Good morning. >> Good morning. I'm going to ask um the the uh staff to go ahead and roll the tape. >> Oh, that's right. >> Yeah, this looks folks. >> It's just we're at tables. I know. >> That's right. >> It goes and we're going to hear it this month. Well, good morning everyone and I guess it's afternoon now. Um, welcome to the administration's operations and budget committee of Monday, September 29th, 2025. We start the agenda with discussion of the 2026 proposed budget presentation. Um, you would have gotten your books and everything ahead of time. I have to make a special thank you to OBF. You gave us several of these at a time. That's so helpful. The way up front gave us a lot of time. So, just welcome to the first budget hearing of the year. Um, the county administrator submitted her budget to the county board on September 16th. The proposed budget totals $3.09 billion and was based upon property tax levy increase of 7.79%. The board adopted a maximum property levy increase of 7.79 on September 25th. This afternoon, we are are hearing on the proposed 2026 budget with presentations from the disparity elimination line of business. The hearings are intended to allow Bard members to understand what's included in the proposed budget. Additionally, these hearings provide a forum to gather public input on the proposed budget. A line of business budget proposal, the complete 2026 proposed budget, and the schedule for these hearings are available on the county's internet website at www.henipen. us/budget. At the end of today's hearing, we'll provide a call-in number and other specifics on how members of the public will be able to comment on the budget hearing. So, I would now like to introduce um County Administrator Wetland who will be um introducing today's budget. But let's go around the room just quickly and say everybody's name. Debbie Gotel, Henipin County District 5. >> Irene Fernando, District 2. >> Angela Connley, District 4. Heather Ottson, District 6. Sam Frederick's communications. >> John Matthews, chief financial officer. >> Jod Wentland, county administrator. >> Karine Murphy, deputy county administrator. Alexander Iverson, budget and finance manager for disparity elimination. >> Chef Wendy D, District 1. >> And then the back with Kevin. >> Oh, were you here? I'm sorry. >> I know I blend in. >> Kevin Anderson, district one, District 4, District 3, District 7. >> Kate Nelson, District 5. >> Welcome. and I'll hand it back over to you, Miss Rubble. >> Thank you, Jerkel. Commissioners, thank you for joining us today for our first line of business budget hearing on disparity elimination. Through each of the budget hearings, you will hear more about how the proposed budget supports our continued commitment to remain disparities. This is the foundation of our work. And through the seven disparity domains of connectivity, education, employment, health, housing, income, and justice, we have adopted a proactive approach focused on building an equitable and thriving community for all our residents. In these times of increased challenges and uncertainties, it is imperative that we boldly advance our efforts to not merely reduce but aspire to eliminate the disparities that persist. Today's focus will be on the budget line for the disparity elimination line of business. But the work of disparity elimination is present in all lines of business throughout our organization. Our approach to the budget hearings is provide a budget overview, review priorities, and allow time for questions and discussion. I'd like to ask Kareem Murphy, Deputy County Administrator, to get us started with the presentation for the disparity elimination line of business. Mr. Murphy, >> thank you very much, Administrator Wenton. Good afternoon, Chair Gatel and Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to present the disparity elimination line of business 2026 proposed budget. For today's budget presentation, we'll share about how we're serving residents disparity eliminations 2026 proposed budget, our line of business priorities, and we will end with discussion. All of the leaders on this slide can help you address your specific questions following the presentation. I want to quickly thank all of them for their collaboration and critical thinking through this year's budget process. I also want to acknowledge another leader in our line of business, K Adam, who joined disparity elimination midyear to help lead the county's anti-displacement work on the blue line extension project, as well as Lolita Ula, who are uh the director of system design, who are both here to help answer questions following the presentation as well. The disparity elimination line of business continues to serve Henipin County residents in equitable and innovative ways. For example, 70,540 square feet of surplus county property has been converted into urban agriculture in 2025. Over 900 people planted, harvested, received food from, or engaged with our growing communities urban agriculture projects led by climate and resiliency. The Department of Workforce Development has served 10,490 residents across all workforce programs. Residents received report Residents received employment coaching, one-on-one mentoring, internships, resources, supportive services, training, and educational workshops. Broadband and Digital Inclusion is collaborating with the Department of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation to design a specialized digital support program for residents re-entering the community. This initiative focuses on building digital skills that promote employment, housing stability, and successful reintegration. You might hear those names and those words as we discuss the various disparity elimination domains. An estimated 1,930 adult clients will be served through this program in 2026. And now I will hand it over to Miss Iverson for the budget overview. >> Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Good afternoon, Chair Gatel and Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to present Disparity Eliminations proposed 2026 budget. The 2026 proposed operating budget for the disparity elimination line of business is 40.3 million, a decrease of 10.5 million or 21% under the 2025 adjusted budget. This reduction is overwhelmingly due to a change in accounting for the Minnesota Property Assessed Clean Energy or Minpace program as well as a reduction in federal and state workforce funding. Approximately 80% of the overall decrease is from a change in the accounting method for the minpace program which is administered by the climate and resiliency department. This change has no impact on funding for disparity elimination initiatives to better reflect the full flow of funds. Mainpace is now being housed in the county's fiduciary fund. This fund is used to account for assets that are held by the county on behalf of outside entities such as property taxes collected on behalf of other governments. In the case of MINPACE, the county collects and distributes property assessments used to repay loans that are administered by the St. Paul Port Authority. Fiduciary fund activities are not budgeted, resulting in a decrease of $8 million in revenue and expenditures from the 2025 adjusted climate and resiliency budget. This accounting change has no impact on minpay services which continue to be supported by climate and resiliency. It also does not reflect reduced investment in our climate and resiliency initiatives. It is strictly an accounting correction. The other significant decrease from the 2025 adjusted budget is in the department of workforce development. The 2026 proposed operating budget for workforce development is 9.1 million, a decrease of 2.3 million or 20% under the 2025 adjusted budget. This reduction is the result of lower federal and state workforce grant funding. Disparity Elimination is requesting $26.3 million in property tax support in 2026, an increase of.3 million or 1.1% over the 2025 adjusted budget. The main reason for the property tax increase is higher salary and health insurance costs for existing staff. These increased costs are being offset by strategic reductions such as eliminating vacant positions. Disparity eliminations proposed property tax requirement reflects a budget that manages the pressures of increased staffing cost while maintaining the county's commitment to eliminating disparities. The proposed operating budget for broadband and digital inclusion or BDI provides a good example of this budgeting approach. BDI is requesting $2.7 million in property tax support in 2026, a decrease of.2 million or 6% from the 2025 adjusted budget. BDI has partnered with PCs for people to provide certified refurbished personal computers or PCs for residents. Refurbished PCs are less expensive than brand new devices but are still high quality. BDI plans to meet increasing digital training needs in 2026 by leveraging digital navigation's relationship with trusted community organizations. The disparity elimination administration department includes the budget for anti-displacement. The proposed 2026 budget includes $500,000 to be used for anti-displacement program investments to prevent displacement along the Blue Line Extension Corridor. The 2026 disparity elimination budget also contains $725,000 in revenue from housing and redevelopment authority and public works funds. These transfers support disparity elimination activities that are aligned with these areas and offset the need for additional property tax funding. Disparity eliminations full-time equivalents or FTEES are proposed to decrease by 5.3 to 124.5 in 2026. The reduction is mainly due to the elimination of four vacant FTEEs in outreach and community supports and two vacant FTEEs in broadband and digital inclusion. These FTE adjustments align these departments with current and historical staffing levels. The overall FTE reduction for the line of business is partially offset by the addition of one FTE in the Department of Workforce Development as part of the department's leadership restructuring at the end of 2024. This FTE is an existing fil position. Adding this FTE to Workforce Developments 2026 budget codifies restructuring decisions made at the end of last year. As noted earlier, the Department of Workforce Development's budget will be significantly lower in 2026 due to less federal and state workforce grant funding. The department's federal and state grant revenue is budgeted to be 3.1 million in 2026, a decrease of 2.3 million or 43% from the 2025 adjusted budget. This reduction includes the following. a decrease in Henipin Carver workforce funding by 1.9 million or 40% from the 2025 adjusted budget. This includes red reductions in state and federal funding for dislocated worker, adult, and youth programs. These funding reductions will strain services available for individuals who are or who become unemployed. There is also a reduction in revenue for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment and Training or SNAP ENT in 2026. Specifically, the SNAP ENT 100% program received a funding reduction of 69% despite an expansion of the eligible population per state and federal regulations. The SNAP 50% program budget is also projected to decrease by 55% based on actual spending. Despite these reductions, the Department of Workforce Development's proposed 2026 property tax requirement is only 2% over the 2025 adjusted budget. The department's 2026 budget proposal continues to support key programmatic workforce strategies. Now, I will return the presentation to Mr. Murphy. >> Thank you very much, Miss Iverson. Disparity Elimination remains committed to its mission, which is to co-create equitable and innovative solutions through community and workplace partnerships to eliminate disparities across Henipin County. The recent name change of our line of business from disparity reduction to disparity elimination represents us doubling down on our commitment to advance equitable outcomes for all residents. As this is the foundation of our line of business and organization, this line of business is committed to being iterative, creative, and innovative in our approaches, and that is reflected in our budget decisions and priorities. The priorities we'll highlight today are community engagement, climate action, and education. One of disparity elimination's priorities in 2026 is community engagement. Outreach and community supports will focus on deepening internal and external alignment, advancing cross-dep departmental collaboration, culturally specific outreach, and strengthening relationships with community members and partners. The department will continue to share essential county information and resources with community related to opioids, climate action, and more. And we envision expanding our capacity to listen to community and receive their wisdom as we decide uh make programming decisions. OCS will continue to build relationships with indigenous communities throughout through our work continued work related to the land and water acknowledgement through collaboration with the Henipin University partnership. The team conducted a community needs assessment this summer, gathering input directly from American Indian residents regarding their access to experience with and treatment when receiving Henipin County services, as well as identifying barriers and gaps in those services. Over 50 community members were engaged in this process. Climate action is another priority for 2026. The Climate and Resiliency Department plans to expand their response to strengthen food sovereignty through community-based solutions, deploy a countywide effort to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy adoption and energy burden communities, and launch a plan to cool neighborhoods and reduce the urban heat island effect. This will all be done while driving down overall emissions through smarter, more sustainable practices. The department is training and educating 27,440 residents on clean energy and energy efficiency adoption, education, and outreach on the effects of climate change, emergency preparedness, and extreme heat preparation. The team is also supporting the adoption of 760 kilowatts of rooftop solar in community sites and promoting adoption of residential solar energy in partnership with Sun. 1,072 residents are installing solar in their homes while over 5,800 have registered to receive solar panels. Education continues to be a priority for the disparity elimination line of business in 2026. Education support services will keep providing holistic multi-generational services to advance equity and eliminate educational disparities. ESS has served over 2,100 students since the program began, and over 87% of students identify as people of color. In addition, ESS will work to align education resources across the county to increase efficiencies and will develop and lead a countywide education governance structure to support and operationalize the new grow, learn, thrive framework that was the subject of a previous board briefing. We are not without our challenges and we hope that our opportunities remain abundant. The development of the 2026 budget has provided both opportunities and challenges. As noted earlier, workforce development received drastic cuts to its federal and state programs. To maximize existing resources, staff are are identifying and streamlining service delivery across departments by consolidating overlapping programs and reducing administrative overhead. They're prioritizing high impact models like apprenticeships and in- demand skills training, both of which have proven positive outcomes. Staff are using data to inform resource investments where they will yield the greatest impacts for Henipin residents, especially underserved populations. Lastly, staff are strengthening community collaborations through alignment of services to braid funding and expand wraparound support services while advocating for more flexibility to meet residents where they're located. Broadband and digital inclusion also faces challenges from federal funding cuts with federal grants canceled from the digital equity act programs as well as ongoing gaps in affordable broadband infrastructure. To address these challenges and make effective use of resources and relationships, BDI recently expanded a community partnership that provides laptops to residents. This initiative supports workforce development and recycling efforts. The certified refurbished devices now come equipped with new AI capabilities and Microsoft productivity tools which are uh features frequently used by residents. Another example not shown on the slide but worth mentioning is anti-displacement which faces unique budgeting challenges and opportunities for 2026. While ensuring the budget matches the needs expressed by community is a challenge. There is a parallel opportunity that we can partner with community in new ways to deliver services hopefully creating new models of program design and implementation. This budget invests new methods to further trust between the community and the county, reversing decades of disinvestment, improving the quality of life, and eliminating a host of disparities. The first anti-displacement prosperity program funding awards will be distributed by the end of 2025 and into 2026 following following the direction of a community-led board. These examples show the thought and creativity that went into the development of the budget proposal that I've presented to you today. Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to answering any questions you may have and I will happily turn it back over to County Administrator Wentland for discussion. Chair Patel, commissioners, thank you for the opportunity um to present the disparity elimination line of business. As Deputy County Administrator Murphy identified, a lot of work has gone into this budget. The team is here and can answer questions. I just want to express my appreciation for the hard work that the team has done um in bringing forward this budget. Thank you. >> Thank you. Great presentation and great work. And I appreciate I know you have to be first and it's always the nerve-wracking to be first. So, thank you for being the ones who are first. Um, and I know you'll call up people if they're needed at the table as we go through questions. So, I'm going to start that process with Commissioner Lundy. Commissioner, [Music] >> thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, and just want to thank staff for uh the briefing um and the brevity. Just want to acknowledge that since u because I do I find that the part I want to understand is what that discussion part and so I appreciate having that time. Um so for me education is everything if we really want to eliminate disparities if we're having kids who are reading at a lesser rate doing math at a lower rate we will never eliminate disparities. And I realize that's out of our ballpark, but I don't think it is because when kids are not able to read, when they're not able to do math, um they become adults who can't read, can't do math. And every data point shows that people who don't have education opportunities, the outcomes in their life, it's just it's a different outcome. Um I would like to double the education support services budget. And I say that I could find the money easily to pull through because I don't think we're going to eliminate disparities. And Emma from my team did research on all our schools inside District 1. Um, and guess what? Uh, re I don't give a damn about graduation rates. They mean nothing when our reading and math rates are going down. And it's not just my district. It's everywhere. Uh, Minnesota as a whole is not recovered from COVID. Other states have. we are actually heading in the worst direction. And so I believe that is a strategic imperative for this county. If we look at the future 10 years, 20 years out, um it will determine what we do in the next 10 years from when the budget. I won't be here, but 10 years from now, they're going to talk about disparity reduction and we will the whole game is education. And so, um, I I don't know where we start with that, but I think acknowledging that that if we're not in that game space at a much higher rate, uh, all this other stuff doesn't matter, climate change doesn't matter, uh, BDI doesn't matter, all those things that I've seen, if kids are not reading, um, they will end up with less opportunities in the future, and that makes them more likely to become clients with the county, whether it's family support services, whether it's rent support services, whether it's uh people who get connected to our corrections uh justice system uh everything I think sprouts from there and so um I appreciate the work I know everybody's doing their best I just don't see how we actually if we're going to talk about from reduction to elimination elimination is all about education 110% um I would like to have a a briefing with MDE I'd like to know what we all collectively can do differently and together because if we're not unified, if we're not working with schools, it's not just schools, it's not just cities, it's not just the state, it's not just the county, we are all in this together. I would like to know how we're going to tackle that because again, everybody can talk about graduation rates. Um, doesn't matter. Graduation is an escalator. They move people out. And the fact that people are moving out with lower reading and math skills is I don't understand how that's even possible. Um, and so for me, that's where I start. Um, and yes, I am serious. I'm not it's not a I do think our work in education needs to double. It will pay off later in so many ways. We can spend a ton of money on waiting till people get in the justice system. They can spend a crapload of money when people are connected to our DOCCCR and all the other justice system or we can spend a lot less money up front. So, um, I'll stop there, but I am serious about the briefing MD. I I do think it is absolutely imperative for this county to understand how we can work and notice I'm not blaming them. How can we work together with schools and the state because as long as people can't if you can't read a lease and you can't do a budget and you don't know what you're paying and that requires literacy and math at a higher level, good luck. So, I'll stop there. Thank you. >> Thank you, Commissioner Green. I didn't see you come in. Welcome. >> I'm going to let you go next. Terrific. I have very brief remarks. Um, first of all, just wanted to um thank you and thank the team um for pulling this together. I this budget to me is one of the hardest ones to evaluate because it's so matrixed within the organization. Um, but I wanted to say first of all, just because this is our first briefing, I really like the format of today's presentation and then the book as well. Starting with budget numbers, um the highlights are so summarized which feels brutal but it does give more time for us to talk which I do think is sort of the richest territory. Um and also the way the sort of matrix nature of the content was approached in the book was really great. Um I have no comments other than thank you for the degree of continuity that's represented here. Uh and that's about it. Thank you. >> Oh, okay. Commissioner Anderson. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Echo the thanks um that my other colleagues have already expressed. I I think we'll probably hear that a number of times. Um, one thing that I would like to dig into a little bit, this is, um, this line of business in particular, uh, is so much rooted in our philosophy of prevention and like an ounce of prevention pays dividends in so many of the other lines of business. You know, Commissioner Green, you just mentioned how integrated this is to all of our other work that we do. Um, I also very much agree that our education component of this, making sure that we are taking care of our next generation so that we are not finding ourselves perpetuating uh problems that we could potentially be addressing. Now, I would love to see um where we can pull in. I don't necessarily know if the education bucket is the right bucket to put it in or if it's human services, but partnering with school districts, I think has been something that we have talked about for a very long time of how do we better integrate in with our schools to find that partnership to address the needs that our kids are facing um so that we don't see the um the the challenges that they are experiencing perpetuate into the future. Um and it's not just them, it's their parents, it is like the community that surrounds them. And so I think that there is, you know, looking at this from a holistic standpoint, I really appreciate that we're talking about uh, you know, BDI and workforce development and education and, you know, and health and human services and all of these other things. Like I think those are all incredibly intertwined and we need to continue to look at that and examining how they are interconnected and how do we make sure that like we don't become too siloed um within any one particular place. I think this year because of our immense challenges being pushed on us from uh the federal government specifically um I am very interested to know like in these numbers what do we see as the preventative impact that we anticipate impacting other programs? um or put like in a much more blunt and not incredibly kind way, it's not how I intend this, but um how are we justifying the numbers uh in a budget sense? Um because we know this isn't like absolutely required of us to do. I firmly believe that we should be doing it, but I would love to be able to like come back and say by investing, you know, $9 million in our workforce development, we've generated, you know, $15 million in new businesses and growth opportunity in Henipin County or prevented um, you know, this many people from re-entering a system uh that we have to pay in on a deeper end. Um I think those would be helpful narratives to have alongside um at some point. So that would that's just I I think my takeaway. I don't know know if you want to respond to that now or if separately that's fine. Um can >> administrator wetland commissioner Anderson yes that is something that we can work together to pull. Um, as you see, this is our first and you will see some of these prevention programs also throughout and highlighting that and you're absolutely right that $9 million investment in workforce development has some significant impact that are positive to our community prevents steepen services, our education support services. Um, and as deputy um, county administrator Murphy identified, our grow, our learn, our thrive strategy is bringing that together as a county. and then how do we work with our systems, our school districts um and align our funding resources and we can pull that information for you. >> Thank you. Um one last thing if I may. Um really really disappointed to hear about the uh the ENT decreases from the federal government especially at a time when they are increasing the work requirements uh for recipients. It's unconscionable to me that a program designed to help people reenter the workforce through who for people who are uh needing food assistance that they're removing that that support. Uh it is absolutely disgusting. >> I think all of us feel the same. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Commissioner Fernando. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um I also have a lot of gratitude. I think that this is the create this is the correct direction. Uh I don't say that lightly. We know that this is a year where many governments, universities, school organizations, businesses are not willing to say the word equity, are not willing to follow the data and the numbers. Um even if I were to agree with the policy choices coming from the feds, the operational timeline shouldn't be like a year, you know, or 6 months. and and so I just the strain that is placed on each of you as and your departments. Um we don't necessarily feel the same way, but just want to acknowledge what it took to propose the direction that maintains the continuity of what we've been expressing and and succeeding at for several years at a time where it is not as financially comfortable or um you know media comfortable even to to pursue these. So that that is an aspect of gratitude. Um especially when we look at climate. I mean it is really devastating to see how people are still not um accepting that there are climate uh shifts occurring uh I guess regardless of causation that there is a shift. And if I'm remembering my weekend stories correctly I mean New York City is like a subtropical environment now. Did you all see this that New York City, >> the city of New York has uh met the I think five-year temperature um criteria to be classified as a subtropical environment. I mean so so all that to say on the from a policy direction or a legislative direction uh perspective this is the correct direction and we we understand and um I acknowledge that that to maintain this direction is is harder each year and well we thank you for your resolve. Second uh comment or kind of area that I'll think about is as Commissioner Green was saying how how do we approach this year's budget and then this particular line of business uh the big one for disparity elimination of course is data. >> Yeah. >> I am concerned or let me say this differently. I want to decrease our reliance on other jurisdictions collecting data because we cannot rely on other jurisdictions collecting data. The example that I have is eight years ago um when I was sitting around hereish trying to fight for more census funding and at the time the concept was that the feds will cover census and of course as we understood in 2020 that ended up not being as significant of an operation on the feds or state side. And so that is the most accessible civic data that we have access to or that we should be pursuing. Um and so I am I I do not have confidence that other jurisdictions will be reporting data at the time that we have expressed. So how do we think about that? How are we what are we measuring? Um you know over time uh an overtime example is you know you opened with slide four you know 11,000 you know 10 a little 10,500 residents uh served across workforce programs. You know what was it 10 years ago? What was it 5 years ago? How are we thinking about that as an employer with our contracts with our providers? like what is that picture showing over time in a 10 or 15 year period uh for example we know that we have shifted our um our in-house employees uh in contrast to our external contracts. So we we have looked at that but overall from a workforce perspective and obviously if you want to comment on that but for me it's more about what is the data showing and then how are we collecting that ourselves or at least taking secondary um markers uh commercial development for example could be a way you know commissioner Anderson you're you're sharing with an investment of X how does that impact you know essentially our tax collections on the commercial side I mean there are other ways that we can think creatively in the event that the federal government or the state government does not report on data at all or any time line that we would expect hopefully that's an appropriate way to say that um the yeah so workforce in tax base. And then the um the other example is still on workforce. This is budget books uh 21. And so there's a little bit of a question by way of confirmation. Uh Mr. Murphy. So the last bullet here on the right side, significant issues page 21 of the book to meet the targeted property tax increase. Thank you by the way. So proposed reducing the initiative contracts including people exiting homeless consultants for workforce leadership council and succeeding employment. I am hopeful that I'm understanding that as a decrease in providers and not an elimination of the work but I thought I would quadruple check that. >> Yeah and I figured I wouldn't be the only one with that question. So if you could clarify that then I could move on with my diet tribe. Madam Chair, Commissioner Fernando, >> I would like to invite M Jang up >> to respond to that question, please. Our director, our chief workforce director. >> Chair Kat Commissioners. Uh, thank you for your question, Commissioner Fernando. Yes, it is not a decrease or is not elimination of the work. It is purely a small percentage decrease in each of those areas to make a whole. So we had to decrease a total of about 450,000 across all programs to offset the cuts from SNAP and federal from SNAP and WIA dollars. So to make a whole we have to kind of look at the entire workforce programs as operating as one versus individual programs operating as their own. And so this decrease is really just to to mirror that to keep the work moving forward solid. >> Yes, Madam Chair, thank you very much. I figured that and this isn't this gets back to this data piece like >> there's a shift here because of WA funds multi-deade bipartisan funds >> and SNAP out of the A bill you know feeding feeding families. >> So again this is not a questioning as to why but just really making sure that as you are tracking as we are tracking the data that we are being more expansive because there are aspects of data that are are just not going to be reliable as we move forward. Um I'm still going. Okay. the so policy direction was one way I was thinking about this data um I have four total buckets third bucket is generational you know I think in the past I've I've used the word systemic and I want to think more about generational outcomes and impacts um so climate I've you know already mentioned that I appreciated what was stated around heat island in the budget book and that's probably where why I wanted to raise the subtropical New York City environment it. Uh just like in your home, it is too late once it's too hot in your home to cool it down. In your home, whether it's you or you're throwing a party or whatever, if you are feeling hot, it is like a little too late and it's going to take a long time for your household temperature to get to a place of that is appropriate for human habitation. Um the data is so stark and you know we have historically this country has utilized aspect of of military response technically right the disaster response but we've seen federally that disaster funds are being used very differently as is um military so I I don't want to like how we can't rely on that like so how are we thinking about that in a way that is truly generational. I mean, imagine the, you know, a baby in your life who cannot yet advocate for themselves. I'm going to move forward. Um, another generational I appreciate you mentioning this this Mr. Murphy around the land and water acknowledgement. I know that we've made um strides to advance our work there and there have there have to be creative ways by which we as a organization work to be reparative and restorative with the origin of this institution's power which is on Dakota land. So I thank you for mentioning that and look forward to creativity there. Um my last bucket is financial models. So again, this is how I'm like just trying to think about the whole budget. So for financial model, there was an easy one in here, which is nice. Maybe not that easy, but it'll sound easy compared to my others. Um, for procurement, purchasing contracts for where we can consolidate, please attempt to do so. I think that with the hospital, I think that with partners even, right? I mean, think of land disposition. We do that with um with our cities. just how are we really sinking up in a different kind of way? And I am personally a fan of county based purchasing. It it pains me that our 200,000 person counties are out there negotiating their health plans on their own. So I just in general, not just the 26 budget, just overall our residents are expecting a um operational unifying for where political unifying may not be possible. Our residents are expecting operational unity for where political unity may not be possible and costs are just rising everywhere. Um tuition is going up, but the class offerings are going down. The groceries are going up. But I swear those portions are going down. And so how might we uh think about that differently? So that's technically the easy one. Uh the the second thing I wanted to mention, which is still not the last one. Uh I think that this might get to Commissioner uh Lundy's point. I agree with you, Commissioner Lundy. If we have young people that are do not have the skill development necessary to live their most vibrant potential, then how might we be able to engage with that as a community? So, the big thing I'm looking at here is tiff. I don't know what's going on with tax increment financing and I don't explain it perfectly yet, but conceptually tax increment financing does impact not the amount of money that's collected, but how much goes to local governments and how much goes to schools. So that I think has to be kind of that thread needs to be pulled on. Again, not that it's like an incorrect tool, but I am curious and I've said this to um our assessor and I've said this to other folks. This is not this is not out of nowhere. No worries everybody, but what Minneapolis public schools is certainly in need of funds. And I have asked the questions around is there a relationship with a significant use of the TIFF tool and maybe an inverse impact with school offerings, teachers, etc. So, I'm like very on that kind of um you know in that thinking and maybe I'm being too eager which many of you are aware that I might be menace I think has always bothered me. I'm not sure but since it was so clear that that was a shift in accounting and this is where my actual question is I I I think from what I've um understood in the past which is limited minace is nearby it is not tiff it is not you know but it is nearby from a special levy perspective it is nearby because it doesn't have the same kind of governance you know tiffs don't tiff have a particular governance model that doesn't require approval from the places for which that money should have gone or uh could have gone or was eligible to go to. Got to be a little bit careful with my language, I suppose. So, yeah. Well, I wanted to let everybody know kind of how I'm thinking about the budget overall. And then I'm really interested in mines and the bi my my uh transparent bias is I think I don't like it already. So, I'm not sure if that's um appropriate or not, but I'm interested in hearing about my taste. Please. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner Fernando. So, starting with menace, which is the easier program to explain. >> So, that uh that's been at Henipin County, I want to say close to 10 years now. Um that was brought forward by the legislature as an option for property owners to request that a special assessment be put on their property to pay for energy improvements or water usage improvements or improvements to the resiliency of their property. The challenge with that, as you pointed out, is it is a property tax payment. And so if you think about uh on your street when you might have a special assessment for road repair, the mechanism is the same. MINPACE is the first time in the county's history that we use special assessments. Prior to that program, we were not doing special assessments on our projects. So we can provide more information on u the types of projects that have been done. There have been many of them. Um the amount that you see reflected in the budget is the annual payment that all of the outstanding PACE loans that those properties are paying each year. So there's millions of dollars that are being collected in fees on those special assessments to pay for projects that have taken place. Um I know I think Diana is over there if she she wants to speak more specifically, but we can give you more background on um how that's been utilized in the past and what that mechanism is. I think uh if I recall correctly, the first one in the county was uh an auto repair shop in Adina. I think that puts solar panels on the roof as an example of a program um user and that program is administered for us by the St. Paul Port Authority. They have special legislation that allows them to be the administrator statewide. The county signed an agreement with the Port Authority some years ago. So, we can put together some background information about the structure of that program and the history. But what makes it slightly unusual when you think about how it's administered is the property owners work with the St. Paul Port Authority on their projects. Our role is to impose the special assessment. Um so that that is a unique program and is relatively new. >> So the special Madam Chair, so the special assessment is separate than property taxes collected for that for that site or >> correct. It is in addition to the assessed property taxes from the value of your home based on the levy. So, >> I moved from dislike to just regular skeptical. But anyway, that's good. >> Yep. Um the So, for TIFF, I I I'm going to recommend that we actually come back to you with a memo because I think there's a number of layers here. Um there are multiple types of TIFF districts. Historically, 20 years ago, you probably would have seen a TIFF district created and a local government might issue bonds to pay for a project. Today, what is most common is that a tiff district is put in place and they operate on what they call a payo basis. So, if you think about um I'm going to use the the uh Arbor Lakes up in Maple Grove, there's a tiff district put in effect to rehab the soil to allow for all of those commercial properties to be built. And so, you're correct. They effectively are paying property taxes. those properties, they're aggregated in the tiff district, which then is paying for the rehabilitation, which is basically digging out the bad soil and putting gravel in. And I think there's reasonable arguments on all sides from a policy standpoint about whether that is good policy or bad policy. So, I won't make a judgment on that. But what we can show you are actual examples of tiff districts that have come through in the last 10 or 15 years. We can also show you um what happens over the life cycle of those tiff districts. So, uh, the Mall of America, for example, was originally constructed with a very large TIFF district. I don't know if any of you were on the board at the time that that district expired. Um, but at the time that that expired, that property tax base then comes back onto the county tax roles. And at that time, I want to say it was equal to8% or 1% of the county's total tax base. It's a very large property. They today have a different variation of a tiff district, which is unique to the Mall of America, known as a fiscal increment. We can talk a little bit about that. Um, there's a lot of writing that's been pulled together, so we can also give you some additional resources. It's a complicated topic, but I think we can give you a couple samples to show how it's been used. Also, you should be aware um, from time to time, and I know Commissioner Gatell has had these before. You will see TIF districts come before this board, not because we're creating them, but sometimes special legislation requires you to approve an extension or a rule modification. The other one that I would just point out, um, and we can pull this together as well, your comment about the schools. So, the Outlet Mall south of the Mall of America, just south across the river, when that tiff district was extended and created to construct that property, there was an active public discussion between the city, the school, and the county at that time about whether or not that tiff district should continue. And my recollection and we can confirm is that the school district actually opted to have their tax base or their share pulled out of the district because they needed that funding. And so there is a case study out there we can show you as just kind of an example. Um I don't know that that's particularly common, but that's just one that I recall. >> Okay. >> Yes, Madam Chair. Thank you. And and that's kind of what I'm getting at. We are clearly in a time where we have to review our whole budget. And so we have to review all of the tools in my opinion and just make sure that they are working in a way that makes sense in today's construct. This is not meant to like diss however it got created, but it is does this make sense in today's construct. So if it's more on the special levy side, I mean I have tons of opinions on special levies. I'm looking at Missernie over there. I learned last year during the Lowry Avenue reconstruction that the cost participated portion of that reconstruction, the city special levied those parcels. And so again, there there is a disperate experience occurring with respect to special levies to debt to tax districts. I'm not in formal opposition to any of these. I want them to work in today's context. And the reason why I said I wasn't sure if I like minace is cuz one of the benefits it says is the program is tax neutral with no financial exposure to cities or counties. And it just said that just sounds so pleasant that there's likely inquiry for me. So that that that is where my um kind of intent I went up. No exposure completely neutral. Then why is it being used all the time? So I so I just wanted to be transparent as to everybody as to why it's such a curiosity. And if I could, Madam Chair, I I think it you bring up a great point. Um when these minpace loans are put out there, >> the port authority is working with investors who ultimately buy these loans, that's where the upfront capital is coming to build these projects, and then the special levy is imposed to repay that loan. So, it's complicated. Uh but the comment that you're pointing to where there's not risk for cities and counties is because there are private investors who are at risk whether or not those perform. And we do have safeguards in our agreement with the port authority to protect taxpayers so that if a >> these are bonds, >> these are not bonds. These are loans. And so in the event that a loan defaults, that special assessment runs with the property. So if you were back to an example, if you're an auto parts store or auto repair shop and you default on your loan or on your taxes, that special assessment remains with the property. And that's that's where this gets a little bit more complicated. Um I'm not aware that any of these have ever run through difficulty in the event that there's a property sale. That special assessment typically needs to be resolved through that. If you think about selling your house when there's a street assessment or something like that. So there's a lot of experience out there with these, but it is complicated. >> Then I then again I really just hope it is for its intention, right? If it's about renewable, like if it's if it's about businesses doing it for these purposes, then wonderful. But what are the public dollar checks and balances? And in a time like now where everyone is being asked to do more with less, like we really need to ensure that our financial model is as tight as it could be. >> That's what I have. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Commissioner Connley. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, so congratulations on the first disparity elimination. budget briefing uh in history. Uh I'm thankful that um I'll just echo that. I'm thankful that this came to us in the way that it did because it does allow for more discussion and I got some deep dives I want to get into. Um I Commissioner Fernando asked the question that that I was going to start with which was in in workforce development around some of the programs which in my opinion are um really uh important ones to keep whole. So in um the people exiting homelessness, the succeeding in employment specifically, I would be interested in like what those decreases look like. How many You don't have to answer that right now. We could be a follow-up, but like how many people does that impact? Like how many people won't be served if those programs specifically are ones that we had to um impose reductions on? Um which then leads me to like just a followup in general. Um, of we are all very much, as you've heard, concerned about what is being done to SNAP. Uh, it's it's uh I'll uh echo Commissioner Anderson that it's gross and disgusting. As a followup though, I would be interested in what are all of the services and initiatives that we have to reduce then um for 2026 like a full list. If we could be provided with that, um that would be helpful for me in understanding those people that are behind the programs like or the initiatives like people exiting homelessness and and the succeeding in employment because those to me are powerful and it gets to that point about return on investment. How much do we save in the long term um by investing in programs that are um preventative in nature? Um, and then I wanted to ask a question about um, you know, OCS work. So, just all of this work is is something that I think as a county we take very seriously. our ability to be on the ground with residents. Our ability to um do things like actively engage with communities in ways that are culturally relevant to them in ways that speak to their needs in ways that we can hear what those needs are directly from impacted people and then design our services around that because that's the best way that we make headway. So my only question around um OCS is it it looks that it looks to me that the budget remains the same, but with the loss of four FTEES, how do we maintain a level of meaningful community engagement? I I see you about to speak to those FTEEs, but I want to maintain a level of meaningful commun community engagement without that full TE FTE compliment. How do we do that? If I could, Madam Chair, um, thank you. Uh, Madam Chair, Commissioner Connley, part of what you're seeing reflected in this line of business's budget is a slowing of our plan growth. >> So, our plan for the 2025 budget was for OCS to be at 15 positions. Ultimately, as we're putting the budget together, I believe that we had nine on staff. The plan is to grow that to 11 and that's leaving four positions um that would likely not have been filled going forward just recognizing the challenges ahead. And so I'm going to look to Verona and make sure that I'm not misspeaking. Um but our intention here really is we're slowing the growth in the budget. We're actually planning to have more people on staff. We've also made sure that we've got permanent base funding for the trusted messenger program which is an area that you're very familiar with. And so this is about solidifying and again um I think some of you have have had better verbiage but making sure that we're sustaining the commitments that we've made and it's not about retrenching or backing away from those but trying to make sure that we are definitely resourcing what we have and where we are able to grow and see a return in areas that we think are valuable investments that we continue to do that. So it's not easy. >> No. Um it certainly was a challenge and I see Jody might want to >> please Miss Chel Commissioner Connley and I'm working to director who might be able to provide further information. The other piece of it is we have been working over the last couple of years to really building out a federated model. So you see the core team and there's deeper than the core team and so Verona has been working with all of our line of business um aligning our work and leveraging those resources. If so, it's okay. I'd like to ask um to speak a little bit about that work. >> Please. Welcome. >> Sure. >> You come to the table. >> Thank you, Commissioner, Chair, Commissioners. Thank you so much for this great question. I too cried uh when not literally but uh figuratively when uh those positions uh were vacated and I certainly understand the fundamental reasons as to why. It will create a challenge. Of course, uh we were hoping to one day become a staff of 15, which would put more boots on the ground, folks in the community, um in various communities. We had some some ideas and suggestions around what those FTEEs would look like in the future, but here we are today of like how are we going to sort of maintain or do more with less, if you will, and where where is that going to hurt and hit us? um um you know fundamentally because again uh being able to be responsive to the communities and especially communities of color where we know there are greater and dire needs of uh community engagement getting the feedback from our residents. So some of the things that we plan on doing for 2026 and strategies is uh as the administrator uh Whitland mentioned to build more of a federated model with internal departments and also external community vendors. And part of the ways in which we're going to do that is we're going to start formalizing what's called a a community engagement steering committee where we're going to pull together internal directors who are who have some sort of community engagement component to their line of business. And by pulling those leaders together, it gives me and other community engagement leaders uh a high overview of what is the work that is out there, what is what is doing, what is happening in the community. Um how do we come up with uh responsive uh efforts together as a county, as a government to respond to be responsive and not necessarily reactive, but more responsive. For example, we we see hot spots in hot pockets in our communities where there is crisis, whether it's uh drug use, there's crime, there's a need for unsheltered uh residents. We want by putting this steering committee together, we want to be able to come up with a response of who's doing what and how can we build a an alignment, a federated model of who's going to respond? Do we respond as a team? Do we put together a crisis responsive team within community engagement and folks come to the table and say what do you have to offer whether that's care packages we're working on that whether it's different things in the community to meet those needs do we need David Hwitt at the table do we need Lolita's group at the table do we need OCS at the table all of those things the steering committee will get to uh better finding out where are the gaps where are the needs in the community and who are we going to send out there is it appropriate for the county or is it appropriate to send to vendor out that to uh ask a community engagement uh team or an agency to respond on behalf of the county because we have a partnership. So, this steering committee will hopefully be able to address those gaps because again, we are all going to be asked to do more with less and so that is part of of some of the in strategy in terms of the federated model if I answer that. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Please go ahead. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Very helpful. Thank you for that. I look forward to the steering committee. I think that that's a brilliant idea to strategize. It sounds like there's nine now. There will be a total of 11 with the addition of two. It sounds like administrative assistance. >> Great. Okay, great. So, thank you. That's otherwise everything looked great. And thank you for keeping trusted messengers whole because that's our voice to to residents and community and it matters and I hope we continue to keep that whole. Um that brings me then to um education and support services and then I'll end with climate and resiliency. And I had a similar question too around um uh I'm on page 29 of the budget booklet and in the significant issues um it ends with again reduced contracted services including less spending on community- based agency programming offered on and off-site at Henipin County family shelters. That worries me. So, I would love if if we could just talk a little bit more about what those contracted programs are that might be uh lost. >> Mr. Conley, I'd like to ask Director Crystal Mims. >> Welcome, Miss Mims. >> All right. Thank you, Chair Gotautell, and thank you, Commissioner Connley, for the question. Um, I just want to start out by saying this is the the new work that we have been doing in partnership with housing stability and our henipin county libraries um called operandostos let's learn together. The offerings that we were providing on site at the shelters were available and open to all shelter families of course but we also had some targeted um particularly Spanish language uh availability to support those families. We have been leveraging our staff to be able to come in and provide and connect with those students and families, be that bridge for um educational partners, work with housing stability, try to bridge all of those kind of gaps. Um the the funding that we had for community based partnerships was to come in and provide uh different types of uh support sessions. We've had educational excursions for families. We've done um some partnerships with three river Three Rivers Parks. Ultimately, we decided that we wanted to be uh strategic with our funds to leverage the the expertise we have on our staff and then um reduce some of the offerings we've had on site at the shelter. Hopefully that made sense. >> It did, Madam Chair. So then, so then I'd like another followup on that one, too. Like how much are we reducing? How many families does that impact? Uh because that's good programming and I would hate to see that that it that not everybody who's involved with this work is has access to it. >> Absolutely. >> Um so we don't have to go into the deep dive now, but I would love a follow-up that that really outlines for me that the reduction in contracted services around that work. How many families will it hit? How many families will not be able to access it? >> Again, a hard decision to make as you know the leader of this area. I I I really do acknowledge that and um it's not lost on me that you're you're also thinking about how many families would be impacted by it. So I I would like to see it though. >> Yes. And uh Chair Hotel, Commissioner, um I I would might to call to Xandy to ask for the exact dollar figure that we made that reduction. Um however, I would like to say some of this has been kind of to uh chief financial officer Matthew's point that anticipation of growth. So it doesn't uh in the in our actual implementation, it really isn't a true reduction. It was our hope to be able to provide more services. >> So we really are trying to be thoughtful and strategic and ensure that we can leverage what we have, we're trying to work closer with the partner schools in those areas to make sure that where we may may not be able to bring in a community partner, potentially there's another uh partnership we can leverage. Um ECFE has been coming in and supporting uh early learning and play times. Uh our Henipin County Library invested in play spaces for our family shelter sites. Uh so we really have just been trying to restrategize. So I don't see it as a as a loss. It's a hope that we can grow. >> Okay. >> And I can tell um commissioners the amount was $40,000. So, it went from $130,000 for these contracts in 2025 to a proposed $90,000 in 2026. >> Okay. I really appreciate and madam chair, thank you. I appreciate the framing you put on that at the end there around the hope that's still there that's not lost and that we could potentially still get there. And um you know 40,000 isn't a whole lot of money given the entirety of this budget um but what that funds is meaningful. So thank you for that. >> Thank you. >> All right. I'm going to move to climate resiliency and I will uh try to be as quick as I can. I uh I realize that this is uh something that I am um very passionate about. So we'll be long-winded but I will try not to be. Um I I'm going back to Commissioner Anderson that whole return on investment in July. We had a climate briefing that talked about um how increased acreages and urban farming and how access to food and how um heat island affected communities which I live in one um really just devastate residents and impacts um uh communities as a whole like every aspect of of the places in which we live that are hit by overheating, pollution and lack of access to fresh food. Um, the work that we do to mitigate that is critical. And I think I underlined something in July. It says this work that must stay well funded and never cut. It's untouchable because it meets our mission and vision as a county to keep people healthy. So, the questions I have around the climate and resiliency budget specifically, I'm glad you asked those questions around menace because I was like, what's that? Uh, but I got it is uh the the I'm so I'm on page 36 of the budget booklet and um just going to again the mission says foster climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts focusing on building and resilient uh a resilient and equitable Henipin County. It's currently not as equitable in certain areas as it is in others. So, I'm looking at this other revenue um piece and it's uh an actual of 600,000 for 2024, a 2025 actual of 400,000. If you flip the page, then it goes into a little bit more detail around that, which is that the 2026 budget included 200,000 from public works for urban a and then that uh I highlighted the part about the fiduciary fund being um used and not needed to be budgeted. But I need you to talk me through where Urban A and programs like Ignite and Fortify that were highlighted in the beginning of the budget booklet, where they sit in 2025 and where they will sit in 2026 because it looks like a reduction in that. Um, and I can see on page 38 the proposed adjustments under the 2026 proposed budget, urban agriculture support from public works, $200,000. Um, but that was 400,000. So, can we talk through this? >> Multip Commissioner Connley, thank you for the questions. Jill Matthews, our chief financial officer, can explain. >> Oh, actually, I'm going to kick it over to Sandy for the numbers first. >> I can explain the numbers. >> Uh, Chair Gell, Commissioner Connley. So very specifically, I'm going to tell you the 2025 adjusted budget amount for each of these areas compared to the proposed 2026 as it stands. So urban agriculture, there was $350,000 in the 2025 adjusted budget. In 2026 proposed, we have $366,736. And as you noted, that $200,000 transfer from public works will be going towards that. Um, for the Fortify program, there was actually $300,000 there is available in the 2025 adjusted budget for that program. Currently, this proposed budget for 2026 has $100,000. For Ignite, there was $120,000 or there is in the 2025 adjusted budget. And then for the 2026 proposed budget, there's currently $20,000 slated for that program. Okay. So, Madam Chair, um I would like us to find a way to rightsize that. Um specifically, these are programs that directly impact residents ability to have access to food and climate resiliency resources. These are mostly residents who live in areas that are impacted by pollution, heat islands, and a lack of access to fresh food. We should not be cutting those programs. We have to rightsize those. So, um I think that this is an area of of business within disparity elimination that has like historically had funds from solid waste, funds from um HICRA. So, what is the what how do we move into 2026 right sizing programs that feed people? >> Cherel, Commissioner Conley, I will start and then I'm going to um hand over to Joe Matthews. So I'm going to start with um there's two strategies. one's a longer strategy and one is going to be the immediate for the 2026 budget. in the longer broader strategy. Um as you indicated, you know, there is this work sits in multiple departments as well as funding in public works um in housing and economic development and deputy county administrator Kareem Murphy along with assistant county administrator um Lisa Cerny and um Dan Rogan, deputy county administrator have actually brought together the teams to align our strategies and our work and our funding focused towards climate and resiliency. And so how are we assuring full alignment on our strategies and our priority and funding? So my hope is that in the future you will see even a broader and bolder plan around climate and resiliency aligned to address the 2026 budget. I will let Joe Matthews CFO talk about what we've done in regards to Ignite and Fortify. >> Sure. And I think you know Madame Chair uh Commissioner Connley actually I think administrator Wetland did a nice job of outlining what the long-term strategy is. I think as we move through the next couple of months, we are trying to make sure and evaluate where we have opportunities to leverage all of these different programs. So between this department, HED, the HR, as you mentioned, HICRA, we really do want to make sure that we are appropriately leveraging all of our state and federal resources that remain as well as aligning our local ones. And so u we'll be working with Deputy Administrator Murphy and his team just to make sure that to your point, we don't want to leave people behind in these areas. And if that means that we need to go back and rep prioritize, you know, we can do that. But the intention behind this was not to leave those areas empty. It was really to make sure that we're uh not duplicating the same services that may be provided elsewhere. So we'll come back with more information on that. >> So Madam Chair, if I may, I don't know that it's duplication and and it's because of my understanding of the programs, right? So, Fortify Community Adaptation Initiative over 10 community- based organizations have received funding from that to advance nature-based solutions, resilience strategies, educational programming, and Fortify supports the addition of 15 community and rain gardens. Right. I think that the work that's happening in Hed is for infrastructure, not necessarily. So, you can walk me through that, but not necessarily as community focused as rain gardens, for example. >> Sure. Um so so that's why these two programs specifically are so important to me is because they directly impact community in a way that I think what's happening in HR doesn't. It impacts the infrastructure. It in fact it impacts like the building the material the capital pieces of it as opposed to like the actual organizations that would apply for this type of funding. Am I off? >> No no I I think you're on point commissioner. I think um it'll be helpful for us to come back with maybe something that lays out more of a highle overview of all the strategies so we can show and to your point if it's if it's not truly a need that's being met somewhere else then we can make sure that we've assessed what the needs are and can resource it as as appropriate. >> I would appreciate that madam chair. Thank you. I just want to end by saying that uh I can't stress enough the importance again with people not going to have SNAP soon because what those cuts mean is that there's will be less people who will be eligible for SNAP when there is not access to programs that we provide that that get fresh food get climate resiliency like highlighted in communities where it's not um that's a detriment to us that in my opinion it's disappointing to me to see it would uh I would very much appreciate the highle overview a very strategic way to if there is couch cushions that can be flipped over that we rightsize fortify and ignite and that urban a is fully funded like uh commissioner Lundy said about education and doubling that I want to double urban agriculture work I see it every day in our community how many people are getting food from food shelves are going to community gardens to get their produce because we can't afford it in the grocery store anymore. It just costs too much. So, if people are cut off SNAP and they don't have access to fresh food, they're not healthy. They're sicker and we don't want to go that direction even with those cuts. Right? So, the way that I talk about this with community members is like we are the first line of defense because the federal government is not looking out for you, but our vision, our mission as a county is to do so. So, anything that takes our community from healthy to unhealthy is not something that should be on the chopping block, right? It should be like a push to keep people wellfed. To me, climate and resiliency is how we do that among a host of other things, but it's a very important key part. So, I'll stop there, but I think >> yeah, we had two more people to get through. Commissioner Ed, >> I think Jody want >> quickly. Thank you, Commissioner Connie. Thank you so much. And I think you will see through the budget process this is we as we built this budget there was a lot of unknowns and we are continuing to just so first of all how do we maximize how do we align our resources how do we prioritize as well as what are the federal and state impacts and we are still even postbudget submission experiencing those and so you will see back to right sizing and or adjusting that is something that we are working on and you will see that coming through later in the budget cycle wonderful thank you okay Um, okay. So, uh, I want to talk about, of course, climate change. Snap. >> Your mic is on, please. >> Okay. >> So, I just have three. So, I want to talk about climate change. Um, Kareem, you had you had mentioned on the slides uh that we are launching an init initiative to cool neighborhoods. Can you just tell me what that initiative is? It says climate action. It's 12 actually. looks like maybe I don't know if you go by 12 or six it's page six but slide 12 if you could just tell me what that initiative is because I am concerned I can't remember what commissioner it was um but I've said this before during our climate briefing is um as somebody that grew up without air conditioning and you know a lot of people in our community do not have it we have University of Minnesota's projecting um the climate to just keep increasing so what I want to know for our residents especially I mean I'll just stop tell me what we're doing with those initiatives. I think that would be helpful. >> Madam Chair, Commissioner Edson, I'd like to invite Diana Shamanis up to respond to that question. >> Welcome to Shamas, >> our director of climate of resiliency. >> Please put the mic up. >> Thank you for your question. Madam Chair, Commissioner Eden. So, we recently won uh an award from the MPCA uh about 116,000 that is funding um a heat resiliency plan which is based on a campaign that we did with NOAA funds. Again, everything is funded outside of the county to map the um urban heat island throughout the county. it identified specific areas and neighborhoods that are facing um higher uh urban heat island and it's obviously um mostly vulnerable communities. So we're now working with uh the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and uh Minne Minnesota MCAP so University of Minnesota uh partnership on adaptation and um we are building an assessment and doing engagement with trusted messengers from OCS. Thank you OCS for your support to create a wide plan with concrete strategies and and a suite of actions that will be implementing to reduce urban heat island. Some of those include um expanding the number of cooling solutions, but also looking into specific areas that could be greened, investing in naturebased solutions, and then listening to what community is currently doing to reduce the effects of urban heat island. Um, we will be having a plan finalized by May of next year and hopefully with that we should be identifying new sources for the imple implementation but we're currently connecting with different um partners including the University of Minnesota um as I said before um MPCA and so we will be deploying the plan next year >> that Thank you. I just want to think oh there is it on again? There we are. Um, I'm glad you're engaging with residents because I think that's going to be very important to make sure that I think we already know that I think people should have a cooling mechanism in their home whether or not that's income dependent. Um, I would just ask, you know, if people don't have air conditioning here or if they do, turn it off for 3 weeks on your hottest weeks in Minnesota and then you talk to me about not making sure that everybody has access to air conditioning. Um, so thank you. I appreciate that. Uh okay. So um the next thing um I want to talk about is SNAP. So SNAP we said um SNAP the ENTP programs are being uh cut by 70% I think. Is that what I heard? 69%. Um being reduced and so those essentially um are how we do vocational uh in job searches. So just again for like me just making sense of it on my own. So we're we're saying we're implementing work requirements. We're cutting how we help people get jobs. How are we meeting that so that we're helping residents um meet that moment? Because what I see happening is we're saying we're going to we want you to do this work requirement for the federal government, but we're taking away all your supports to meet that demand. And then to your point, our food shelves requirements are going to go up. And so I love what you were talking about creating this triage group of how are we going to help people because I think this next year disparities reduction, your jobs are not going to be more important. Um because we have a lot of disparities and so I guess tell me how we're meeting those shifting needs. >> Commissioner Eden, thank you. >> So you're right. you just, you know, outlined it's um a challenging environment that we've lived in um and heartbreaking actually in so many ways with federal changes around the work requirements that's not just for SNAP but actually for health care as well. Mhm. >> So in order to have access to healthc care coverage for many of the residents we serve and at the same point in time the resources that came from the federal government to actually support residents in achieving employment has been reduced for the actual employment and actually you will hear it in the upcoming um human services line of business. the funding to support the staff to help residents get on SNAP and stay on SNAP has been reduced and this budget has experienced that um reduction. Um so what we're doing is multiaceted in here. It's um in this work and I just want to commend our team and the level of cross department cross line of business partnership um and and Commissioner Connley you talked about our investments and you will see that upcoming in our health line of business. you will see food and security funding that we have maintained as a whole at a time because residents are accessing food shelf and needing access to that. But I'd like to ask Mjang um chief workforce to talk about actually the planning that has been underway over the last several months around how are we going to do this with reduced resources. >> I'm having the same problem. >> Uh Chair Katau, commissioners, thank you for your question. Commissioner Eden, uh, in partnership with economic supports, our team has been reimagining the program model. So, unfortunately with the funding cuts, we've had to reimagine what it means to serve our participants who are on SNAP to ensure that they're also receiving their um, food benefits, but also able to access workforce. So, our two staff that's been, you know, part of the SNAP ENT program will work from an outreach and engagement perspective to make sure the recipients that are SNAP actually do meet those requirements. we are going to be relying heavily on our providers to continue doing this work and at the same time we're also working across all of our other county partners to ensure that um regardless of where residents live that they are connected and coordinated. So we as a county along with our county partners are having to kind of step up in ways that we haven't done before. And then internally here we've been in partnership with economic supports for the last 3 months planning and reimagining what the program model will look like so that no one gets um you know get is able to move without any services that we are able to engage in them early and often so that they don't lose their benefits at the 3-month mark. So it's been a huge and in you know internal shift but it's also one that um has really forced us to really kind of bring together uh an intentional model where uh economic supports team is being uh you know is a partner in this we're complimenting our services and we feel confident that whichever direction we go especially in partnership with economic supports that recipients will be served. it will be uh lesser than what we anticipated because of the funding cuts, but we do anticipate the in, you know, continuous outreach engagement to connect them and have them stay on SNAP. >> Well, thank you for that. I I love the words of reimagining and being creative because um I think it's like a just dealing with the realities that we're facing. Um and we shouldn't I wish it wasn't the place that we're in. Um so we know that the age is going from 54 to 64 for requirements. Um >> do we have any anticipation in terms of how many people will be impacted by these SNAP changes because I mean SNAP is changing January 1. >> Yeah. >> So this is like our emergent versus Medicare. We still have a little bit more time. So do we have any I mean and I also would love to know and I'll wait for health. what we need some estimated numbers in terms of what we're projecting. And then also, you know, just like the the top 10 public schools, universities, we're kind of creating a triage group to figure out how to to handle um some of the legal concerns with an administration coming. What are we doing um for residents that that are we we don't have a solution for? So, we know whether or not our team is doing the best job they can, and I have no doubt they will. More people will be forced to go to food shelves. more people will get rejected. That is just a reality. >> I don't care how creative or how reimagining all that it's happening. So what are we doing in those instances? How are we partnering with food shelves? That's that's my other question. >> Chair commissioners, one of the things that um one in terms of the numbers, right, we are we've got preliminary numbers right now and so I can definitely follow up with those accurate numbers. We're working with economic supports to really look across all the programs to ensure that we've got the right numbers. We've done some preliminary data looking into that. So I'll follow up with some you know accurate information around some of that. In regards to your other question regarding the services that is one of the conversations we've been having with DCYF and many other partners of the state around if they become so the state has applied to become a pledge state and that basically means when you become a pledge state you are in essence committing to serving all recipients of SNAP in order to ensure that they are getting the employment training services. That opens us up to more funding and what that might look like. How that's going to get distributed we are not sure yet. they did apply. We don't know yet what the status of the application is, but we are trying to be intentional about what that means as it flows down to our services to the recipients. So, that's one where we're paying attention staying close coordination with. The other piece is that we are going to be looking at continuous state funding for employment and training services. So, while these we also understand our providers are also getting uh you know short budgets and they're getting their budgets tightened because of this as well. So we are going to having to be a little creative around funding sources outside of snapping a tea in order to get them on. So one is making sure they are aware of the requirements that they're engaged and they are aware of the timelines. Two that we are leveraging whatever resources we have with DED and other training sources to provide trainings from our providers. And then the third is tracking what's happening at the state with the pledge status um application because that will also then hopefully open us more for funding for employment change since that becomes a broader expansion of the population. >> Thank you. And madam chair I just have one more question. Um uh thank you. I think everybody um on this the board would love to know about the pledge status. Thank you for being um creative there. Um, uh, Christa Mims, uh, for education. Um, one, great job on all of this. The one thing I don't see is mental health. We have 40% of youth in our schools are experiencing a mental health crisis right now. And I would love to see in our disparity elimination. Um, we're never going to get rid of mental illness as a whole. Again, I get that, but it should absolutely be something that is included in this packet. Um, students are struggling. You think about who doesn't go to school on that a given day. There are definitely youth out. Um, we have this generation that's growing up right now that is um the essentially um the testers of what it's like to grow up with social media. And they can't turn it off. We didn't have that growing up. I can't imagine high school was hard enough. So, um I I think that mental health uh is something that we should absolutely put in here and ways that we can continue to really work on that as a disparity elimination would be helpful. And that's all I have. Madam Chair, >> would you like to respond? Can I get >> Okay. Can I would like you to respond to that? Like to respond. >> Madam Chair, uh Commissioner Edson, I appreciate that. Um you will be hearing more about mental health and children's mental health specifically in the health and human services budget briefing that's be coming up uh later next month. So we'll be sure to include information about our strategies and investments uh there. There's inclusion of the overall you uh heard earlier about the growle learn thrive framework which is designed to collaborate across lines of business across departments and with our intergovernmental partners school boards um our cities our state etc. uh that framework is the holding uh bin for that level of collaboration and I think I hear uh behind your question but we'll be providing some specific information about investments the investment strategy in the proposed 2026 budget at the health and human services budget briefings um and I also just wanted to add that um you've been hearing about collaboration um collaboration is infrastructure that is designed to respond um and to be as proactive as possible around these cuts efficiency is the infrastructure will be using to build out uh to address, respond, and protect against uh these cuts. And so you you've heard a lot of it from workforce development. Um there's a ton that are have been in the works. Uh they've been plans and ideas that have been on the shelf that are being taken off and prioritized uh because this moment calls for it. Um you'll be uh some of these things will be built out once you uh I'm presuming once you approve the 2026 budget. um and we'll be able to provide a bit more detail, but there's um there's a lot of directors on that side and county administration on this side, and there's a lot of collaboration that's been taking place uh uh over the past several weeks, probably several months uh since the cuts we've been facing. So, I just wanted to forecast what you'll be hearing uh in a few weeks for some of those budget briefings and some of the more programmatic collaborations that you'll be hearing about uh across the the course of 2026. >> Good to hear. Okay, I'm going to go next, but I know there's a couple of my colleagues who want to have some other comments. They'll be fine. Um, I'll put you down. >> We have until three, right? Um, I haven't yet gotten to mine and I would like to get to my comments and then I will go back around. I I have Irene Jeff and Marian on after me. Um, I wanted to first say that on page seven of the budget book about reducing the heat island effect. I I really concur with what my colleagues have already brought up about this issue. But one of the things that I want to point out in a very positive way is the mobilizing of 120 community volunteers and and commission um Commissioner Fernando made it very clear that we can't count on government to provide these datas. This is great. This is what we're going to have to do. We are going to have to provide. But we have volunteers in this community that want to do this work. We have high schools and students and so many other ways to engage people to bring this to fruition. So, first of all, kudos to whoever thought of this. Second of all, we need to replicate it even more because this is this really matters. And I'm going to start with the mental health that um Commissioner uh Edles Eden brought up. And I want to say that I have been making my my regular rounds. I go in and talk to various police chiefs and everything. Superintendent is one of them. I was just at the Minneapolis school and they currently can't afford their mental health offerings at the level of services that they currently have. and they've told me that and that some of the budget is cut on that. And so I'm sure that there are other schools that are looking at some of these other things. What can we afford? What can't we afford? And we think about mental health. It's a really big thing especially after the pandemic. I know that I also brought this to a current administration already. Um we are talking about this and the fact that we don't do the superintendent meetings and so we're going to try to start those back up. We need to find out if we're really going to get serious about education like you said, Commissioner Lundy. And by God, we better be talking to them. I'm talking to my comm my community and I'm sure some of my other colleagues are too, but I'm literally sitting in there. What's what's your rub? What's going wrong? What's going right? And so I want to go back to that whole education um about kids reading and writing. Well, they got to show up. They got to be out the classroom. They're still not showing up. Now, we had some pilots that had huge promise and showed some really great results through the county attorney's office. We got to operationalize it. And by the way, we don't have any money to do it. And I've already talked to the superintendents about this. You need to start partnering in your community and figure out how to do this. We know this work really works. And it's just outreach through the summers to these and specifically to these families who are struggling to keep their kids in the schools and to bring them into community. We're going to have to figure out how to do it with volunteers for other people or other businesses that want to see this in their community. We're going to have to figure out because we know it works. So, how are we going to be able to make this work? How are we going to get those kids? If you show up, that's half the battle, right? So, I'm I'm really big on wanting to make sure that these kids just show up to the classroom, you know, from there. that's where they can get the assessments and everything. And I know I brought um administrator uh Wetland a tool for mental health and I know that we're assessing it right now that might be a breakthrough from an FDA thing. So I'm really excited about that. We're testing it out now. We're talking about it. There may be some ways forward to save some dollars here. And by the way, our large insurance companies are paying for it. Thank god they stepped up. Um I too want to look at this. This is slide four where we talk about the number we serve. I think that's a fabulous idea about how many we've served. Um I think that you know the involvement of the community and collecting data is great. I also just want to know how will we be able to keep up this level of service? I think that's the same question I've heard up and down the the day. How will we keep this up? It's going to be difficult. We certainly see the need and how will we make that work? Um, yeah, and I'm looking at the I'm looking forward to hearing what we find from broadband and digital inclusion later on because I'm really concerned about closing that gap for a lot of other for a lot of reasons. Education, but also our seniors. Um, they're trapped by themselves many times. This is the only lifeline they get to their families. Um, how will we be able to do that? And I would like to know, are our partners, our commercial partners, are they stepping up with some extra dollars or something about that? What are they going to do? I mean, we're going to have to ask them to start doing this stuff because they know that it affects the community, too. So, I would be I'd be interested in in hearing about that. Um, the SNAP, I think we're all concerned about SNAP. Um, and I don't want to go over what everybody else has said because I think nothing more needs to be said about that except except that not only is it the food and we're going to go to more go to the food shelf more, the food shelves are already cutting back, folks. They're already lowering what you can you can only get one on you. You can only get one gallon of milk. And by the way, you got to make that last. You can't come back for two weeks. So this is a real problem because USA aid and the food tot dollars are gone for our schools and for our and the budget for my food shelf was cut by 30%. 30%. So whatever we do on food, you talk about well we're keeping it stable. Well, it's not going to keep up and you know there there there just aren't a lot of dollars um coming through to that. So I'm just really concerned about that. And then I want to just say about this whole I think outreach is is so critical. Um community outreach that's specific to cultures really matters. I know that I had some phone calls um this week from some of those kinds of communities saying we need more outreach culturally responsive to some of the service centers that are not necessarily county but serve these communities to address the homeless issues that they have at their front doors because they can't. people are afraid to come in their front doors because there are so many homeless people around their front doors. So, h how do we get our arms I don't think this is going to get better unless we get our arms around it and we literally go and start having those conversations at the front door of some of our our partners out in the community who are serving some of the people most in need. So, I just think that those are some of the that's some of the conversations that are coming into our office right now. So, I don't know if anybody would like to respond to that. Madam Chair, thank you. Um we um Madam Chair, uh we maintain a very aggressive uh outreach and engagement program primarily hubbed through uh the housing stability department. Uh David Hwitt and his team um in terms of um connecting directly with communities. Uh there's a our streets to homeless team u does regular surveys uh throughout the county. It's not just hotspots inside of Minneapolis, but that's a countywide service. Those partnerships do exist in terms of connection with long-term housing stability. So, that's the um um uh services for persons living with disabilities. Uh that includes Hed uh and um uh Julia Wells, Julia Wellie's area as well. Um and we do have partnerships with municipalities in terms of ensuring uh that there's an environmental scam that can happen when our staff isn't able to be everywhere uh all at once. So those partnerships are there. The training and outreach uh for um community level services. I think there's a there's an inherent externality to our homeless and outreach uh service. So, uh I know that uh our outreach and community um supports department is there to provide uh guidance and expertise, but if if there is a face of Henipin County that is always outside of an office building, it is very much going to be our streets to housing um services there. In terms of connecting with business owners, I think that's just part of the overall scam that happens. I know um because of the shooting that happened um or the shootings I should say that happened off of Lake Street um we've had uh a heightened level of concern but also a heightened um number of calls for service uh that involves our cope team. Um we have a community healing service uh that is a joint work I believe between um behavioral health outreach and community supports and housing stability. So, we've we've got some infrastructure uh in terms of program uh programs, staff, and contracted providers. So, I hope that's a little bit of a responsibility. >> I mean, I know they're there. I just they don't know to call. Some of these people actually just don't know to call. I'm just going to say that cuz and they didn't they and they don't realize when I talk to them how much we're out there and what we're doing literally every day. Literally every day of the week. And that's that's we're still not where we need to be if they don't know to call us, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> We can always do better. >> Yeah. Other I'm going to then pass it back to Commissioner Fernando. >> Oh, great. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> And I'm going to give you five minutes each. >> Yep. Okay. Thank you. So, I just a couple more just contributions in this space on the SNAP and food piece, which is really about cuts, right? We we are the the you know individuals on high have redistributed the complete financial model for us. So how are we sharing that load? So identifying the need and trend the accompanying financials so that we can advocate like we are we should not be the only local government that's contributing to replacing the food need you know that that has to be distributed and either local governments will then you know find ways in their budgets to tax for it or maybe that will assist in our success in establishing additional or diversified revenue options. I mean my my point is there is a important function that for over five decades in a bipartisan manner SNAP Medicaid other examples that have been distributed and that has while we have had um well we've had to fill you know close the gap on some of those aspects that primary amount that is being taken should not be replaced by just us. And so how are we thinking about that in kind of a regionalized manner if you will and really just getting the numbers? >> I have long been frustrated about this with respect to specifically homelessness and our unsheltered population. You know, we are not required by law to care for those who are unsheltered and yet Henipin has found many many ways to contribute >> and so we need to be sharing that uh responsibility and that outcome of shared humanity with our locals. That was one comment. Second comment, this one's a bit looser, but I was inspired by Commissioner Eden really focusing on the mental health piece. And now I'm going back to like, you know, like seven years ago or eight years ago, stuff that uh I think I said back then, it might be time for us to really back then we were still saying mental healthcare is healthcare. You know, we were still just really attempting to destigmatize it even up up here. Um, when we think of physical health and mental health, however imperfect, we got the, you know, food triangle again, however imperfect, the 10,000 steps, the eight glasses. I don't follow any of these, but I at least know what they are and can speak about that. When I speak about mental health and behavioral health, especially with young people, I speak about it by emotional regulation, safe environment, and um like multi-generational care, caring adults comes from the youth development um you know, Peter Benson's uh model. Anyway, what is our you know, how how might we be thinking about that in this time period? I think that's what Commissioner Edson's getting at. We have a uniqueness in today's conditions that are about today's conditions. just like with everything else. So again, I the way that I speak about it might not be the way in which the county would uh speak about it, but in general like safe safe physical spaces that makes sense. Um h how are we ensuring that community is reconnected after it was so disconnected by requirement in virtual land that like blip that we that that took place? how are we reconnecting um that community aspect and then individually I think a lot of this gets to mo uh social and emotional regulation and I know that that sounds more um formal than I mean to but it's because I don't know what the right word is but uh as a youth worker we sought to ensure that young people didn't never fall or make a mistake but of course that they knew how to rise from that moment. Um, it's termed as resiliency at times, but that's you can't be resilient if you don't know the skills out of the gate first. And so, how are we ensuring that young people are, you know, learning how to meditate and not getting suspended at school, that they're being fed food when acting out before um having to be expelled where there may not be food. And so, I just thinking about it from that lens. And thank you, Madam Chair. Commission five minutes please. >> U just it would be interesting we my office will try to do the research but I I think transit has to be included as far as disparities. Um you talk about the cost to get places nowadays that doesn't have access to transit. I think Kevin's district where we simply don't have it. there are people there who have are in poverty and they don't have bus lines that go by and they don't have uh anything planned in the nearabouts and so I I do think given the the cost of owning a vehicle the cost of insurance which is accelerating I'm sure everybody else here has felt that when you see your insurance um and so I I do think that has a a despair impact on people and I don't know I don't want to blow this into this thing but it does the the work that we do in transit about trying to eliminate some of those um costs have you know have opportunities. Um the other thing I wanted to talk about is just we collectively have talked a lot about stuff we want to spend money on. I think we need to take a look at things that we have that need to be consolidated. I think that the services side of the be at school should be in education support services. I've said that for two years now. I'll say it again. Uh there is a legal statutory requirement for truency but the services that need to be provided do not need to be in the county attorney's office. We have community engagement everywhere. We have inside the sheriff's department. Uh we have inside the county attorney's office and we have in the county. We should really have a conversation all three entities, which I know what that'll look like, but that's too bad. If we're going to talk about community engagement, we need to stop with the silos. Um because all three of them are doing engagement on behalf of all of us. We all work together. Um I will say in Brooklyn Park, I help pioneer community engagement. It was started when I was there. We had it as a standalone that other parts would reach into and say, "I need help with this outreach." And so this was a team that would provide support to all different agencies or departments within the city. There's absolutely no reason you can't do that to count. We may be bigger. We may be uh feel like we're smarter, but at the end of the day, having a central group that provides community engagement for everyone allows people to have relationships that may be built in certain areas be used for other things. Um, so, uh, I agree, you know, as I look at the budget, I think about we need to look at consolidation much more ruthlessly. And I don't mean people, just where does money get spent and, um, that having all these things out there makes it really hard, uh, to say that, you know, we're trying to do things. I think, and I look at myself, I'm trying to figure out what am I not bringing forward. I am not bringing back Cities United this year. I brought carried it two years. I care about it deeply. At the end of the day, if you're not willing to sacrifice something that you care about deeply, you can't ask others to do it. The last one was just a question. Uh I want to thank Mjang on the comments on the SNAP pledge. I would be really curious what's the impact on the county because my impression right now is the feds and the state or we got this great pledge and are we expected to put money in because it does offer 100% benefits but impact financially does does the state getting it mean that the counties are going to carry more burden for that them to carry the pledge and we pay the bill or is there movement at the federal level and I would defer to RGR team are they going to be changing that as well because We can't be the only state that's discovered that there's this program that offers 100%. So that changes. We may be jumping to a a lily pad that may not be there by the time we land. So I I would appreciate that. And that's something offline. Thank you. >> Okay. All right. Commissioner Green. >> Thank you. And I might >> So a couple questions and comments. One was about TIFF. So it sounds like we've got a memo coming. Thank you for that. Um, I wondered if it's possible in that memo to track the use of TIFF by city and if it makes sense if that's like in my lay person's mind that's interesting. But what I'm really after is anything that highlights geographic winners and losers. That's one of the things that concerns me about the use of TIFF is it sort of a way of getting around equalization. Uh and also I'll acknowledge uh a geographic a differential in the geographic impact on Henipin counties. You know what's coming to us is property tax. So interested in that. Um on this topic of SNAP, so I may be the last person to have learned this, but today I absorbed that not only did they cut SNAP, but they expanded eligibility. >> Like I can't roll my eyes enough. Um, I wondered in the sounds like we're also going to be receiving a memo about that. Um, I would be interested in the figures for the number of people impacted in the old eligibility criteria and the number of people impacted in the new eligibility criteria. Uh, and also, and I think others have hinted at this and maybe have been more direct and I just didn't get the message, but uh, what are other counties doing like especially the sevenount metro? Sounds like there's immediate thought on that, Commissioner Green. So, I think a few things in regards to So, we will get the data and you will hear more about it, I believe, in the human services. It is a pretty large budget driver. Um the SNAP impact is um multiple years. So what you're hearing today and you will hear more at the upcoming human services line of business is just phase one of SNAP impacts. >> That's going to be the eligibility. So you we'll get you data on how does that impact the residents and whom. It will also um address what are the ex initial either loss in funding or cost shift um about an $8 million cost shift around administering it and then there is a SNAP error rate coming in that is even a larger cost shift. Metro counties counties are working together um having regular meetings um at the assoc association of Minnesota counties as well as MAXA and the metro counties are discuss discussing how we can partner and learn from one another. One of the key conversations counties are having, Minnesota is one of a few, I believe it's a less than a handful of jurisdictions where the county bears majority of the burden of these cost shifts. >> So part of the conversation is the role of the state um in SNAP and the impacts to SNAP. Currently, the counties are the ones that are primarily on the hook >> for the cost shifts. Okay, thank you for that. And do you are you in those conversations are you seeing that other like for example for us I'm really proud of us and I also want to sort of make sure the world knows that we decided to just step in and do it. Is that what's happening at other counties? >> Commissioner Green. Yes. So other counties are are are working hard as well as stepping in doing the work. They're all in different um scopes of the work. I mean part of the issue um right now for the counties is getting better sense of our data. It's conversation about data. It's a very real issue even for SNAP. Um currently there are a lot of delays in data and data error um that we're reliant on. So counties are trying to partner with one another to get as best data. So snap error rate is an example. Data is 6 months or greater delayed. So very difficult to get on top of that um in partnering. Henipin is leading um in our SNAP work on and and I'm just proud to say that and I in a respectful way to our peers. Part of the reason why Henipin is leading is our core belief in disparity elimination. The conversation that just is taking place today um and leaning in. As you see, we've had to we're making difficult budget decisions. We are finding ways to actually align um our strategies on our funding and in that how do we make sure in our funding that we are doing our best. I agree Commissioner Gotel us keeping stable funding is not is is not meeting all of the needs our providers are experiencing and yet we we are funding in spaces because we know that there's no one else funding right now. And so I think that is unique um to us in how we're delivering some of those services. So food security is a good example of that. um and maintaining and you will see a very large robust food security strategy on the health line of business that is outside of any any mandated services but core in our health disparity elimination core in our climate resiliency work um that we're providing and so we're using also mjang speaking it's a very unique relationship we have I don't believe other counties have the rel relationship we have even how we use our MI5 tanif dollars um and and this was under May's leadership and vision we built that about three or four years ago and and it's allowed us a different space to actually what may shared is a space that we have that's unique that we are working together and includes our data and how we are looking at our data. So, if I may follow up, the um sort of the way what I took away previously was, and that's consistent with today, is uh $8 million a year for Henipin County going into the future, like in perpetuity. And it sounds like it'll be more than that, right? Like sort of as we as time unfolds, whatever. This year it's $8 million. Maybe I should say that. This year it's $8 million. So, can I say that the six other counties in the seven county metro are also stepping in to to pay? Okay. So, >> yes, they will they have the same um it's going to be at a it's the same formula. So, it is the a reduction of what's called administrative reimbursement >> for our people. It's our cost of delivering the services. Um federal funding has reduced substantially. So, the primary cost now to deliver the services is at the local county level. All counties >> then 100% of counties that you're in touch with are also stepping up to fill that gap. >> All counties are we're mandated to provide the service. We are no longer the funding has drastically >> the mandated. Okay. Okay. Thank you. >> I'm going to have to questions at this time. I just want to say this was been one of the best disc. >> I'm sorry. We have until 3:00. The discussion is why >> two o'clock or three o'clock. Oh my mistake. My mistake. Sorry. >> No. Go ahead. >> Sorry. I just I I did like the discussion time. Um so thank you for that. My next question was actually about food shelves, but maybe we'll hear more about that in the healthline. We were discussing that. Um so I wanted to respond a little bit to the or or maybe thread together two comments. One was about mental health and one was about education and how fundamental that is in ending disparities. And I do agree that education is fundamental to ending disparities. I get a little nervous when I think about us taking that on. Like that is a space where I see us only as conveners. Um because our role is different. We don't we are not the school districts. We are not funding ourselves with school district money. Now, do we have a role to play in the school systems? Absolutely. And we're doing that work and I'm I'm really proud of it. But I just I think I'm speaking more to my colleagues with this comment that I want us to be careful about how much we bite off. I'm happy to use our power to put other jurisdictions under pressure or you know get MDE in the room for example. Um and when we start talking about mental health that's where I really do see a role for Henipin County. Um and I just wanted to sort of name that for the group because this is the discussion time. Uh and my last comment was um thank you so much um for the greater detail on OCS and community engagement and the understanding of the federated model. I'm I'm very interested and I just want us to be careful. One of the reasons that OCS was formed in a way was because we had a very informal federated model and so uh any way in which we can nurture you know communication the network across the different divisions to to um I like the federated model sounds good. I just think the devil's in the details and how it's executed to continue to nurture the great work that your team is doing. So I just I wanted to get behind that. Thank you. >> Other comments since we have time. Other comments. >> Okay. Go ahead, Commissioner K. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I had a couple more questions. Um if I may. Uh and I that I forgot to ask. So the on page 19 of the budget booklet is really like I get the the federal funding cut, but there's also a significant state cut for 2026 for revenue. What what uh state bucket is that that's dropping? >> Oh my gosh, >> that's a huge decrease. page 19 of the budget booklet in workforce development. There's um state uh revenue that was at 2.9 for this year and it drops to 1.3 for next year. Um, Chair Gatell and Commissioner Connley, the state revenue. So, first I'll say um the workforce development revenue, some of it is federal um wea workforce investment opportunity act funds I believe and then some of the funds are actually state programs. So, there are state um there's something called the Minnesota youth program. We have a state dislocated worker program and a state um adult program. So, they kind of mirror the federal programs. So there was a particularly large cut I would say that you're probably seeing in this in the state dislocated worker program where that was the 25 budget that was 2.3 million and um in 2026 it's about 1 million. So it's about a 55% cut from 2026. So it's just that there are some state and federal buckets. >> So madam chair if I may. So talk me through that. Is this something that we need to advocate for as we get ready to prepare the state platform or is that the state got less money from the feds which is less money that we got? How did that trickle? >> Commissioner um chair Katell and commissioner I believe that there are both. So some of it is federal dollars coming through and then there are state portions. So that could be something that went on that goes on the platform. >> I would love to know what that state portion was. >> Thank you. And then um just uh there was one other question I had. I I had a lot of questions around climate and resil resiliency, but I want to get this budget number right for 2026. So I'm on page 36 of the budget booklet and I'm trying to um figure out where the minace was that we don't have to budget for anymore. Right. So, is that the 8 million under fees or is it the 9 million under services? Cuz that drops to 637,000 for 26 and then up above that the 8 million is just gone for 2026. So, I'm trying to figure out what this 2.1 million what that should actually be like if we were like what is the full buck? Madam Chair, Commissioner Connley, I can I can try to field that. Um, you're correct. It's an $8 million shift or accounting change. >> So, it's eight million. >> And another way to think of it is these special assessments for the men pace loans. If you think about when we collect the property taxes for your school district or the city, >> um, we're collecting that and then passing it through. And right now in the expenditure side here, what you're seeing is the expenses budgeted for um paying, you know, passing that through to the port authority. And instead, we're going to just treat that like we treat all of our other property tax payments. It shouldn't flow through our department. It should just go from the taxpayer. We collect it and then send it right to the port authority to pay their loan. That's the that's the big difference you're seeing. >> No, what Yeah, thank you for that. And what I'm trying to figure out though is what the actual budget for climate and resiliency is then for 2026. Is it 2.1? >> Yes, it is 2.1. That's correct. And so if you look um to your earlier comment, >> so when you look at the fees for services on the revenue line, that 8 million, that's the estimated amount that we had for payments from >> property taxpayers that had those special assessments was 8 million. And then it's showing up on the services line. So, if you were to back out that eight million on the revenues and then take a like amount, um I don't know if all of it would be under services, but the bulk of it likely would be you would get a a more applesto apples comparison of of what's there. And if you look at the actuals column for 2024, >> you can see there that the actual spend in that department in 2024 was about 1.8 million. >> And so, uh I would estimate that for 2025 will probably be somewhere similar net of pace. And then you can see for um 2026, you know, there's kind of modest growth there. >> Okay, that helps me. I think that's all I had for now. >> Good. Anything commissioner? >> Yes. Thanks, Madam Chair. So on minace, we're still here. So let me just make sure I'm getting this correct. Somebody can special levy. So I'm borrowing a full loan. This is like a credit card adjacent. I thought that these were bonds. I thought that because it connected to a government, there was something else. So, I promise I'll be uh brief here. What what what am I allowed to borrow against? Valuation of the property. The like what's >> Yeah. No. >> What what makes me eligible to say for the next 20 years my future levy is going to be? I mean, what a convenient tool available to five people. I mean, so I'm just like really >> Yeah. >> What? >> Madam Madam Chair, uh Commissioner Fernando. So, the the way that the program was imagined was to find a way to finance energy or water uh saving projects that would actually yield, you know, net savings to the actual property owner over time. So, if you think about um I'll use a parking ramp as an example. If you put solar panels over the top floor of a parking ramp, you can generate a lot of electricity and that could maybe offset the electricity use at whatever property that's attached to. And so the intention would be that those energy savings would help you afford the the payment for that and that over the life of that project you as the property owner would have net positive savings. So you are borrowing effectively against the future savings that you expect to realize from that energy improvement. Your property is being encumbered with a special assessment. So if you >> what am I eligible to borrow up against? >> I mean that's unless I'm not saying something interesting. I think this is >> No, you're asking a great question, Commissioner. Um, we will follow up in writing with what the criteria are because I'm not aware off the top of my head of what the parameters are for the upper, you know, ceiling of what's permissible. The program is administered by the port authority and so they largely have to review these projects and make sure that they fit within the statutory confines and that the prog uh programs are deemed, you know, feasible so that financially that the loans can be repaid. But we can work with uh director Diana Chamanales and come back to you with more specifics on that program. >> I see how it's not tiff. You are borrowing against the future cost savings against question mark valuation for property etc. >> Wow, that sounds like a legislature offering if I've ever heard. So that's interesting. What if it works for us? What if there's like a benefit? I don't know. Now now, hey, we're you said couch cushions. We're, you know, moving bar soaps from bathroom to bathroom. I don't know what we're doing. But I think that's where we are. And if you're not, if you have not done that as a household, well, you know, now you've been inside mine. But, um, I digress. Thank you, man. >> I just wanted to say to that, um, the PACE program for industry has been along around for decades. And it's the same program except that industry utilizes it to do those kinds of things and then pays back the loan and it's called PACE. And the St. Paul Port Authority also administers a lot of that. And so that's been it's been really hard to get it into um residential. I remember having this conversation a lot of years ago when I was mayor and we won't say how long. That's a long time ago. Um when we first wanted to go do some of this, but as far as for cities doing those kinds of assessments, lots of times cities will do special assessments to help out their residents. I know in the city of Richfield that when you had an emerald ashbor tree that was actually your responsibility, you could put that on your um tax over a period of usually they're 10 or 15 years and pay it off slowly so you could have it removed so it didn't invest other trees. So the the actual concept of putting something on the tax and paying it off over time, it's not your property tax is not important. But the idea of doing something ahead with savings coming, that's what's so innovative about this particular >> and I think if it's working well then wonderful. But if for some reason there is a question here and a couple couch cushion coins or whatever, >> you know, now is the time to ask questions to make sure all of our, you know, tools are using as they're intended cuz like the value capture district from the briefing from the like I hope that that there's money in there and it can go towards transit such as the blue line. Like so I'm not saying all of these things because they shouldn't be used. They should just really be used for its intention in my opinion. But I'm ask beginning with questions. I agree. And I think that's what the intention was is to make sure that people could do energy savings who wouldn't otherwise do it like you know somebody lower middle income could get this and some of the companies that install like solar panels and everything will actually help you figure out how to qualify for those things. It's kind of like you know get rebates and stuff. So it's it's quite a unique program. So >> Okay, >> Madam Chair, >> please go ahead. >> Uh when you do that that report, I'd be interested to see if it's loans or bonds. Um, Brooklyn Park, we put a large solar array complex in partnership with a private company. Um, and the way those deals are structured can be unique with each one. And sometimes they're they get the tax credits, but the other part is it's equally important is at the lifespan of a solar array is 20 to 25 years. >> Uh, at 20 years, I know Brooklyn Parks, they get full value. There's like a sliding scale so that the benefits become more back weighted. But at year 20, the company walks away. But there has to be a bond, which there is, at least in Brooklyn Park, that says, "Okay, when it comes time to tear it up and dispose of it, you have to have somebody has to put a bond there so that there's money to pay for it so that in 20 years, the city doesn't find themselves having to cop up a million dollars to pull out those arrays." So, some of those things are important. I'd be curious to see how the St. authority is doing that because a larger arrays, you know, it's different when it's a house and you've got on the roof, but when you're talking acres of solar, uh you don't want whatever the government institution that's responsible for this crazy thing to suddenly have to pull out all these arrays later when they they do hit a I think it's 25, it's max maybe 27, but there's a point where they just stopped generating the energy. So, uh be be curious about that. And um and just on the tip districts, Brooklyn Park at one point was I think the the worst offender or worst uh user of it depending on your point of view. Um but I know some of them you know the homeless shelter in Brooklyn Park was paid for out of a housing tiff district that was situated that we use that money to capture. So different things, different ways. Oftentimes, tip districts may be used for infrastructure that stays inside the city versus going to a developer, you know, so you'll pay for sewer water. If you got to move a sewer line or something like that that you can use those tip districts, but it is uh contentious, I think now and I think a lot of people are trying to renew. They have to get legislative things to get renewed because I know park we had to get those renews as well. Um, so just yeah that >> and I also want to say those tiff the housing tiff is very different than other tiffs. So that would be interesting for people to know about there's there's a difference of how you can qualify or what you can and can't say no to in those kinds of instances. The other thing that's unique to the residential program for energy is that you need to be checking with your insurance company to make sure that if you have storm damage on your roof that they will remove and then replace your um solar panels. Many will, some will not. So there there's a lot of things that of education that need to happen in some of those instances where where we're doing some of those kinds of things. There's also some contention with some of the energy companies when you have to feed it back and they want you to upgrade their systems and everything and actually you you don't have to. They they are supposed to do that but they do push residents to try to pay for the upgrades that they are responsible for. So there's there's a there's there's a lot here to unpack on that. So other comments or questions? Miss Wetland, would you you have any last words? >> Sherell commissioners. Thank you for the conversation. We have um we will be following up um with material and information. I look forward for our future. We this is the first of a number of budget briefings and so um we look forward to ongoing conversations. Our teams are working quite hard. Um we have I just want to express my appreciation for the team of leaders we have here who are making such a significant difference for our residents in our community and to Deputy County Administrator Murphy's first budget briefing. So thank you. Hey, I just want to say thank you to my colleagues for the great questions, the wonderful comments. Um, we have a lot more to dive into and I think it's going to be a complicated year as we move forward. I want to thank all the staff and those who can't be here too, who probably listening online for all the work that happens and and again, I just want to say how much I appreciate that a lot of these budget booklets got out really quickly. So, appreciate that a lot. Um, so at this time, seeing no further comments, I'm going to move to item 2A, which is old business. So, uh, I take a motion to lay this over until 12:00 p.m. noon on Wednesday, October 1st, when we will reconvene for the hearing on the 2026 proposed budget to consider the public works and law, safety, and justice lines of business. >> I'll move that. >> Second. Been moved and seconded. All those in favor signify by I. >> I opposed. Motion carries. I'll move on to item three, which is open forum for the budget. We don't have any callbacks because this is our first one. Uh members of the public watching the budget hearing can call to leave a recorded comment that will be played at the next board um at the next budget hearing board. Um if there's not enough time to play all comments, recordings are going to be sent to the commissioners just like in our regular forum. Your comments should be related to the specific but this specific budget hearing on disparities. Uh recorded messages will also meet the following standards which are standard for our inerson comments which is callers need to state their first and last name for the record. Callers will need to adhere to the rules of decorum as outlined and imposted guidance for addressing the board. Comments must be kept to approximately 2 minutes. Comments that are made beyond two minute limits will not be heard. You can also contact us via email or other ways to uh leave comments. To record a comment, you call 612 6883545. The line will be open 4 hours at the end of the budget hearing. It's currently 23, so until 6:13, um the line will be open for you to um leave comments on this particular. Again, the number is 612 688 3545. If you want to send an email or letter to your commissioner, you can do that as well. This um to speak to persons on the board meeting, please attend the annual truth and taxation meeting. That's December 2nd at 6:00 p.m. That's an evening meeting. Um so, and all the 2026 proposed budget information and this hearing is available on www.henipin. usbudgets. Thank you, Miss Wetland. Thank you, staff. The committee's now in resource. Thank you. Your first one. How you feeling?