have it yet. Um hopefully it brings it down a little bit. It should. I've kind of was betting on the conservative side of of where we're at at the moment. Um but that is higher. So our if our levy is going up close to 8% and this impact is 9 and a half% that means that something else is happening outside in the market. And that really is kind of that shift that we're seeing that residential properties are still increasing in value. They increase in value 3%. Commercial industrial properties, commercial properties decrease in value less than 1% I think it was. And industrial properties was a very small increase on that end of it. So, we're seeing that continued shift that we've seen the last couple years from the commercial industrial properties over to the residential side of things, which puts additional pressure on the residents um to pick up that additional tax burden um at that point in time. So, you see I do have the 75th percentile home value there along with the 25th percentile as well. And the impact is about $150 for the 25th and $230 for the 75th percentile piece of that. Um, one other note on there is fiscal disparities is changing a little bit. They're not to the formula or anything, but we're seeing a little bit of a a favor favorable change for Minnetonka. So, with commercial properties decreasing and we have a large commercial base, that means that our contribution to the pool is less, which means that we're giving away less tax capacity. And then on the flip side of that, uh we are our tax rate has increased the last couple years with the implementation of our a little bit higher levies on that end of it. So we're getting a little bit more back on the distribution side of it. So it has a little bit of an impact to the residents, >> a positive impact. So it's it's not much, but it is better than better than nothing. I think it was, you know, $10 or something. Granted, I don't have all the information quite yet, but it was it's better than going the other direction with it. I guess >> going in a better direction. Y >> um >> so and here's a a little bit better chart where you can see that shift continuing to to move forward. Residential is that light blue section that is getting bigger whereas the the gray section is getting a little bit skinnier on on that and that's that commercial industrial area. Um should be noted in the orange there is the apartments and there we did see a decrease in our apartment valuations as well too. there is some um sales across the the market that were driving those and we're seeing kind of some reduced prices on the the apartment side of things which um probably is isn't a bad thing either though because it probably controls price rent prices as well too that aren't just continuing to increase at astronomical rates on that side of it. So if we can see something to stabilize there so that's my cue to keep on moving >> rock and roll is here to stay. So, >> H levy, um there no changes there. I think we've kind of reviewed that through the EIP and such like that. We're continuing to keep that at $300,000. Um that could be up to about $2.5 million is really what the H or EDA would be authorized to to levy. Um >> that was it for me. And with that, here is I just wanted to quickly review um that budget those other attachments that were in the that were in the packet as well. >> Here is a month monthly financial report. Now, I'm going to blow this up a little bit here. We'll look at the revenues first. So, this is a monthly financial report that I show this kind of the directors on a quarterly basis, but I look at it on a monthly basis, if not more often on that end of it and such. But, um, here's as of June 30th, and I thought that was July information's available, but it's not really, it's harder to grasp if you're not halfway through the year. And so, you can see in our revenues projections at June 30th, our license and permit revenues are at 87% collected. So, good job, Julie. Only a little ways to go. will will be there for the year. So, appreciate that. Um, property taxes, we obviously received our first half collection that's coming in. Second half will come in in December. Um, all these other ones, intergovernmental, a lot of that is our public safety aid that comes in in October. So, that number, I'm not necessarily concerned about that. Always um comes up later points in the year. Charges for services, a lot of that is recreation, those types of things. So, we're at sitting at about 48 50% on on that end of it. It's sitting really good there. Uh or here's recreation charges here, I guess. Um I'm not sure what the other charges for services are at the moment, but they're there. >> Okay. >> Investment interest um investment interest has continued to stay strong. We had expected interest rates to be falling over this last year and they have not. So, we're going to continue to run with that. It's we're seeing a good environment after many years of of minimal returns. We're seeing over 4% in our money market returns at the moment. So that's that's good to see. And then our miscellaneous revenue and that's um in tenner rental fees are in there and that we usually get those at the beginning of the year and such like that. So we're sitting um at a good amount there and we got a a large donation that came into there as well too for this year. So we're sitting at over 53% of our revenues midway through the year. Um expenditures, I kind of put arrows in here for make it easy for directors to kind of understand if it, you know, red is bad, green is good, yellow's you're you're cautioned, you're on pace. Um there's only one red arrow in here. I don't know which one that falls under, but >> now in mayor council budgets, that's typical because mayor and council budget is small and it pays a lot of your annual expenses get paid at the beginning of the year with dues and memberships and those types of things on that end of it. So usually start out really high and then you just kind of window down to the end of the year and you always come in at budget on on that end of it. So >> So if you look at uh total expenditures, we're at 46%. Um so that leaves us right at the moment we're at about a 3.6% positive um variance at million dollars 3.6 million positive variance at this point in time. Uh what was the other one? And this is that preliminary budget that was included in the council packet as well. So, this has the levy in there that we talked about. Um, and we look at our and we go through and we look at these revenues very heavily in May and June and try to get some good estimates in there and we'll go back again and look at them again before the the final budget to make sure that we're still projecting things on the right path on that end of it and such. So, um, overall we're looking at, um, we had some revenue increases across different areas. Intergovernmental, uh, looks like it's down a little bit. It's probably related to some potential grants, those types of things. It may not be as as, um, reliable in the upcoming year and such like that on that end of it. But overall, about a 59.8 million revenue side thing on the budget. And then expenditures across each department division are here as well. Um obviously some of the bigger ones with police and fire related to public safety master plan on that end of it. Uh legal, we got a new position added within there. And then um communications, I think we're moving over a communication person from PD over to communications and how it was funded from the the current year on on that end of it. So projecting a balanced budget for next year. That's always kind of what we assume to be in place. I know we did a couple years ago actually budget a deficit to use up some of our ARPA funds, those types of things in place. But now we those are dollars are all gone. We're budgeting for a balanced budget uh with the goal that we always come in a little ahead of budget either excess revenues or a little less expenditures just so we can continue to add to our our fund balance as our expenditures grow um typically on that end of it. So we want to stay in that kind of that 40% range for fund balance and so we need to kind of continue to have positive years to keep that percentage there in place. So So with that I think I am I'll wrap it up and get us back to our questions here >> in the grand dashboard. >> Oh yes I'm sorry. this one. >> I'll kick it over to Sarissa and she can talk about her grants as well too. That >> um so you've seen this before a couple months ago. So this is so this is just an updated version. Um since the beginning of 2024 until today, we've been awarded 17 grants. Two are currently pending and we've been denied eight. And then you can see the grants divided by each department. This is 2024 2025. So looks like fire's been busy with grants. This is police and then a few under work or under public works. And then the rest are divided between the other departments. Um since 2024, we've been awarded $3.5 million. And then the city match 1 million then combined is 4.5 million. And then pending total that includes awarded, submitted, and denied since 2024. So we've been working on 23.2 million in grants. Then this is a city match and then combined total. And then the revenue sources. So this year we've been focusing on a lot of state grants. And this is the strategic plan area. So obviously a lot falls under safe and healthy community and this was the newer area we added that you did see last time. So none of our grants fall under the high risk area. There are two grants in the moderate risk and then low risk is eight and then 17 um is at a so no risk for federal funding. And that makes sense since a lot of our funding is coming from the state now. And then these are the specific grants that are pulled into that dashboard and the color code is the risk. >> Thanks. >> Are there questions? >> So all of those are both all those are both operational and capital CIP related um grants as well too. So >> you said there's a dashboard for this is on the dashboard. >> Oh, when I say dashboard, this is what I'm referring to, >> right? Is that public facing or is that internal? >> We have it internal. >> Anything else? >> Thanks, Teresa. Anything? Anything else? >> Council, >> I just wanted to ask one question if I may. So, you know, we had with the public safety um study and the, you know, the staffing plan and that we're putting a pause on um firefighters for next year. I just want to make sure that that is, you know, I mean, getting nine new new folks on is it it's a it's a big percentage of your staffs, but I do want to just make sure that we are pausing to, you know, just sort of get the transition process done and explore what other reasons we're holding off. Is it because we also don't have overnight facilities for the 24-hour staffing or um I just want to make sure I understand. >> I'll turn over chief well Kevin can speak here in a second but I just answer it first two ways Deb that in that I think it's both. I mean certainly as you pointed out onboarding nine new staff members is a big undertaking. So I you the chief chief and assistant chief deputy chief can speak to that on the fire they're in a fire academy it's a long academy a lot of training and onboarding so there is that element of it of course and certainly that has to interface well and time well with facilities and so there is that element uh speaking with Kevin today we're still applying for that federal grant and so nine go ahead Kevin is it nine we're still applying for nine >> nine so we currently have a uh application in with FEMA for an additional nine, which would move us uh pretty well through the public safety master plan. Um, if you recall back in uh the spring when we did our initial budget presentations too, uh we talked about another reason for our pause was uh with this nine coming on board and us having the ability to staff a third station up north that we wanted to take a little bit of time to analyze the data and see what kind of impact that was having on our response times to the Ridgedale area before we start uh leaping into adding more staffing because we want to be very deliberate about how we do add our staffing and how we're going to deploy them. So, we wanted to take a little bit of time there too to uh really take a hard look at that. >> And I just sorry, mayor, just one more thing really quick and I just wanted to point out, you know, the tax capacity thing is affecting every city because the the different sectors are are changing. So losing commercial, but we are so lucky after reading an article recently where, you know, Minneapolis is 13% down and we are half a percent. >> So we're kind of holding our own in terms of commercial value. So that's just I feel so grateful. So thank you, Julie. >> That was on my notes to say and I forgot to say it. So thank you, Deb. >> All right. Other other questions, council? Otherwise, back to our questions. I mean, I think um we can probably take these sequentially, but generally, I mean, does the city council support the base property tax in levy increase of 7.2% which includes 2.6% for continued implementation of the public safety master plan. So, any comments or questions or anything? Paula. >> Yeah. Hi. I don't have any well kind of a question and I'll keep try to keep it brief because Mike and I talked about it a little bit um today. I don't really necessarily have questions or concerns about the levy per se. I'm just interested in seeing if perhaps um just like we have an H levy and we can see the programs in that um we've identified one of our priorities as the climate action adaptation planning and so I'm just trying to get my arms around and it could be a function of >> um understanding you know kind of what we're doing to advance that priority and I don't know whether it would be helpful to have a a category for that or a separate ley for that or something just so we can you know I know as we move to priority based budgeting hopefully you know we'll we'll be doing that but right now as we discussed we have kind of little you know symbol um in the in our in our EIP and our CIP and we can go through and flip you know but there's nothing that kind of brings that information or nothing that I found a way to filter obviously for us seeing this is a PDF to kind of look at that as a whole so I guess I that would be one thing that would be helpful for me as a council member um to be under understanding kind of tracking what's something that is kind of a priority and understanding you know how we're better understanding how we're implementing or how we're planning to implement or you know how we're going to fund our priorities. Um, so you know, that would be I mean I guess one thing. And then I had a question also on the undersigned fund balance. So it looked like we had a $500,000 buy down on the CIP for that which at least to my reading and there's a lot of information there and it's well presented but it takes a while to get your arms around. Um that left $2 million that was left in that unassigned fund balance that was being proposed. Is that am I understanding right or am I getting that totally wrong? >> Nope. You're kind of on track on on that. You're pretty close on that. So we had about $2 and half million dollars of surplus that was over that 40% >> thresholding. >> And so we repro so we program those over to the cap to the CIP. And so those dollars 2.5 million is being programmed out in the se into the budget um over to the street improvement fund, the capital replacement fund, the forestry fund, park and trail fund. Um so we are that which then allowed us to reduce the levy in the street improvement fund by you know 500 thou well the CIP levy by $500,000 on on that end of it. So >> yeah kind of fuzzy on the connect through that but I definitely >> and so that helps. Yeah. So those dollars help support basically CIP because they're one-time projects on on that end of it. So that was kind that's the council policy regarding the fund balance is that anything over that 40% needs to go towards kind of one-time projects versus ongoing financing um sources on that end of it. And so we've >> Right. No, I understand. Yeah, thank you. I get that. Um okay. So okay, so anyway, thank you for answering that. I was just wondering if council ever like only my second sophomore. >> Yeah. >> If council ever gets uh you know kind of >> what when is our window to weigh in to know kind of what that assigned fund balances and to kind of you know kind of put our little note in the suggestion box of you know given my priorities. Um, I would love to see part of this unassigned fun balance go to or is the process such that staff proposes and read the review. Just kind of trying to understand how how that works. >> Yeah. Well, and I probably could have answer I'm sorry. I probably should have answered that better when we talked earlier, Paul. Those half hours go so quick, don't they? Um, so as Darren mentioned, so it's in it's actually a policy of the council and so so it it so it's a policy of the council. So if the policy states that anything over that 40% has to go to the CIP and so in this case, >> so we don't know what that is until we get we have some projections, but we get to the end of the year and then there's that transfer is made. And so in this case that two and a there was two and a half million in excess that went to the CIP and what that was able to do and I'm kind of being stating it differently is what that was able to do then is reduce in the CIP levy and so the history on that is and perhaps some I know the mayor I think knows the history better than I maybe Darren and others as well when that policy was created there was that question of all right so we've got some excess fund balance what do we do with it and so the city leaders at that time made a decision to let's put it towards CIP. So if we have savings in the general fund the idea is well let's use it towards capital because there's always a demand for capital purchases. So there is a policy and so to answer your question it would have to be a policy change to >> I'm not I'm not yeah thanks I'm not I'm not a policy change in terms of CIP. I'm just saying within the CIP is there a way that you know again in that we have the cap um now and there are certainly some CIP potential projects that you know are part of that everything from Hullen to whatever um you know could we kind of I guess have a >> is there a mechanism for um council to kind of look at our own priority and say if there's assigned fund balance. We would like staff to consider these and how they're assigned to the CIP. That's I guess that's my question. >> And maybe if I can chime in, Mike, on that end of it. So >> So kind of if we look at the CIP levy over the over the course of those beginning charts in our PowerPoint, do we see the CIP levy has been pretty flat for a long time on that end of it? Um kind of what's been happening with the fund balance on the general fund. We've used that to really help solidify or help stabilize those balances in the C in the capital project funds because none of them have great fund balances. They're getting by on by the skin of their teeth on on that end of it. So any dollars that we can get there, we we put there because they're going to be onetime projects. And I think the policy doesn't necessarily state the CIP, but it has to go towards one-time projects, which a majority are in the CIP bases on that. So, um, so they aren't necessarily going towards may have go towards a specific project, but they're going towards projects or funds that will have specific projects in there to help solidify those fund balances and help um with levies in the future. Rebecca, >> and I guess and to say it another way is we could always weigh in that we want to use something for something, but that will impact kind of the overall future year budget because what you've done is used it >> forward towards whatever we've developed as a priority budget for that year. So I think we can always weigh in in the budgeting process to things that we want considered but that will impact the overall levy one way or another. And you know, just to provide a little sense of history, um the the real driver of that policy was um it was kind of Tony Wagner and I um pushed for a policy because, you know, um I mean Tony and I both work in the private sector and you know that you know in in the private sector you um you um you you spend spend all your money. You you know, you you um you don't um underspend your budget. It gets it gets all spent and and here um we always seem to underspend by some. And what happens to that leftover money and and so it it it bothered it bothered Tony a lot. It bothered me a little um but um you know to answer that question. So the policy was created said okay we want to keep our fund balances at 40%. If we have anything over if we underspend our budget we have a plan for using that money and so we establish this policy but I think the point being made here too is you know policies can be changed. I mean you know we we saw tonight how we're I talked to Mike about a little bit. You know I really I like our policy but you know we're scrambling around looking for money. I mean, I was I just shared my personal opinion on, you know, the the um levy or um bonding for fire stations and community center. I said, you know, I I I'm comfortable with bonding for public safety. I'm less com I I know we need to get the community center done. Um but I'm less comfortable bonding for that. I'd prefer to find another way to sp pay for it. And I thought, you know, gee, could we maybe change our policy and say, okay, if we have under spending, we got to create a fund, create a kitty, if you will, to pay for the community center improvements because I feel we should do that, but I don't feel we should bond for it. I I'm totally comfortable with bonding for fire stations. I'm less comfortable for bonding for what I would consider a nice to have, one person's opinion. So, I mean, again, we as a council, if we think that there's a better approach, we can tackle that. But right now we have an approach and it has served us well. >> So >> and I don't >> go ahead Kimberly. >> Yeah I I don't want to spend all night on this but um like just trying to understand all that's been said. Um so if the if fund balance over 40% it's a transfer it can only be used on one-time projects. I think sort of the question is is there like a priority for which CIP projects that goes to or and is is that a time when council could weigh in? >> Thank you. Yeah. >> Well, I think we weigh in on the CIP. We we have a we have a specific study session on the CIP and if there's time to weigh in, I think that's that's part of the answer. >> Yeah. Um if I could. Thank you. I I and Mike and I spoke about that today. Our CIP was on June 16th and I think a lot of people's heads weren't in the game for obvious for a reason. >> A lot of what? >> A lot of our heads weren't in the game. Um totally on June 16th after the events of June 14th. >> Um and I know that was the case for me. Um, a lot of us were had been woken on Saturday morning to be told that we had police cars in front of our houses because um, it was unclear whether there was somebody on the loose who might murder us um, or had already murdered people. And so um I know for a lot of people it was a really emotional uh weekend and you know probably not a study session in which uh you know we necessarily focus was strong and I I can certainly say that was the case for me. Now could I have come back and looked at the CIP and come back later? No. But I'm coming here now and asking about it and these things. And so either for now or going forward um you know if we have that clarification and and no then that's another thing to talk about for CIP and make explicit that you know if we have undersigned fund balances are there priorities for council to use because when we usually talk about the CIP um and and the EIP a lot of times it's kind of like it's already presented and there's some you know there I didn't feel necessarily that well first of all I wasn't equipped I just hadn't looked so that's on me and you know so it's up to us and our discussion Mike was is that we could come back and this wasn't our last bite of the apple that we could keep coming back um you know through September and so that's what I'm trying to elucidate now and now if you know I'm told that that's it you know this is done CIP EIP set in stone we can't change anything else then that's on you going forward next year I know better. Um but if there is then I guess you know I would like to ensure that all council knows that that's still a possibility. >> So I would um so if Mayor Mike go ahead you may um so with the well >> to I think to Rebecca's point you as a council can always change the budget. you have the authority to modify, for example, the CIP, that staff usually brings those modifications to you in terms of like budget amendments. So, you can always amend the CIP. Um, when we when we had the conversation going back to June, to your point, in June, it's not the last bite of the apple, but that concrete starts to dry or cement. Is it cement or concrete, Darren? >> Concrete. >> Concrete. Right. So, the concrete starts to dry. So, >> it will. Yeah. Is this cement cement when it's dry? So that that concrete starts to dry in June, but it's not fully cured yet because in September. So So but you're right. So that June meeting is a bit is an important one when we talk about CIP EIP. It's a really important they all are because we don't have unlimited time unless you want to schedule a lot more meetings to really dive deep. So you do have kind of one big bite if you will in June on September. So on September 8th, we're planning as staff to bring back to you the preliminary levy and budget. Part of that in September 8th is the CIP and EIP. So if you do have something, there is that I'd say bite, if you will, at the apple for that meeting to continue to shape the final the final product in December. So there's that opportunity, but a lot of it comes in again in June. That's where a lot of that molding takes place. Um the what's the other thing I didn't mention there? So it's not the last bite of the apple if per se. The other thing I would mention too is >> almost spoiled because it sounds like >> it's starts to go bad >> gets cured right thing at some point we have to get to decisions but those can be changed. Um what I was going to mention is um >> sorry I lost my train of thought. Um >> well I I I think the point is that okay we have a process we follow it um as time goes on yeah the concrete does get more or the cement whatever the the mortar gets more cured but you know if there's if there's really a priority I mean you have to build consensus you know it's one person is not going to change these things you know so so that that all takes time and so as we go through this process it gets more challenging but the point here is that if there's there's information that's going to make a difference that could be shared. The council has the ability to change it, but as each day goes by through this process, it's more difficult to do. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Thank you, R. I guess I remember I was going to say if I could thank you, mayor. Um, >> uh, >> oh, and out that that's right, making me feel younger. >> I know, right? Can I can I chime in to think a little bit about sustainability because I just want to address that because we we bypassed that question a little bit. >> Um >> so when we do the work plan for sustainability in January that sets out what we're doing for that year. Then when we come back to you and we talk about what the issues are in the budget and I think we said this did we say this in May where we said what's not included is X Y and Z and we talked about sustainability quite a bit. We talked about public safety quite a bit and so there's no additional funding in the budget for sustainability. However, the good news is that the work plan picks up a lot of what the uh climate action plan detail is. So, for instance, um I was just looking through the plan. If it says the cap says get a home energy audit for homeowners, right? Um the actual work plan says promote residential and home energy. So, it took the thing in the se the cap and put it into the work plan to, you know, get that checklist done. So, I think um I think we can do a better job of noting when those things are reflected in the cap. And I think we'll just make sure that it's in the work plan, which items are in the cap and which ones aren't um or what's in the energy action plan, you know, whatever document we're referring to. And I think that would help you >> kind of memorialize what exactly is CAT plan, what is other, you know, other efforts. So hopefully that helps. >> Yeah, that would be great. Yeah, some way. >> It's an overall effort, >> you know. So, so you >> know, >> so when we do our work plan, I think that might be >> if that helps. >> Yeah. No, having it I think as a lens that we're looking at on page one of the EIP and the CIP and our planning principles and things like that, you know, I think it's also a good thing to maybe >> what it says >> to consider, you know, as we're looking at that. So, >> okay. Yeah. Mike, did I give you enough time? >> Yeah. Thank you Julie for that um diversion. >> Thank you. >> Okay, Mike, go ahead. >> Yeah, thank you. I I so couple things just want to mention. So with with the CIP, and I I know you know this, but it's worth reiterating. So when we do the CIP, it's a five-year CIP. And so we really map out projects for the next five years. That's our forecasting and part of our fiscal management. And that's $160 million worth of projects. But when you approve the CIP, you're not approving all five years. You're in essence approving for 2020 2026. And so even though there's projects identified for 27, 8, 9, 30, those are again placeholders until we come back in the following year and they come more materialized one year at a time. And so just keep that in mind that with the CIP you're going to be really approving 2026 again of which you can modify at any point. So just keeping that in mind. And then the second thing is if you at any point as a council can say this is a priority. How can we get this project done? So we have some excess funds. How can we get that done? Um there's in the CIP there are approximately 12 different funds. And so what staff does in that instance is use our discretion on, okay, we need to move money, this excess funds from the general fund, move it over to the CIP. What Darren and his team are doing is taking a look at where where does it best make sense to minimize tax levy impacts because there's it's like a balloon. Have an analogy that Brad and I talked about earlier. You can put money here and then what impact will that have? And so there's a lot of push and pull with where that might land, those dollars land. And so I the more staff knows upfront what your thoughts are on priorities, the better it is that we can help manage those 12 funds within the CIP because each of those 12 funds have different funding sources. Property tax levy, uh there's going to be community investment fund, there's going to be park and wreck uh park and trail fund. There's going to be um utility fees. there's going to be the uh franchise fees and so there's a lot of different funding sources with all those different projects. So the more that I think you as a council can express upfront is a lot more helpful in the way that we can help manage those long term in terms of where those monies go and then what's the the ying and yang in those in the implications of moving different funds around. >> Okay. So conceivably there could even be like a a cap fund >> like there's H levy if we wanted to anyway that we don't have to go through this now but just something that I'm I've been thinking about in terms of >> how we you know kind of put our our our money where you know we say our where our priorities are way to do that going forward but we can take that offline >> y talk with >> all Rebecca, >> thanks Brad. I have just a few questions and I'll just say them and then can go through as you think appropriate. So, um, can you and Mike, you and I talked about this a little bit this morning, but can you just talk about some of the I understand the increase in le the legal category that makes a lot of sense. Can you talk about the communications category a little bit and then the admin category? Those seem to be the the areas that inflated more most significantly say over the last 5 years. Um and then the other thing would be maybe I'm misremembering but when I think about the marsh I feel like we had this like $300,000 number that seemed to that that amount seemed to last for a very long time. So, I was a little bit surprised to see 200 to fill the gap. So, maybe we can just kind of talk about and I know the report said that we would get more um clarity on those numbers maybe later this year, but those are my those are my three questions. >> Yeah. If we go to let's see do you want to pull up um towards the end the the arrows the green red >> the arrow chart >> the arrow >> I assume what you're referring to. >> Oh yeahcca special right here. >> This is the budget one. Yeah, the historical spending over >> so 20 there'll be 23 here 24 23 actual 24 actual 25 budget 26 proposed the four columns there >> right >> so we're looking at communications down here >> is that what you're looking at >> yeah I think so I think to answer your question is it >> general admin >> general admin so some a couple things that's happened in general admin because that's where I think is that where city I think the city manager is that the city manager budget there >> uh 33 down at the bottom of city manager. >> So is it this one Rebecca? Yeah, I I think um well I guess the I guess I was combining maybe general admin and city manager, but yeah, I mean those are the more vague categories too and I think you know when we hear from residents well why what's going on in those categories that's causing >> you know significant increase over the span of this 4-year peri per period of time. So, so a couple things with uh one is with the city's diversity, equity, inclusion efforts. And so when the city first hired a DEI position that needed a needed a landing spot and so we as a financially we didn't create a separate department because it falls within really admin. And so we when the DEI position was created, it fell within the city manager budget. So we just that's where we put the line item for DEI. Um same thing when we hired in 2025 this year there's a second position added. Um Karin who you met is now new DEI and so they're between our DEI expenditures are I think you and I talked Rebecca like 250,000 they got the actual expenditures and it's it's closer to 350,000 which is the DEI um goals and the initiatives that the council prioritized. So those expenditures landed in the in the city city manager budget. So that explains that that's where I mean there's no other person it's personnel related to to DEI. Um, communications, we've added a a staff member and I think Darren alluded to well, added a staff member and initially that was coded under police in 2025 and that's being moved over to communications for 26 because in adding a communications person, they're they're dedicated to public safety. So, we have a stronger presence now with um more so with police, but certainly they've worked a little bit with fire in terms of ramping up our social media presence because we really didn't have a footprint uh in communications regarding public safety. And so, that person again was coded. We had some space in the police budget in 25 and we migrated that permanently to communications. So, that that so it's not a new, it's just a shift of where it's coded. >> Great. And I would add what you got to take it with a little bit of a grain of salt too is that you look at 23 and 24 are actuals. So if you had open positions in any of those years across any of the departments, they may be budgeted but they never really occurred because they were or vacant or partially vacant or something of that nature as well too. So >> um and I don't know what the I don't remember what the vacancies were in those years but just make note of that. Anyway, >> great council questions. Um and then with the marsh is you want to answer the marsh question? >> Excuse me. >> The marsh question. Yes. On the operating transfers. And so uh we had last year we had projected I think it was $350,000 initially like in September of last year we were going to transfer $350,000 over to the Mars for operating subsidy for the year. And we ended up not knowing that we didn't need that um when we went into the final levy in in December um time frame on that item because we still had enough from that initial $2 million from that initial purchase piece of that. And so um we're still still feeding off of that piece of it. And so looking at projections for 2026, we'll need $200,000 rather than 350 or what whatever that dollar amount is. So >> Got it. Thank you. >> Do we answer all did that answer your question? >> Yep. >> Other other questions for staff >> on this one. >> Otherwise, you know, our discussion question is about the 7.2% levy increase which includes um of which 2.6 of that 7.2 is for the public safety master plan. Any issues, concerns or um comments on that? Let's answer that question. I think I'm touching something. >> Um, >> here. I mean, I kind I kind of feel like I'm working at the state fair across from um the haunted house, which is what I did for many years. >> Here, I'll read this the question here. Does the city council support a base property tax levy increase of 7.2% 2% including a 2.6% for the continued implementation of the public safety master plan. So, it's a yes or no question, but any com any comments are clearly welcome. >> I mean, I'm 1,00% in favor of uh our public safety master plan. As as we have said so many times, public safety is job one. I think the I think not only was the study did the study inform us very well, but I have so appreciated both chiefs, fire chief and the police chief for proceeding with prudence and caution and not I mean you know they know that we're supportive and we generally give them the positions that they want and you know we had already sort of um stealed ourselves for a large uh levy increase um in anticipation of more uh fire and fire fire hirings especially but um also police and so I'm very grateful to both chiefs for you know not really pumping the brakes but just taking a breath to see where things land and also looking for those creative solutions. So, the whole thing with uh drones as first responders, I mean, I just think that we've been so creative and I'm really grateful for that. Um, and in terms of uh 7.2% 2% levy levy increase. I mean, first of all, knowing that this is the maximum. Um, we've already heard about some savings or surpluses that we weren't expecting. And so, um, which I'm also very grateful for. I don't feel hugely comfortable with what is essentially an 8% levy increase, but um you know looking at the public survey that says you know trim 11 pe 11% of people said get rid of waste. Well, I still I still am looking for that waste. I'm not seeing it. So we have a lot of need and I think this feel fills the need. Thank you. Council of the comments, >> Kimberly. >> Yeah, I mean >> Dr. Wil, >> Kimberly is fine. Um, >> well, it's sort of along the same lines, you know, looking at the two together that I would prefer it closer to seven than eight. And you know, obviously would prefer it lower than that if possible, but I know that I am in support of the public safety master plan and um you know, we need to to get these fire stations uh up and running. Um and it's not going to be cheaper next year, like if we don't start >> it's not the price isn't going to go down with us waiting. So at some point we just have to bite the bullet to do it. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Rebecca, >> thanks Brad. I I agree. You know, I it's really hard to see these levy increases. It's, you know, it's it's hard to stomach for us. I I you know, it's important that everybody knows that. I don't see this as a blank check. It also is very hard to conceive of how we can implement the public safety master plan and keep a levy say below four or 5%. I mean with the pressure that we have on wages alone and that you know I if we fall behind on wages you will see turnover increase and now a survey survey responses will certainly reflect that and so I'm very sensitive and then costs will go up and we'll be in a you know we'll be in a little bit of a whipssaw. So I'm very sensitive to not creating that kind of imbalance in in the city. Um, also I just keep going back to when they presented the data with the public safety master plan and the response time and kind of comparing us to what the standards are. I mean, that was really sobering to hear because if it was, you know, my loved one, if it was, you know, the the fact that the city council didn't want to increase the levy 2.6% 6% in order to get response times up would be or down I guess would be infuriating. So I come back to you know it is putting pressure on our residents. I'm very sensitive to that. On the same time if we want to provide the services that we are committed to providing it we I you know I'm having a hard time seeing where we bring it down. But if you could come to us in November with a redu, you know, with a little bit lower of a number, um we certainly would appreciate it. >> Pancy, >> um I I um I agree and I just wanted to say that it um that I do see Mr. Nelson, you know, it's hard for me to get through this because I don't understand it. To be able to do it is is is great and I appreciate that. Like, you know, keeping the levy down and figuring out all the different ways and the grants um that it's it's really helpful to know that, you know, this isn't done in sort of um it's done because there's been a lot of work behind it. you know, the seven point, you know, there's a lot of work before that that I appreciate. So, um, I support it as well. >> Thank you, Ky. >> So, I had talked to Mike about this earlier today. Um, you know, I think about the U increase 7.95%. Um, and I think about residents who are here in Minnetonka who are still struggling to make ends meet. Um, you know, we know that we have residents who struggle. Um, even elders who live in their homes who are not getting any increase because they've retired and money's kind of at a standstill. And, you know, I still hear this >> or cuts. Yeah, >> I still hear this from my neighbors and it's so one my one neighbor said always ask me when are you going to stop running? Are you still are you running this year? You know, like they say this to me constantly or I may hear like what's going on at the city, you know, like what are y'all doing? You know, and then I'll say, well, you said you support, you know, your police. you said that, you know, like I remember last year running for state house and they're like, "We're not going to support you if you don't support your police." You know, we we're not going to. So, I always have to remind them about like where the money is really going to um and making sure that our city um have that A rating. And so, when I say that, it does bring some form of comfort. Um, but I also I was telling Mike like I remember I kept asking this question over and over and over and I guess I wasn't getting it. Like I kept saying we hiring nine firefighters and then I would say I thought we were done hiring firefighters and then I heard today like oh we need 12 more firefighters and I'm just like I'm like when do when do it stop? Like that's what I was saying to myself. When does it stop? like when do we stop hiring police officers and firefighters? And then I realized, well, if we're trying to meet the master plan, I mean, I have these aha moments. I always talk about these aha moments for myself, you know, cuz I'd be like, I don't know, my head be in a cloud somewhere because I'm like, it's going to stop at some point, but it it it never stops. And so I realized that as we continue to um you know make sure that we have a well-ran city and I used to always t Minneapolis and say oh Minneapolis doing all these different policies that I really love because I always say that they're pretty progressive. Then I I would tell you because of the work that I do and many different hats and people I love live in Minneapolis and I'm I go to domestic abuse calls and I'm sitting there and I'm talking to sergeants. I'm talking to police and I'm just waiting and I'm like then I hear I go talk to Cornerstone, the executive at Cornerstone and they tell me that oh this is happening. we're not getting response to calls and DV people who are experiencing domestic violence or saying no one's showing up or they're coming late or they don't care. And so then I come back to our city and I say we have a really good city. Like we have like the best city, you know, I brag about when I'm talking the best >> and you're right about that. >> Yeah, I know the mayor agrees with me on that. But yeah, but so I mean I I do support it but I still struggle because I know like you know people are struggling you know I was just struggling myself and I'm like every time I increase happened I thought about myself or I thought about residents I thought about my neighbors I thought about you know just people who are struggling and so um but we have to have that balance and then when I compare I'm like oh god we got police officers that's showing up or they're actually taking the calls. We have firefighters that's showing up and we're creating this new facilities and our community centers and all the things, right? But it does make me sad when I hear other cities are not providing the service that Mata is providing. And so I do appreciate it and I'm lucky to be here and so um I support. >> Thank you Kizzy. Anyone else? Paula. Hey, first of all, just a quick question. If anybody knows, Darren, what is the levy in Minneapolis for this upcoming year? >> What? 9 point or not. Yeah, >> I think I Yeah, I think it's pretty high. >> Yeah, it's under 10. I think it's 7.9 or eight. >> Just curious. >> And just for the record, my stomach hurts a lot for like three months leading up to tonight's >> trying to get the levy to where it's at because it's not. >> I just wanted to say I totally appreciate it. I get the folks are on a fixed income. I also look at the point um that we are the fact that you know just to stand still in the water to tread water. We're at 4.8 almost 5%. That is just to tread water with existing pretty much existing one or two new staff and just to adjust for inflation, pay for the increase in in uh health insurance >> and you know the new state uh paid family medical leave and all of that stuff and cola. >> Um and then I look at, you know, we the public safety master plan 2.6. Those are just kind of fixed costs for me because we're not going to unless we totally jettison the public safety master plan, which I'm not prepared to do. I don't think any of us have have. So, I mean 7.2 is kind of the baseline I think that we as a as a city and as a council have agreed to. Where we're playing around the edges is, you know, special revenue fund. And I think as a city and as a community, we've agreed for many years that the ice arena at 200k in the marsh um which is improving steadily. I think the vast majority of our residents, you know, it's a 7% of our overall levy, which is a pretty small amount if I'm or it's a 7% increase um in the levy or is that yes increase $400,000 for those special revenue funds, >> right? Um, so, you know, that's kind of a a very small percentage. Um, you know, the the the the thing that I'm struggling with and we I'm sure we'll talk about that is the next question, which is the facility improvements. But at this point, you know, I'm I agree that I'm I'm totally on board with our, you know, what if the question was the 7.2 too. Um for sure on that and I think you know we can talk about special revenue funds or we can talk about facility improvements but for talking about those that main question uh the first one then you know yes >> very good anyone else comments otherwise I will comment briefly um I'll try to be brief anyway um the um you know the the 7.2 to me is not really 7.2 2. It's it's um it's 4.6. >> Um which in this environment I think is is pretty reasonable when you look at look at the insurance increases and I mean we're we're we're thankful that they're under 10%. um and the priorities that we've got um the two um FTEEs are directly related to um public safety and um and we're also talking about the nature of our um our public safety and our fire and our police. But as far as police, I mean, we we have a good relationship with our residents through our police department and our community engagement, I think, has been one of our critical successes. And I think that, you know, um beefing that up is is that's that's a long-term investment that will pay dividends um to our residents who who and and to people who come to Minnetonka who deal with mental health issues and have challenges. um having that having that community engagement is is critical. So so I'm you know I won't belver the point um I support the 7.2 um I think the um um and clearly the I I've come out before everyone knows I support the public safety master plan. I don't have to repeat that but there are a couple of charts in our our staff report that um you know that give me pause and and one is the tax capacity by property class. because you know residential has you know gone up. It's at its highest point um since 2016 and well before and that that transfers property tax burden onto residents. And so the the um line in the first paragraph um below the tax p capacity by property class says the rough in rough estimates indicate that a median valued priced median valued home that increased 3.8% to $521,300. So that's our median price. We'll see an annual increase of $174 or n 9.2%. So while we're talking about 8% basically if we answer the next question affirmatively 7.923% whatever it is the impact on our residents is going to be 9.2%. So that that's a big number and you know that that gives me pause. um I'm going to support it, but it gives me pause because um you know, I've talked to numerous mayors lately. And um and you know, the the idea of people being taxed out of their homes, particularly people on fixed incomes, is not a concept. It's a reality. And I'm not saying it's it's a broad reality. It's happened to a lot of people. But but I mean, people, you know, have to figure out how to how to survive. and as their costs go up and the uncontrollables and by our residents it's pretty much of an uncontrollable we it's our responsibility. So, you know, to me the most daunting aspect of the work we do is taxing our residents, taking their money to pay for city services. I believe our city services are excellent. I think we're doing the right thing. I support this budget, but it I mean I agree with Darren. I mean, it it it makes it my stomach muscles tighten up when I think sometimes, you know, I'll tell you what, I'll be honest. I'm fortunate. >> The the tax increase isn't going to bother me too much, but it is going to bother people in our community. And that that that concerns me. And I'd like to think there might be, you know, some circuit breakers and things that we can do for people in certain classes. And I and that's beyond the scope of this meeting. But but that really does cause me angst >> I think especially now. >> Well well I mean and and it's everything. It's not it's not like it's not like well if we if if our property tax were the only thing in the city that were going up that would be one thing but I mean you know you open your insurance bill you open this. You open that. I mean you know I mean I was at a family get together the other day and my brother-in-law said have you looked at your property taxes lat have you looked at your insurance bills lately? I mean, you know, all these uncontrollables that everybody needs are going up and that's that's just tough. >> Going away. >> Well, and people I mean, people it's it's affecting people's lives where they have to say, you know what, I have to downsize. I have to do something different. I And that's that's really that's daunting. I don't have the solution tonight, but it's daunting. And but I think this is a good budget. And I give our staff credit for being as creative as they have been to be dealing with the core the basics of our budget are 4.8%. But the impact on residents is going to be higher. So I'm I'm concerned about it, but I support it. So that takes us to the next question. I think that one can be a quicker question, but um does a community does the city council support an additional 0.735% for new debt service related to community center improvements and/or fire station number two improvements for a total levy increase of 7.935%. So any comments and I don't know if we all have to comment but um I think we can move through this one but um please share your thoughts >> mayor. >> Yes. I mean th this did make sense to me and again you know this is really painful and when I you know I'm out door knocking right now and people are hurting they are I don't I don't take this lightly but this this made sense to me and we really really need we don't just need the personnel we need a place for them to be we need to do something about the fire station and the unfortunately ely the state legislature has been sort of an unreliable partner in their budgeting so and their bonding so um I think I think Darren was right that we have to just kind of you know find a way to move forward and this made sense to me I I mean I agree we may have to I mean I I share the instinct on the community center with the mayor but I also recognize that it's not, you know, ADA compliant, that it is a revenue generator, but even if we look at 10 $10 million, right, on this bond, who that, you know, that might not even pay for a fire station. So, I think we have to get started and figure out what we use it for. Um, because we need to handle the fire station situation. It's a cascading problem and I think it's irresponsible to future councils to not start taking care of it now because we have four fire stations that as I go three four fire stations that we have to deal with and I'm really worried about it and if we don't start now >> it's just going to become a bigger problem and I I don't want to >> increase 7.735% but I don't I don't know what else we do. We're not going to get help. Like the the rescue boat is not coming. >> Any other any other thoughts or comments on this? Uh Kimberly? >> Yeah, I'm just going to add so I already made comments about how we we have to get our fire stations up and running and um this is part of it getting started with fire station 2. um and price will not go down. And the other thing to consider is uh like talking with uh Mike this afternoon that you know if we if we get started today, it's not like there's going to be a new fire station next month. This is a long process >> and so and we've got four stations to consider. So I I think we need to get started and it's it's I Yeah. It makes my stomach hurt too to see 7.935%. But again, as everyone else said, I don't I don't see >> I don't see not doing >> any anything to add anyone Paul me. Um I'm going to be the little black sheep on this and not and first of all I just wanted to say um I noted I think it was not in the staff report but another report that response times are actually down. um uh quite a bit. Uh and so congratulations to Chief Fox. I'm so pleased that that has um been going on already. And uh I guess uh what what um I agree that you know we don't want to put this off but I really I really am um thankful and grateful first of all for what you've done already in terms of lowering response times and the fact that you're you know kind of pulling back for a year to see to look at the data and see because um things that you know I I've shared with Mike that weren't clear to me that I'm hoping to understand and hoping that you understand is what are we looking at? We've talked about general response times in terms of being, you know, not where we want them to be. What I haven't been clear about and what I need to get smart on is whether that's throughout the city, whether it's pockets um in the city and it sounds like you you have those questions too, which is why you're going to look at that data over the next year and see do we need under all four of them um replaced? Do we need all of them to be 247? I mean, I know what we have, what we want, but what do we find as we're going forward and things are improving with response times? I think you shaved quite a bit off. I was really impressed um you know, just based on training having now new full-time um professional firefighters and just and relying more and more on those instead of the paid on call um folks. And I think that is going to, you know, I'm really interested to see how that plays out in terms of the response times going forward because we're just at the beginning of that transition. And I think it's only going to get better. And I think as you have that additional substation that you are um staffing 247 and maybe we have I don't know what else we're going to have coming online, but I think that'll be a great opportunity. I'm not saying we pause and do this, but I'm saying also that I'd like to make sure that we keep looking at the data on this and making sure like I don't know is number two where we really need it. Are we going to find that after a year when you've looked at this 247? Is that where you know what can we do that's going to increase outcomes the most for the out um for the most people to lower the responses for the most people? Right now we're talking about city average. I don't know what that means in terms of pockets in Minnetonka. So, I'm looking forward to seeing that data and finding that out before we say we need four fire stations because we've just spent $30 million in 2020 for a central fire station that was supposed to serve the needs of the entire city. And now we've come back later through, you know, nobody's fault, but saying, "Oh, nope. Now, we need another at least $40 million to spend for four fire stations. And with inflation, that could go up conceivably because Kimberly is right. It's not going to get cheaper. So, we could conceivably looking be looking at spending $und00 million in facilities alone um over a 15 year, 10, 15 year period. you know, if we're, you know, on board with that, we think, but I think it's smart of the chief to kind of take a look at the data on this and seeing what are we getting, what are we going to get for that 80 to $100 million at the end of the day. And so that's, you know, I am I'm prepared to go forward with this and say, "Yeah, let's go ahead and slot in the parkboard bond and look at this additional, you know, 735 uh% levy." Not wild about it. But, um, you know, I can see regardless we'll probably need those funds. But what I really want to, you know, kind of keep an eye on and I, you know, really trust Chief Fox to do this because they've, you know, you you've shown that you're really looking at this carefully and I appreciate that so much that we continue to take a look at this carefully and all the options and creative ways and out of the box thinking that you've been doing to already lower response times and try to get us at our our target. And maybe in the end, you know, we can look at some, you know, maybe that continues. We don't know. and and and maybe, you know, maybe we need all four facilities, maybe we don't. So, at some point, you know, it's always there's no price that you can put on a human life. On the other hand, are we looking at spending $80 million to get a 30 second increased response time? So, I think we just need to be really careful. Well, it's great to say I, you know, I want to go forward with this, but I think, you know, we owe it to the residents of and the taxpayers of our city, the people who are on fixed income, the people who are losing their SNAP benefits, um the people who are looking at Medicaid coverage getting cut, the people whose parents now are going to, you know, no longer be able to be in nursing homes and they have to figure out what to do with them. I think we owe it to them to make sure that we are looking really carefully at this in the future going forward. And if it's a one minute, you know, take a look at how many fires are we having, how many fatalities are we having, and really look hard at, you know, kind of the tradeoffs here because, you know, every life is invaluable. Um, and we need to look at it, but we also have to, you know, balance that. Um, and I've already said enough. So, thank you, Chief, for doing that and what you're doing. and I I kind of look forward to hearing the data as we go forward. My high blue um uh kind of block is is showing right now. So, thanks. >> Any other comments? >> Um you know, I think this as was described earlier um this um answer to question two of the 735 is kind of a is is putting money in the piggy bank. That's a first step. And um and going along with what Paula said, um you know, we we have to continually look for opportunities to improve the plan. And I don't think anybody here is signing up for four new fire stations. I think what we're saying is that we know that we're going to need some fire stations um after the complete look at the public safety master plan and we better start putting some money aside to get started. Um, but but I I see that as, you know, again, I I said I feel better about spending the money on fire station 2 than I do about the the community center improvements. I think we need to do the community center improvements, but I'd like to find a different way to pay for those. And I don't know what that creative solution is. I threw a I threw a I threw a, you know, a few interesting ideas to Mike today. He may have not thought they were that interesting. I thought they were interesting. Uh, but >> they were interesting, >> but you know, and I'm not I'm not I'm not sure they're I'm not sure they're good ideas, but but I think, you know, I mean, if there's anything that our staff has shown itself to be capable of, it's bringing creativity, finding creative ways to fund things that we need and and I do think we need the the community the the community center improvements. I'm less comfortable bonding for that. I feel I'm much more um comfortable bonding for public safety, but but I think we need to do this. I think it's a step in the right direction. I think there will be much more data looked at. There will be many more conversations on this long long after I'm done being mayor. Um and maybe all of us are done being on the city council. I mean, this is a long-term um long-term consideration. We need to do it carefully, but but we do we do need these assets. Um you know, and it's um I mean um improvements in response times are it's a journey. It's not a destination because I don't think you can ever say, "Gee, we're there." And as much as I'd like to say that, you know, um there's never going to be a time where we wish our response times couldn't be faster. I mean, we're just never going to get there. So, um you know, so and and again, to Paula's point, you have to have a a pragmatic idea on a goal. Uh because you can keep chasing improvement, spending against that. each each uh incremental um step toward improvement is more and more expensive. So we have to balance that. It's a balancing act between what's prudent, what's necessary, and what can we afford. So and I think that that battle so I I support this. Um you know, it brings us darn close to eight. Nobody likes eight. Um, you know, we don't really like seven, but I think in the environment we're in um you know, and I and as is always the case, um, this is a pro, we're talking about a preliminary levy number. We'd like it to be lower and we get when we get to, uh, approving the final budget. Um, we know it's hard to squeeze that blood out of the turnup, but we're going to ask for that. It'd be night I'd like to be lower than we are tonight, but but I think this is prudent, so I'm going to support that. And uh I um council I I mean Mike I think you have the direction you need from the council. So then the last question is the H levy. Um this should be easy although it's not always easy but um it's unchanged which is kind of nice. Um, you know, I I think we um, you know, we want to critically examine we don't we want to critically examine all of our expenditures, but are there any concerns or comments that anyone has about the 300,000 um, and a flat H levy for 2026? Any comments? All right, I think I think that brings us to the end. Oops, excuse me. >> Okay, I wasn't talking to you. >> No more. your cut eye. Um, sorry. She needs to get to bed, so >> you know, I do. >> Um, no, I mean, nobody wants to see this be flat. Um, I think we all think that we'd like to, you know, contribute more to the programs that are helping those in need the most um in our community. Um, so I'm not wild about this, but I'm glad that there's something there in the fact that we are Matonka as a community is doing so much and punching so far above its weight in terms of affordable housing units. Um we are I don't know what are we now 200% 100% more above our metro met council targets that um >> Oh I see. Yes. >> Although I'm not thrilled. Um and I would love us I I think we can always you know want to do more and should be aiming to do more especially once we're passing public safety master plan and some of these other issues. Um you know I I think for now we're we're at where we at like said we're at a prudent not a comfortable budget. So I think you know we just have to I think we stay at this. >> It's very good. Anyone else? I don't want to cut anyone off. >> So just to follow to follow up on that I mean just and a part of it it's just because I'm I'm the liazison to the EDAC. It's not just the creation of affordable housing. We do so much >> more than almost any almost any suburban community with our homelessness project, with our home ownership programs, with, you know, I mean, we just have so much going on, not just not just building affordable housing, but keeping affordable housing and all of the creative programs. So, I I'm very comfortable with this because we one of the things that this does not address is kind of the different CDBG differences in the way that we're getting allocations from the county and so on and so forth, which is more than we used to get. And so, um, this doesn't cover that, but, um, because I've been in these other sessions, there's the there are new programs that we actually have to come up with new programs to expend the dollars from those programs. So, I'm I'm very comfortable with this because we will think of these wonderful things to do the things money. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Great. Anything Anything else, council? Um, so, um, I'm gonna turn it back to Mike because the the next thing to talk about is, um, our future study session, but I I am gonna make one quick comment. Sorry. You know, Darren brought it up. Um, and you know, it's that darn Eden Prairie um, low um, >> you know, and and we had a guy come up, I don't know how many, three, four, five years ago talking about comparative analysis. And you know I'm I and that's bugged me ever since then. And then every time I see this bar chart and um Eden Prairie is at the bottom >> um >> the um and so the one of the things that I would be interested in maybe as a as a spare project when when people in the finance department don't have anything to do is say okay how does Eden Prairie do it? um you know how much how much do they levy not by levying? Okay. How much do how much do their residents pay for street improvements? Where what are their other sources of funding? Because I mean Eden Prairie is not Minnetonka. We all know that. I don't want to live in Eden Prairie, but it's not that bad either. I mean um you know so >> don't give them too much critic. >> Yeah. So, so I mean I really I mean I'd kind of like to be able to answer that question in my mind because I'm getting sick and tired of saying, "Well, they're kicking the can down the road and and they're going to have to pay the bill at some point because as long as I've been around, they haven't had to pay the bill." And >> transition their fire department. >> Yeah, they have not transitioned their fire department. But I think, you know, let I I wouldn't mind having a little bit more whether it's, you know, just a little bit more of an analysis of that because it it's it's crawling my >> I can give you a little 30 second overview from what because I have I've inquired as well too. So I've dug dug around. >> So it's bugging you too. I can tell. Thank you. >> So their their franchise fees, which it may be I don't know how they relate to ours as much as what that dollar amount is, but all of their franchise fees go to street improvements. >> Okay. Okay. Whereas ours go to trail expansion and underground burial and all that end of it. So our >> levy that we dedicate $6 million to in the street improvement fund that's all franchise fees on their end of it. So that's not tax levy dollars. >> That's a big piece of it. They don't have much for debt um either. So much general obligation debt that mainly their community center facility over there on that end of it. >> Yeah. >> Um they do have municipal liquor which is a big piece of it. And they have name your gummy which we don't have either on that end of it. So, um, if you saw that news article on the on that, >> that's that's special. You know, I'm I'm okay with them having that. They can have that one. >> But that that probably brings in another probably $750,000 to a million dollars a year that they dedicate towards their CIP, the proceeds from their municipal liquor store operations on that end of it. Um, >> I I don't know if they special assess. I don't recall off. >> I think they do. I% does, but I think they do. Yeah. So, they don't have they don't have the right. So, they're not going through the infrastructure rebuild stuff that we are um versus that. So, I appreciate it. Yeah. It it does baffle me. They are going to catch up that their fire chief lives across the street from me and >> I try to beat him up as many times as I can. And he said we're starting to >> we're starting to go towards the the combination department that we are as well too. So, they're going to have to >> that transition half >> and this is the second year of their two-year budget. So, we'll give them this year and then we'll wait and see next year, I think. >> All right. >> Well, thank you. I had I had to say it. >> Let me just add again, not to pile on, but the differences too in level of service. Um, again, I know their city manager very well and speak no ill will of Eden Prairie, but I can tell you that there's some investments that we've made that they haven't, and that's just the difference in value. And >> for example, >> natural resources, you know, Leslie's here. We have a we have a staff of nine and I think even Perry has a staff of what >> half >> they they don't have investment in community inclusiveness or DEI >> they don't what >> have investment in DEI they don't have DEI personnel or community inclusiveness type initiatives um they are where we have invested I think as Darren mentioned earlier in our paying comp study so we're trying to position ourselves as a employer of choice and >> I can name off five employees that have joined us from Eden Prairie in the last two years, you know, so >> there. >> So, I think you can start adding up a lot of different areas and it it'll get you there. >> Well, and that and that Yeah. And but I think there's two points there. I mean, there is no free lunch. I mean, excellence is not free and and I think we pursued excellence and and I agree. I'm not I mean, I know Rick well and I know Ron Casease well and I know their council well and Eden Prairie is a Um, it's a fine city. It's not Minnetonka, but it's a fine city. >> Okay, let's Okay, >> enough. >> All right, here we are. So, Mike, I'm gonna turn this over to you. Um, next month is September and, uh, >> yeah, thank you, mayor. Uh, so yeah, as you just teed up, so September, we we're back for the or I should say we're back. We're back in September for study session zoning rewrite. So, Julie will have and the consultants will be here. consultants or just you? >> I think it is. >> All right. So, staff will have an update on the zoning rewrite, a status check in on that. Uh Kelly will Kelly Miranda will be leading a conversation on youth programming. So, we'll be highlighting everything from youth programming, the ACE internship kind of a toz on youth programming. Uh and then we'll have our it's our 30-minut open time for quarter three. So, we'll have that we'll tee that up as well. We'll get some >> get your ideas in. >> Get your ideas. is I'll send out an email um as I typically have done here this year with that. So that's coming up in September. October is OPUS and then we'll have our infrastructure rate study analysis conversation as well. November is again budgets back to enterprise funds and a little bit of the general fund and then again our quarter 4 open time in November and then December is all about 2026 planning efforts. So that's what's on the docket. Again, we look for your feedback. If there's something that you want to replace or add, that's again always to your discretion. And then I would just close by saying that just schedulewise, we have Friday. Um I have you received an email, council Julie, on forked >> directly in we did not. Yeah, I >> there's a ribbon. So I'll send that out to you. So there's a ribbon cutting kind of open not a formal ribbon cutting kind of an open house format. I'll send out an email. It's Friday night, I think, 5 to 8 o'clock. Um, there's a charge. So, it's $20. Um, so I know we've worked with them on >> 15, >> 20 for food, another 15 for alcohol. So, again, that's your discretion. Let you know that you'll see an email from me on that because they have sent that to the city. And then Monday, Scott, uh, 8:00 Monday is the our version of our drone launch, if you will. So council, you are invited eight o'clock Monday. I know we have council calls. I just mentioned to Rebecca here that we'll we'll figure something out on because we have a council meeting next Monday. So I usually am calling Rebecca at 8. So either >> we'll have Miranda reach out to Rebecca or we'll talk another time and then Deb's at 8:30. So I I certainly want to participate and be involved with the 8:00 kind of showcasing of our drones. But council, you are invited also next Monday at 8. Anything else on that, Scott? >> Okay, that's it. >> Thank you. >> All right, everyone. Thank Thank you all. Long night, but I mean, we covered a lot and uh >> good job.