Our proposed budget includes $162.6 million in property taxes in order to fund the programs and activities that the sheriff's office considers vital in providing public safety to all residents of Henipin County. This represents a 12.8% increase from our 2025 adjusted operating budget. There is no property tax budgeted in the radio fund. And next slide. There's no increase in FTEES in the 2026 current proposed operating budget. And the proposed operating budget does not include additional requests for increased overtime, decreased vacancy factor, and increased staffing in critical areas as we recognize the constraints of a 7.79% maximum levy increase. There are no FTE budgeted in the radio fund. The most significant changes in the budget are the following. First, increase personal services expenditures to include an additional $10.7 million to cover general salary adjustments, merit increases, and increased health insurance expenses. The personal services increase also includes $650,000 for medical care, personal costs for the jail, and a $2.0 million increase in workers compensation compared to 2025. Second, increased expenditures of $3.1 million for services, primarily driven by a $.9 million increase in the cost for bodywn cameras and a $1 million increase for internal county IT costs. And last, decreased revenue of approximately $5 million, which reflects a decrease of $1.5 million in federal funding and a $2.8 million reduction in state funding in addition to a reduction of approximately.5 million in permit revenues. Thank you for your time and at this time I'll turn it back to Sheriff Wit. >> Thank you, Rick. Next slide, please. Two months ago, this board redoubled its commitment to disparity reduction by changing the name of line business to disparity elimination. I share that sentiment and would like to note that you cannot reduce, let alone eliminate, disparities without prioritizing public safety. Research consistently shows that public safety is a critical driver of equitable equitable outcomes in areas including health, education, and climate. Communities with lower crime rates see higher school attendance, stronger job growth, and better health outcomes. At that sentiment, And that sentiment is reflected, excuse me, among our residents, the vast majority of whom we want to see. Excuse me. Can I get some water? >> Yeah, thanks. It's Monday and >> can drink water out the tire. >> Oh, thank you. Thank you. >> Research consistently shows that public safety is a critical driver of equitable outcomes in the areas of health, education, and climate. Communities with lower crime rates see higher school attendance, stronger job growth, and better health outcomes. And that sentiment is reflected among our residents, the vast majority of whom want to see law enforcement empowered to make our communities safer. Over the past year, we conducted countywide surveys to better understand the most pressing public safety needs of residents and to identify ways to improve opioid response strategies. We discovered that over 60% of residents responded that they would feel safer with more law enforcement officers in their community and only 10% support fewer. We also found that across the county and each of the seven commissioner districts, residents want to see public safety prioritized. Safety isn't just a value. It's a prerequisite for a thriving equitable society. The work of the sheriff's office is reducing in reducing crime is essential. But there are also other areas of our agency of our agency with initiatives that align with the county priorities of disparity elimination and climate action. Next slide, please. First, in our adult detention center, jails are not often seen as places of growth, but as a former detention deputy and major over the jail, I know that jail stays can be a crucial time for growth, recovery, and reflection. Jail time should not be wasted time. We are committed to helping those in our custody return to the community better than when they came in. Through August of this year, more than 18,000 people have come through our facility. It is a it is critical that we use this time to provide opportunities that help them succeed when they return to their communities. Our hope program continues to offer education resources and support for anyone who wants it. In 2025, we provided almost 2,000 GED class hours, issued 2500 life skill certificates, and had over 50 people complete all 10 life skill courses. Many in our care struggle with addiction and the opioid crisis continues to impact families across the c county. To address this, we've hired an opioid response coordinator to connect health and public safety efforts. Inside the facility, we are working to expand substance use treatment, recovery, and re-entry services. We've also added a second narcotics K9 team inside the jail to enhance the safety of those in our facility. In 2026, we will launch a series of new evidence-based treatment options that represent the cutting edge approach to recovery and rehabilitation. Next slide, please. The second achievement of countywide priorities is represented in our community outreach and public affairs division. Our community engagement team is dedicated to building trust and strengthening relationships through intentional and meaningful community engagement, meeting people where they are, not just in emergencies. This year alone, they participated in over 700 events, ranging from career fairs and networking events to community outreach and education. In some neighborhoods most impacted by crime, deputies are walking children to school bus stops to ensure they feel safe. Additionally, we've made meaningful impact with victims of crimes, some of whom don't want to pursue charges, but do want resources. We've been able to connect these victims with Henipin County safe communities because of the relationships we have forged. Our focus on prevention extends beyond patrols with robos robust youth outreach. In addition to continuing the school-based and first and the first of its kind community-based DARE program, we have expanded our education programming to include story time with the sheriff, encouraging literacy, and building positive relationships between young people and law enforcement. Community outreach and the whole program are not statutory mandates, but I think we can all agree for the sake of humanity, they are necessary now more than ever. Next slide, please. Third, we are taking seriously opportunities to collaborate in achieving the county's priority of climate action. Many of you joined us this spring for the ribbon cutting of our public safety services headquarter. A state-of-the-art facility that houses our enforcement service division and is built with sustainability in mind. It features include a green roof, charging station, solar panels, and a fleet of 25 hybrid vehicles. This facility houses our patrol unit and our special operations unit along with our emergency response vehicles and equipment needed to respond to everything from medical emergencies and traffic crashes to large-scale emergencies. This facility allows us to better serve both the people of Henipin County and the environment and we thank our county partners for their work in making this a reality. These examples represent just part of the commitment advancing the county's priorities. We will continue to seek new innovative ways to eliminate disparities, improve outcomes for those in our custody, and protect both the public, both public safety and the environment. Next slide, please. As mentioned before, it is no surprise that people represent approximately 80% of my budget. My priority has always been and always will be the people I swore to serve and protect. One of my biggest budget challenges is staffing. We are very close to our approved FTE complement due to the great work of personnel employee development as well as our other county part partners, but I believe more staff are needed in critical areas. I look forward to the results of the current jail operations and administration staffing study as well as opportunity for staffing studies um for the entire agency. I understand results of staffing studies may be may present budgeting challenges for the county. I am in support of the county administrator's proposed budget and I look forward to ongoing discussions related to the appropriate staffing levels to meet the needs of our community. This includes additional requests to structurally address our personnel budget and implement staffing study recommendations. What I will say is with the amount of violence our community has endured over the last few months, now is not the time to lower standards for public safety. We can't afford to do that and I appreciate the county I appreciate that the county administration shares that commitment. Our community has been a a national focus this year with several high-profile emergency incidents, including the legislature legislator and school shootings. These terrible situations have highlighted some of the work our agency does at a moment's notice, sometimes without the benefit of foresight. And while these incidents gain national attention, they are so many others that occur on a near daily basis that are that also require our resources. My job is to keep the peace of the county. We must go where we are needed. Whether it's running towards gunfire at a school shooting or emergency protection for elected officials, much of our work is unexpected, unpredictable, and requires resources. Our people is what it requires to do this job. All of this requires dedicated, well-trained staff to be ready at a moment's notice. While we analyze our budget, agency requirements, and needs of our county, I look forward to continuing to work with county administration on recruitment and retention efforts, ensuring that we have the proper staffing numbers and the appropriately structured budget to meet the needs of Henipin County. Next slide, please. A second huge budget driver that represents both a challenge and an opportunity is technology. Henipin County Sheriff's Office relies on technology in every division of our agency from records management system, body scanners in our jail, bodywn cameras, and technology to assist in intelligence gathering for investigations. This technology is always evolving and improving, constantly requiring updates, training, and maintenance. In 2026, we will be replacing several standalone systems and will integrate bodywn cameras, taser, squad cameras, and other programs into one technology solution. As you can see in our budget, this shift is a large budget driver for 2026, but the long-term payoff will be incredibly beneficial, allowing us to collaborate across the lines of business and continue to work with advancing technology to serve the Henipin County community. Criminals continue to exploit new and advancing technologies such as cryptocurrency which it which makes it essential for my office to continually evolve our own techn technological capabilities to stay ahead and effectively combat these emerging threats. Next slide. Lastly, it comes as no surprise that the auto that the adult detention center has been a huge budget challenge for all of us over this last year and will continue to require resources in the years to come. You've now had a front row seat to some of the challenges inside our jail. And as you know, our jail population also includes detainees who are committed to the custody of the state and who have already been through the judicial process. While our jail populations continue to grow, so too do the medical and mental health challenges of the people we are mandated to care for. Roughly 70% of of our jail population require medical services, a substantial increase over the last 5 years. Meeting these complex needs within within the facility that was never designed as a healthc care institution places enormous strain on medical health, behavioral health, and jail staffing resources. The complexities we see in our community are amplified in our jail. Additionally, we've made strides in staffing. There is still a critical need for select annexing agreements to allow for situations out of our control, including elevated jail population, routine maintenance, capital projects, and other factors. Caring for people inside our adult detention center, and providing programming resources, top-notch medical care is paramount to our collective priority of disparity elimination. Roughly 70% of the people in our pre-trial facility will return to their communities. Therefore, it is imperative that we break the cycle of incarceration by doing all we can while someone is in our custody. Again, public safety and public health are intertwined. Next slide, please. Commissioners, as the sheriff of Henipin County, I take great pride in the responsibility entrusted to me and in the vital role our office plays in building safe, thriving community. Public safety is the foundation of prosperity and the sheriff's office at the center of that work. From keeping our adult detention centers safe to taking illegal guns and drugs off our streets to responding to emergencies and building trust through the community policing. Every service we provide is designed to protect the lives to protect lives and reduce harm. The challenge we face are real, but so is our commitment to sol to the solutions that make a measurable difference for the people we serve. Continued investment in the sheriff's office is an investment in safer neighborhoods, stronger partnerships, and a healthier, more equitable future for everyone in our county. I want to again thank County Administration and the Office of Budget and Finance for your partnership. And I sincerely mean that. And I also want to thank the people who make up the sheriff's office. I am so proud of what they've accomplished every day and their commitment to do this work on the behalf of the community. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. We really appreciate that. Cher, >> any last words, administrator sharel commissioners? Um, as I indicated at the beginning, we've been working closely together um to to look at this budget and this work is continuing. We had a really productive meeting on Friday and know that there's a lot of work to come in 2026 um with us and the sheriff just really helped the budget and the staffing needs um in the sheriff's office to ensure we have staffing in where staffing is needed. So >> we know the challenges that you faced. We've had several briefings of that. We also know you inherited a lot of this but you're you're rising to the situation and we appreciate that. I just want to say that I'm going to just let everybody know that at 1:30 we're going to stop for a 5m minute break and we need to switch at that time but there's five of us so I'm not going to keep a real tight time um schedule on everybody because I think everybody could get all their questions answered in the time and have a good discussion here. Um I'll start with you commissioner. >> Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you. Um and of course thank you Sheriff Wit for uh your work. Since we are on a committee, I do like to remind that we um are privileged to have two independently elected individuals outside of the board. Of course, you and county attorney Morardi who's here. And so, I say that because as I've attempted to approach this year's budget, I've really been looking through the lenses of what is the policy direction, what's the generational impact, um what is the data sharing, uh showing, and then what is the funding model that we're needing to adjust. I'm not going to focus so much on the first two because that really is within kind of your authority and um should also express I appreciate our alignment and our partnership uh by way of policy direction and uh the generational impact that um you and your uh team um contributes to our to our residents. So I'm going to be focusing more on data and funding model both of which we've also worked um closely over the last six or eight months um and want to express my gratitude there. Uh we have been identifying issue areas identifying the data and the support to understand that data and partnering to try to resolve because we know that this is one of many years that are going to be likely very difficult from a funding model perspective. Lots of preamble, but then I'll get into my questions here. Um, this board has been speaking a lot about just the funding funding we're getting from the feds and the state or what we're not receiving and how are we going to rise to structurally make sense of that um in the coming years while ensuring stability for our workforce and continued services for residents. So I am proud that uh while other governments might be in a situation where they're shrinking, we are we are trying to not do that. We are really uh seeking to stabilize our community via workforce and via services again which you amplified um a ton and and I thank you for that. I have three areas that I'm curious about and it could be in followup or now. One is to really understand staffing more. So, under personnel services, um it's referenced a lot. 10.7 million um nu as an increase. Page 19 is where I'm looking. That is just greater than half of the property tax amount change. So, I just want more information on overtime within that. Um and again, not in a critiquing manner, just in a resolving manner, like how are we going to resolve that? So, more understanding on overtime. um more understanding on this health piece. Uh there there are three places in the budget book you talk about this page 17, 19, and then again on the top of page 20. I think page 20 is the one that's most uh most robust. But what I'm actually what I'm actually getting at is trying to understand where are the healthcare drivers in in hopes of us trying to adjust something there. increase in health insurance of 1.3 million, increase of medical care costs for the jail of another 1.3 million. Combined, that's 20% of the 13.2 million. So, I mean, I I really hear what you're expressing by way of structural pressures that are not fully within your decision-m, but unless we can really gain an understanding around what are the levers to adjust healthcare or not, what are the sources for that or not? Um, so again, I'm just going to lift them all up and if there's response, great. But this is really to discuss uh to to preview I guess where I believe our numbers uh and analysis should be going next. Um so yeah that that 10.7 million what is in that by way of staffing then what of that is ripe for inquiry? Again the health care and medical care piece I think is uh is one that I um get quite in tune with. Uh the second thing is funding model. It's a lot of decreased state and federal funds. I'm certainly acknowledging that. And so, you know, if Commissioner Lundy was here, he's been um very vocal about aggregating all of the expenditures that the that Henipin is taking on on behalf of the state kind of. So, that that is where my questions come into play. of course don't know all of the conversations, but this does seem to be a pretty significant set of decreases from the state at least. So I'm I'm I'm interested in that because the funding model of the states if it's a few million decrease by the state, you know, what what is their how are they seeking to resolve that? um connected but not the same is court services. 17 over $17 million for court services. Obviously, not all of that is state function. Excuse me. Is most of that is not um most of that is state function. So, I'm I'm interested in how we from a board pers perspective might be able to alleviate certain um financial pressures in in your office's budget through kind of a a different or deeper understanding with respect to the state's leadership for either the mandated functions or not. And then last certainly not least, you know, I care a lot about 911. I care a lot about emergency calls. there um there's so much leg uh desired legislation in that there is a lot of noise around that. What I'd say is uh you know Captain Martin and team do a great job and uh as evidenced by your opening slide that um highlights kind of police incences versus emergency calls. Clearly there's inquiry that needs to take place and you and your insight and leadership will be beneficial on how how are we right sizing or supporting or ensuring that you know you as the sheriff get to really prioritize the functions that um you view as really essential to the statutory authority and then you know where is there either parallel path with the county or over time where might there be um shifts in whose uh in in where something sits um I'm I'm not I'm only saying that as I think to the next 5 years of budget, we cannot be in a 5-year situation where we're constantly asking the same questions or um amplifying the same pressures. So, from an from an emergency response perspective, I I don't think that our 911 system makes a ton of sense from a resident's point of view, and it certainly doesn't from a funding model. So, it is this is not critique on your workforce. I'm saying this is all on the system side like are you're not getting the funds that are necessary from the state or feds to to fulfill the obligations of what residents believe 911 emergency response mandates. Um and we don't usually get to talk about that much uh in this context, but I wanted to flag that for my colleagues and for you that that's an area of interest. So yeah, kind of a long speech, but I hope you can um I hope you're hearing both partnership and an interest in uh improving the for future years. N >> thank you uh commissioner chair for that and I want to try to answer as many questions as we can in a public forum. So we're we'll try to answer as many as we can and then what we can't um answer here we'll definitely respond. Uh one of the first things you um uh talked about was overtime. Um something that should be noted is that we are seeing our overtime start to decrease somewhat. It's never going to be completely gone. We need to make sure everybody understands that because there's not everything that we can plan for, right? Um but it we are seeing a decrease. There are things that we are paying attention to a lot closer than we have in previous year years to looked at that. Um but to understand a 247 operation um and things happen at all hours of the day and night um where frankly there's some other um organizations, businesses that don't get that luxury. We have to be able to be functionable, ready to go 247. And I think that's important. But we are taking very serious what our overtime looks like and we are working on that. And again, it is starting to take that decrease. And with the latest addition of our detention deputies and things like that, as uh people start becoming valuable, meaning fully trained, we expect to see that fully decrease. But I want to make sure everybody understands it will never be zero. Not in the line of work that we do. The other thing um in in reference to uh funding model um you know with uh the decrease from state funding federal funding um you know I'm going to continue to advocate at the state at the federal level to our county board of commissioners um again something we don't have the luxury of saying uh how we or when we respond or how we respond. We are mandated to respond to all public safety matters and unfortunately yet fortunately that does cost money. So at some point people have to look at how where does pri public safety fit on the prioritation list. There are people literally who listen to things like this who have bad intention for our communities. So I will continue to advocate that public safety needs to be properly funded so that we can respond on those who have bad intentions to harm our communities or people in our communities on a continuous basis. um court services. You know, some of the stats that we can provide later to is the number of um um the level of staffing that we've had to provide for court hearings. And then just knowing that we have people in our custody for longer periods of time, it's busy and we operate out of six or seven different buildings. Um so it's again another another statutory mandate. It's not optional. So we're going to have to continue to make sure that we're um fully staffed in that area. and also being able to be prepared for what we already see is coming. There's a there's a large amount of people in our jail that are due days in courts. So, some of the issues that we can see, >> it means that we can prepare for. And so, however, we can work in partnership with making sure that we do that would be great. And then 911, the numbers that I alluded to were just the emergency calls. That's not our all total call volume. There's some people that are diverted to things that are not deemed emergencies. Um, you know, there was a staffing study that was done not a long time ago, last year I believe it was, if not earlier this year again, where they're saying that we need to increase our staffing in order to respond to what we're seeing in our county. So, you know, um, there was a previous meeting that we had where somebody asked, "How do we not get here before?" Well, when we're having these staffing studies and when we're having these recommendations from outside agencies, at some point we have to figure out how it's going to work to get there because it's to help us prevent prevent and intervene and that's where we want to be. So again, I um we can get you more in depth to those points, but just know that I am very dedicated to working in partnership to make sure it gets done. at the same time making sure that I take serious and uphold my oath and and providing public safety for the entire county, not just the city of Minneapolis, which gets a lot of the lip service around here, right? But the entire county. So, I look forward to doing that. >> Thank you, madam chair. Just two quick follow-ups. One, um, totally agreed. And on the personnel, the desire for a breakout on overtime is just to understand the data because we've we've done quite well when we understand the data and have worked together. And then with respect to funding model, it wasn't about your budget. It's me looking at the state trying to gain I I I I have a little bit of heartburn when I see a 7.2 million contribution from the state and a $17 million expenditure just for court functions. >> So just to be clear that was not a direct that was certainly not directed at you. That is us as Henipin together looking to the state to ensure that we have a balanced funding model that in that so that you can um engage in the work and so that the rest of the county is able to engage in the in the work. um we have cadences of flows and different um areas need to be right sized and that is what we are seeking to do in partnership with you over the next couple coming years with your budget. >> Thank you madam chair >> commissioner Anderson. >> Thank you madam chair and thank you sheriff for the the presentation. You know, I think I will echo a lot of what was already said, so I won't actually say all of the the extra things, but I do want to say I would love to have more information around the um the increased pressures that you're seeing on the the need for personnel um the um the pressures on the jail, the pressures in medical costs was brought up. Um, I've heard that there's a lot of kind of varying ways that that shows up, whether it is through state mandated uh mandated services that are being proposed or that have been implemented, cutbacks on funding for uh for what you're seeing. We saw a number of those um of those pieces highlighted um and the where the state should be doing something and they are not. Um and what does it cost us to fill that void, right? Um I really want to understand that. Um, and I think it would be helpful to have some kind of look back period. You know, I I had kind of I'd made a note um you know, your the graphic that you had on uh slide six where you had your numbers of what we did this last year. Um, having a look back period I think is so helpful to be able to see trend lines, right? And I know the pandemic like I almost take there's some years in there that collectively I wish we could all forget and we have in some ways. Um but they're not necessarily helpful data and in understanding what the like where we have been and where we're going. Um and so like going back to pre2020 to show like okay what you know what have we done where are we seeing uh improvements where are we seeing challenges seeing those trend lines so that we can better anticipate what those needs are going to be um I think is really really helpful uh so that we are not just constantly playing catch-up uh and trying to say well Okay, you know, we addressed the needs last year. I want to know like what is the the needs next year going to look like? And while we can't predict the future, uh we can use data to better analyze what that's going to look like. So, I would love to see um kind of like deep collaboration. Uh you know, I think we talked about this in in technology to be able to make sure that we are leveraging the data that you have. um so that we can better serve our communities collectively. So, I would love to see that. I don't know if I like if there's anything that you want to respond to there. Great. Uh I you know, Commissioner Fernando, you highlighted the like the decreased funding at the state level and federal level. We are seeing that across the board and how we address that. Um and highlight the fact that every single local government is being asked to do more and the agreements that the state and federal governments, you know, that these programs were built on, they're being neglected by our state and federal partners. Um, and it's not right. And I don't think we should be just kind of sitting idly by and letting them push more and more onto our plate. Uh, and then us turning to our property taxpayers saying, well, you know, here's what we we have to do and it's our fault, right? Like this is a pattern of shifting costs and responsibilities onto local government. So, >> thank you. >> You can respond however you like to that. >> No, I was respons No, thank you for that. Um, and I what I would say is cause and effect and we're going to have to pay attention to okay, what effects are we seeing of the causes of these reasons our budgets are being slashed and unfortunately uh not to go too political, but that's what we need to remember down the line. We are all in this together. We have to make sure our state and federal partners are in this together because I don't think there's anybody who would deny that public safety has to be a priority. Um it's too easy to go complain after it. We see what's happening, so let's be able to deal with it so that we can better prepare for the future. And I want to apologize uh Chair Fernando. I did not answer the medical question and he brought it up and I'm like I wrote it down like gez medical cost, you know, that's something even as a major that I was always frustrated with because it increased every year. Um but again knowing what we have in our community is also reflective. In fact it magn it's magnified inside the jails where people are continually needing more services as far as medical mental health chemical health. And so it's costing us more to be humane to treat people in a humane way. And I wish if somebody has that magic wand to to help fix that would be great. Again that goes back to why I was a huge advocate at the state for the 115 waiver. And it should be for people who are pre-adjudicated, too. And I believe that there's been some language here lately where they're only talking about people who have been convicted. That's simply wrong. So that partnering with getting that 11:15 waiver back on on the agenda so that we as a county can say that our residents deserve this, too. And that would be very helpful for us financially. I've talked to my other sheriffs across the nations that have got it, and all they talk about are the positive um effects that has had on their budget. We need that 11:15 waiver to help us with that because I don't see healthc care going down anytime soon. And as long as we have people in our custody, we're always going to have that that challenge. Um, so with that being said, I know that my trusty chief over here was writing stuff down because I can hear him. He writes angrily >> and we will we will be sure to fill in in more gaps with your questions in depth. But thank you. >> Did the chief have anything you wanted to add? No, just chair commissioner just just some extra notes and it is a lot of unfunded state mandates, loss of state funding too. One of the things with the loss of revenue from the state is the PSA money, the public safety aid money that we lost in there. So that's reflected in there and I think of the new legislation with prescription medications in the facility for incoming detainees, the clean slate act, packing of warrants, validation of OFPS, all these things over the years that have continued to add work on our staff that we must do, but they are unfunded state mandates. Okay. Um, Commissioner Connley. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Sheriff Wood. I very much appreciate the presentation. Thank you to all of your uh leadership that's here today. Um, I also appreciate your transparency and uh taking time to meet with me and walk me through certain things that I don't always understand like vacancy factor. I'm still learning what that is. That's a lot of math that I I was a social work major. We'll just say that. Um, I just have a couple of questions. Um but do want to touch on a few points from your presentation. I think that it is extraordinarily valuable your commitment to community engagement. Um in past years I've been critical of how much we don't spend in gaining trust in community and in community engagement and I know that's something that you prioritize. Thank you for that. Um, I will also say that as the one commissioner who has just constituents in Minneapolis and the unorganized territory of Fort Snelling, that Minneapolis does get a lot of re uh lip service. And I think that that's telling to kind of what we've seen over the past few years. Commissioner Anderson's right. There's a couple of years in there I'd like to forget. Um, but in in in my constituency, I will say that we have struggled a lot. We have been ground zero for fentinel and for overdose deaths and for unsheltered homelessness and for all of the things that I think that you have spoke to when you speak of a a public safety response and how do we prioritize that given the high needs of the communities throughout Henipin. Um, and so I know when I hear from my residents about 911 response time, about um, whether or not you call and anyone shows up, whether or not um, we can get sheriffs out to help with our local PD, which has been a topic of conversation for a while, and you do. Um, and so I share the prioritization of public safety because that's just a part of how functioning healthy communities are built. um with a solid public safety response, solid library system, housing, access to food, all of these things exist together in healthy, strong communities. So, I'll just share that. I really just have two pointed questions and I think Commissioner Fernando started uh my question around the overtime really and that was um kind of on page 20 it talks about there being no change in the overtime in the proposed budget for 2026, but you did mention that overtime is decreasing. And so I wanted to wrap my head around um we have staffed up um at what I think if I'm mistaken tell me is a full complement uh close to it anyway of staff uh in the sheriff's office and and so to me that means overtime decreases and it is um can you talk to me a little bit though about how much of a decrease you're seeing and then you mentioned fully decrease and I just wrote to what so what is the like number that you want to reach when you talk about decreasing ing the amount of overtime in your office. >> Thank you. Um, Commissioner, and I'm going to defer to the chief for most of it, but what I do want to say is I want to know what I said about defer too, but no, he's uh but uh he's very well versed in that. So, I would rather him speak to that if that's okay. >> Thank you, chair commissioners. So, we we have about $2 million every year in reimburseable overtime. So, we start right there. That's from working Vikings games, Twins games, other sources of revenue that come in. From there, we've had uh another vendor that conducted an overtime study earlier this year. There is a percentage. I don't want to speak to it right now. They're also looking at that as part of our staffing number that says for an agency your size doing the work that you do, it should be x percentage. And we can get back to you on that. I'm not sure if that's been captured completely yet, but like the sheriff said, we will never be without overtime. We have the reimburseable overtime and just the cost of doing business as a 247 operation. It could be a DWI arrest at the end of a shift, a jail incident that carries over. So, we are working with this this third party vendor on what should be our our overall overtime. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. So, the percentage that you said is coming that that that will give me kind of an idea of the percentage of decrease and the percent that is ideally where you'd like to be. That's coming. Okay. Thank you. >> Can I just add something to that too? Uh, Commissioner, something else too. Remember when I said when we can see things coming? We know that there's going to be new changes to to the state law as far as leave time coming. Something that happened in one of the last staffing studies we talked about uh was um brought up that how we don't have relief factors. And so when there's people on leave or when there's people that take off, we are in the unique position where we can't let spots go unfilled, which means overtime. So when we're looking at the big picture in that way too, we it it hits us differently in public safety than it would say most uh most other lines of business. So I think that's something to keep in mind as well. >> Go ahead, Administrator. Sher got Commissioner Conley and Sheriff one. And so I I touched on our meeting on Friday. One of the things that we've been building which is a new tool um office of budget and finances is building a stronger analytics tool that helps us understand staffing and our vacancies. And our hope is is going to assist the sheriff's office because where part of the issue is also getting ahead of some of the attrition where you need fully staffed. How can we help with um forecasting and actually in some circumstances hiring in advance of attrition? So, this is the work that we're going to be doing because the more we can do that, agreed there will be overtime um in um in it and the more that we can actually be fully staffed um in there. The overtime utilization is where it needs to be versus overtime utilization because you're struggling on having um being fully staffed in critical functions. So, that is the work that we are doing right now. >> Yeah. And just to add to that, if I could, Madam Chair, you know, I also want to recognize uh Rick and his team's work and all of this. So there's been a lot of work happening this summer. Some of it is kind of mundane and going into the accounting system and setting up codes and different, you know, ways to track things. So the infrastructure, there's a lot of work that's gone into making it easier to see the trends and the data to allow the command team uh and others to just understand what's happening and then and shift into forecasting. And so it has been, as the sheriff indicated, I appreciated your comments, it's been a really collaborative couple of months. Um we know there's a lot of work to do. Uh, and I think our hope is as we see um more information, we expect there'll be ongoing requests for for new tools and data from the command team and there's a firm commitment from OBF and county administration to provide them with whatever we can to work through this process together and move forward. >> Thank you for that. Um, we always value good collaboration, good strong partnership and collaboration. The only other question I had is on page 20 of the budget booklet. There's this line here under property tax. It says additional property tax increases are the result of an increase of 3.1 million for services and it's driven by an almost million dollar increase in the cost for body cameras. So I was wondering if is there another vendor like was that the vest value? That seems like a really big increase for body cameras. Um can you talk a little bit more about that? >> Chair commissioner I I can talk speak to that. So part of it is an increase in body warning cameras and then there is another work group being stood up at this time with uh county administration purchasing other departments within Henipin County who also utilize the same vendor and s some similar products to make sure that we are getting the best value for that. But that would be driving the the main components of it is an increase in the in the actual equipment that we have and then we're trying to figure out ways to reduce the cost of that contract with our county partners. >> Okay. So that that uh 900,000 may go down if there's some synergies that can be found. Am I >> always hopeful? Defer to yes our finance director. >> I hear hopeful. I see we'll see. So I'll remain hopeful as well. Thank you very much. That's all I have. >> Elder. Uh I had a meeting with my chiefs on there. We go. >> Yes. Get it. with my police chiefs and fire chiefs on Friday and one consensus was very much that they appreciate your collaboration um and that every every police chief just felt very much that you've reached out to them that you really do a lot of good community engagement and actually superintendent said it too. So um thank you for that. Uh I want to just talk a little bit about um when we're talking about the vacancy factor and the overtime and all of this. It makes me and I'm and I thank you Joe. I love the idea of a new tool to kind of look at how we do that. But it also makes me wonder, I know that we we did the overtime study, are we looking at the volumes that we're serving, the staffing that's currently in the sheriff's department, and if we are actually at when we say the full-time compliments, are we at the right place with that? And maybe that tool that you're building will help us understand that more. Can you just speak to that? >> Sure. Um, Madam Chair, and I'll actually open the floor up to others. I think the staffing study that was referenced on the adult detention center is really going to be informing us. You're asking the exact right question and that's where we're all trying to work together to understand what is the right target to be at. And so we have not had a chance to digest. I don't know if we have the final copy yet um but that's coming very soon. And so that is going to guide us along with these tools. So we've been focused while that study has been developed. We've been focused on understanding our data and making sure we have sightelines on where we stand so that as that study comes out and the other um conversations around overtime, we can all know where we're trying to get to and and figure out how to bridge that. >> If I'm not mistaken though, the overtime study was a agencywide and that one's done. Correct. >> The overtime so we have the one that's in place right now matrix and then we had a overtime study that was done for the entire agency. Then that one has been completed. >> Is that the one that you were referring to? Mhm. Yeah. I was think >> I'm sorry. I was thinking about the matrix, the jail staffing study, which I don't think we have the final copy for. >> Okay, good. Because I mean, when I'm thinking about public safety, it's um in in some ways it's in the same sense of like thinking about a hospital oper operating 24 hours a day that you're not going to necessarily know who's coming through the door. You can't turn people away. We just it's constantly evolving. And it's not necessarily like um some of our county services where it's like, oh, we're open from this time to this time. It's just different predictions. And so yeah, I think um having some sort of like dashboard on for us to understand. I feel like there's just a lot of gaps that I'm trying to fill in just from reading all of this and it's it's a little challenging to see that. Um but to highlight just some some things that you have brought up and that I had just some questions on. um we are seeing is thank you for the numbers in terms of what we're seeing with um the health cost in the jails um and then some of the technology investments. Uh and I guess some of what I'm curious in terms of the the technology investments that you've made, what are you seeing that are improved services in our jails or for your your deputies >> in in terms of technology? >> Yeah, just technology. Yes. >> Well, you know, thank you, Commissioner. uh when it comes to being trans um parent, you know, body warn cameras, as much as law enforcement pushed back when those first came out, now we see them as our lifeline, if if you will. So, continuing to make sure that we have services um in that technological um atmosphere that helps us be transparent to tell to tell the story is something that is um very important. When asked earlier like is there other vendors out there other than Axon? Sure, there is. But the question is is do we have do we have the right one to do to to provide the needs that that we need for our county? Um uh and you know one of the things one of the challenges I see as Henipin County as a whole again coming up um by way of Dakota County when I think about technology I do think one of the biggest challenges that we have is that we're using so many different systems within the county. So, making sure as we're looking and making decisions about technological um advancements, looking at how do we do a better job integrating so that we can better work with each other and things like that. Um, you know, we have um body scanner in in the jail that we have uh found interesting finds using using that and I think it's best for public purposes. I say interesting finds. It's a body scanner. Um and and um that has also been very helpful when I think about our RMS system and and you know uh becoming more integrated again through Axon. the more we can integrate the better off we are um the better off we are and I think the more accurate we're able to be the repetitiveness that we see through this agency and when you think about that so much um area for human era whereas if you know the more we can have a one-stop shop with um our our technological services that um provide us with the best um outcomes is is best for anyone and I think Pat did you want to add anything on technology >> yeah chair comm I was scribbling I'm thinking of some things too and I don't want I don't want to put anybody we we can call up uh jail administrator auto too to expand on some of these if we need but we are adding a second body scanner within the jail facility also in the jail we've implemented guardian RFID which is a mechanisol basically will go around for health and welfare checks they can add real-time notes in there they they um scan pucks to ensure that they've gone through cells and and done appropriate health and welfare checks um medical bands I don't have all the exact details on that but medical bands for at risk inmates that will alert medical staff if there's is something like a loss in you know heart rate and this is what I would defer to jail administrator Otto on Lucas machines within the jail facility and I don't think those have been fully implemented yet and then like the sheriff hit on in the presentation cryptocurrency is a big piece of that and giving our our analysts our investigators the tool to investigate crypto crimes as far as financial related crimes this is this is a world that I am not savvy with at all dealing with real money and then and then all a sudden there's this magic think Venmo and now we've got cryptocurrency that we've just we have to be staying ahead of the technology to investigate that stuff. So if we want more of the medical bans we could >> and I want to add to the cryptocurrency just seeing the the large increase on on our senior citizen populations that are being scammed using crypto which is again we need to the technology to be ahead of those things that we know that are going on. And I just want to share a story um this not a story, it's just a small blurb. Um about speaking with one of my other major county sheriffs just last week about those uh heart rate bands where they said that they have not had a um death in their jail in four years because of it. >> And so the faster we can get that stuff implemented. It was my understanding that some things are still tied up with county it on that. But when we're seeing these things, we need to be able to move a little bit faster um for the sake of public health. So, um, team, did we miss anything about technology? >> They're there just dreaded me calling them up. >> Yeah. >> That's funny. >> Just for fun. Any eye contact? >> Yeah. Right. >> I love I love the um, Madam Chair, just a few more. Um, I love the the idea of the medical bands. I think that's that's really great. And we will make sure that we're addressing people's needs while they're in our care. I'm I'm with you on the 11:115 waiver. It's very disappointing about um I was just asking about that last week. Um the other just one more quick followup is you said that there's a new narcotics detention um K9 team. Can you just tell me a little bit more about that and then how that's working because I I think when I did a tour you were I mean I'm love the body scan and all of the things. There were um some some drugs that were getting in the jails. This was a while ago maybe a year ago. So tell me it sounds like you've made definitely taken steps to address that. >> Uh yes, Commissioner, thank you for that question. You know, I want to say the last two weeks um major where uh our K9 detective um dogs hit on uh drugs being entered through the mail >> and there was like three fines in in less than a week's time. So that is that's going to be continuously a challenge for us. We are looking at some avenues that how we can maybe move from having paper mail to going to electronics, but that's going to take some time. Again, working with our IT partners and getting to that point and looking at all the um legal uh issues that may come with that. So, that's something that we're looking at. But with a facility our size, again thinking that we're operating out of two buildings, uh kines also get tired. And so making sure that we can have them um to cover again a 247 operation as large as we are and making sure that we use them effectively. They have been quite um good at what they do. And you know, our goal is always to get to zero contraband in the jail. Uh we're not there, but that's always going to be the goal. And so we're going to just keep responding in every ways that we can to make sure that we keep our public safety facility as safe as we can be as we can from drugs getting there. >> Is that okay? Um I just wanted to open up first just talking about the comprehensive work and partnership that we've been able to develop here over the past year is incredible. We have moved mountains here because of everybody decided to dig in and do this together. and I they're seeing we're seeing great results. So, first of all, thank you and thanks to the administration and everybody else around the table who's done that. I I'm going to make some comments. I have a few questions. Um I just wanted to talk about the unfunded mandates. I hear you. I feel you. I I could feel you when I was in the Richfield mayor about the same thing about unfunded mandates. We have them in public works now. The sheriff's department, public safety, health and human services. It runs the gamut. we're supposed to do more with less and they never fully fund us. And I'm just I'm used to that. It's frustrating and it's very very difficult. Um I also want to point out what happened in the adult detention center. the state changed um what and how it was implementing some of its work uh across the state without any formal warning ahead of time and put not only us but everybody all our counties our sister counties in a precarious position here where everybody's scrambling to try to find places to put bodies right just really that's what it is where can I house somebody and it it wasn't the best outcome for those people either and it wasn't very good for that besides the fact that we know moving all those people increased your overtime, right? Nobody wanted to talk about this ahead of time, give everybody a heads up and start talking about this. So, I really that's not your fault. That's their that's their decision to do it that way. It doesn't foster a partnership and that would be my statement to them. That is not a good partnership. we would certainly be willing to do things differently if we had time and and the ability to work with folks, but I think that was really uncalled for in that way. Um, one of the um one of the things I just want to talk about is I I have in some of our conferences that we've been out nationally seen some of the state-of-the-art facilities which model health care in the jails and they are amazing. Um, and I I know we have an old facility and we have a lot of um complex places in our facilities that don't work in a way that actually would be better maybe for our inmates in some ways. But I think at this time and and not now, but in the future, we should look at that. We should look at what a state-of-the-art health care facility, if we could treat people better faster, if they could come out of incarceration faster, if they were healthier individuals, if we could get to them faster. I like the the ideas that you already have with the bracelets and with the checks and the pucks and all these wonderful things that are happening, but that's still we're working with an old old systems and an old facility. So that that can be changed, updated, whatever we could do to make that. But in times when we know we're going to be facing uncertainty and downturns is a time to dream and plan. And that was told to me by a very wise city manager a lot of years ago. So one of the things I I did want to um ask about was around other cities. I I know when I go out to visit with my police chiefs, fire chiefs, and city managers, they speak highly of of Henipin County Sheriffs and how they respond. I want to know though because I know we back up a lot of them. Are we being asked to back up more and are are there other cities who are thinking of divesting out of public safety and asking for the sheriff to fill that role considering what's going on? >> Good question. >> Um, thank you for that question. those questions, Commissioner. Um, well, yes, we always are being asked to help, right? Um, I will say that there are some who worried if um it's ever the sheriff's office plan to come in and take over. That's never my plan. I'm a partner, not a ruler. I'll say that. Um, you know, there are some very recent conversations that have come up when you talk about um the functionality of our some of our smaller agencies. I don't think I'm um at a position where I can talk about that right now. It's very very preliminary. Um um but I don't see I don't see that having legs and going anywhere anytime soon. >> Okay. >> Um but again, you know, it's just again going back to that statutory mandate, keeping the peace in the county. If if they're falling short of something, we are there to partner and to make sure that we fill in whatever gaps that we can. Um, in regards to uh stats as far as uh increases and decreases in the various cities, that's something that we can get to you later. It's not anything that I have with with me here right now. Um, you know, but then I also think just off the top of my head with the number of critical incidences that we're seeing, I I would almost be willing to bet that some of those have increased um in recent time. And I, you know, um, agree with, uh, Commissioner Anderson, I think, who said it, you know, I don't like comparing anything to 2020, 2021. Those were, >> um, times where everything was off. And so, it's like where were we at pre that time and where we are now and using those trends to figure out how we can get our county to be a better place to live, work it for everyone, and visit, right? >> So, we will uh get you an answer on the exact statistics. >> Thank you. I'm I'm really concerned because everybody's getting hit, right? And I know that across the country, we've seen people just decide we're no longer going to have a police department rather than the sheriff's patrol and that's kind of scary sometimes. Is that going to be enough coverage? Is it going to work enough? And what does that do to the sheriff's department in lie of all the state and federal cuts? So, >> it's been asked even on a national level as I was with major county sheriffs. That was a question that was forged to me as well. >> Yeah. Well, on a positive note, I want to say that I really enjoyed going to your promotions and the swearing in of the recruits and the promotions of of lots of your sheriff's deputies. That was an incredible event. I think that's the largest amount of recruits we have ever sworn in at a time. Congratulations on that. Um, I was really excited just to see the different people and how much their families came up there, but the diversity and and and even diversity of age and sex and um, uh, where people came from, their origins, it was just wonderful to see that. And it's always great to hear the stories that we got to hear about, you know, life-saving awards, what people did in their job and their duty and giving them the accolades that they deserve. So, I just want to say that. Um, and and retention and recruitment really mattered a lot. And I know there was a struggle when we when you were working with this and you were working with our HR and we were all working together to resolve this issue. I'm just um I' I'd like you to talk a little bit about what your strategy is for keeping these great sheriffs now that we're on here for your retention. >> Um, thank you for that. And you know, and I did say it once in my speech, but if somebody from HR is here, kudos to them, too, because they did help us get to that point. and a lot of um uh respect for the work that they put in to help our team get to where we need to be. Um as far as looking into continued recruitment and retention, again, we'll have to wait to see what happens. Again, working within our the kind um confinements of our budget and seeing where we are. The one thing I would say about our staffing is that it changes daily. You know, I can tell you last week we lost a couple more people to other agencies. Um, but you know, I'm all about go to wherever it is that you think you're going to be happy at. I don't want a disgruntled person. So, so I'm okay with that, but just understanding and accepting that our numbers change on a daily basis. The number of years of experience that we've lost just this year to people who um retired is is great. And then when you think about that balance of new people versus experienced people, I always worry about being too young because again, what we're seeing out there is very critical. And so having that balance where we're having experience as well as welcoming new people who want to grow and learn into this profession is is is always great. Um when we talk about retention, you know, I believe in wholeheartedly take care of your people and they will take care of you and everything else. And so to just continue to um make sure that I show up for them and I'm listening and being very um attentive to what their needs are, realizing that at my level I don't see things through their lens, but making sure I keep those paths open so I can know what's going on and how I can better assist them with being the best deputies, um analysts, detectives, 911 telecommunicators, um to be is is very important. Um, just listening to some of them that are coming in and hearing one common denominator is we want to be here because you're still doing cop work. >> There are people who care about our communities. That's that's one thing. And then the other thing that we hear, I think it's more so because of Pat than me, but they said they like the leadership style here. >> So having that attraction for people coming in means something because if they like where they work, your retention is easier. Yeah. >> And so and then again the collaboration that we have throughout the county, you know, we want to be great partners and do this together and understand that, you know, you win some, you lose some, but the conversations never stop. The um the ability to try to understand from different perspective never stops. That's so important. So again, thank you for those comments. >> Thanks, Chief. Did you have anything to add? >> Um chair, commissioner, just scribbling stuff down. she's better at speaking off the cuff where I process things a little bit differently. But I do think about the support and the engagement is a huge piece of it. Just how our leaders lead, how are we mentoring, how are we developing professional development is a big piece of that too. I mean obviously we always have to consider appropriate compensation and in in the world that we live in today. Um and then another thing is is opportunities that we we can afford here. We're a large agency especially in the state of Minnesota. So the different collateral duties that we we call it. So we want to get people engaged. We want to give them the opportunity to develop themselves, mentor with other people and just be engaged here, be be a part of the team. And I think they feel that. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's what I hear too. I have I have one final and then I'm we have a few minutes for a quick question after me I think before we uh take our break at 1:30. Um if county attorney might be ready maybe a few minutes early. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. um you know when we have our conversations and thank you you visit with me quite often and you take my phone calls anytime I I call you. I really appreciate that. I thinking about the violent offenders. I mean the most violent offenders are in our jail. You you assure us of that. We try to put people where they need to be otherwise we put them in programming that that puts them in a different path. How do we get on ahead of this prevention of more violent offenders? What are what are your thoughts about this? I mean, you may not have the answers, and I'm probably going to ask the county attorney the same question. How do we get ahead of this so our jails aren't just full of violent offenders? >> Well, again, I go back to the three pillars. There's prevention, there's intervention, and there's enforcement. It's all of those things. Um, when I think about prevention, again, I don't look at us as just being enforcers of the law. When I talk about public safety, I mean true public safety. It isn't just the enforcement piece. We have to be in the communities. You know, I talked about um walking some of those kids to the bus stops or deputies, but you know what that does? It builds those relationships where communities want to talk to us about what's going on in their lives and in in their surroundings. So, you know, there's certain things that you can't gauge on the front end. It's it's more about feeling that impact. And so, when I think about some of the um successes that we've had with our cases, that's because community engagement. And so, you know, again, prevention, it has to be it. But then when we're intervening, thinking about like all the tools that we have to to stop things before they even happen, you know, um to follow that, uh you know, I do believe that um uh part of um deterrence is is showing up and being very involved in the community. And then there is the enforcement piece there. you know whether it's our kids or adults you know there has to be some response when when people uh cross that threshold you know we have to teach our young people that you know that there are consequences to actions and that same thing for adults but again doing it in a humane way doesn't mean treating people like lesser than a human being you know one of the things that frustrated me like even when running for this position is people wanted to separate the fact that you can be compassionate empathetic But you could can't do that and yet hold people accountable. Well, as I tell people all the time, anybody that's a parent, that's what you do when you're a parent, >> right? It's the same it's the same concept. So, um, again, prevention, intervention, enforcement, all of those things need to be a part of it and done in a humane way. >> Yeah. I just think there's got to be a lot more work and study done on how does somebody actually then end up there if we've done some work. How did we miss them? That's why I still think about some of the the kids who end up homeless that they might child they never saw child protection and yet we miss them. How do we miss them? You know, we we care about those those missed cases, right? Because where could we have done more? What could we have done? And I I really care about that work. >> I can add to that, Commissioner. We got to stop trying to make it one sizefits-all. >> Okay. >> Every incident is every person, every family, every individual, they're different. And when we try to custom everything to fit in the same one, you're going to miss people. So what that means is, yes, it means more work, harder work, longer work. But when we try to do one sizefits-all, you're going to miss people. You're going to miss communities. You're going to miss families. >> Okay. All right. Go ahead. You >> Yes. Thank you. >> Um, just first off, we this board has spoken at length and admin that we believe what you just said, compassionate, logical, and accountable leadership and outcomes are possible. And that is what Henipin County's u mission and workforce is seeking to pursue and accomplish. So want to share that. Um few things. One, I'm in that person- centered framing. I'm hopeful that progress has been made around jail visitation and whatnot. I know that that was a discussion we had. No need to respond, but I um appreciate our conversation. I'm um hopeful progress has been made there. From a data perspective, I think I've clarified a little bit more what I think we are asking about from an uh for overtime. We want to know the numbers not because we think it'll get to zero. We are not thinking that. But we would prefer if budget to actual gets closer to zero over time. So it's about a predictability piece. So this is data sitting next to you not sitting across from you to uh in that increase of predictability allows us programmatically to take different types of priorities on um on behalf of our residents etc. Another example of that is really mutual aid. I mean that was another question that was asked if you are even if it's reimbursed um we don't have a line of sight as to the pressures staff and financially to that level and that and as it hits personnel being 80% of the budget that that's where um our inquiry uh is probably coming from just based off of other not speaking for the board on that but that that's how we're speaking in other lines of uh business. Um and then the last thing is just more of a flag. Clearly there needs to be legislative advocacy next year around the state or at least conversations with the state for them to understand the impact of their decisions. So just for everyone to hear, we are very aware that that needs to take place. Um in a from a resident perspective, whether it's unfunded mandates or health expenses. Um I've been trying to come up with a word for it. So in business you talk about opportunity costs, right? What's the cost of missing out on opportunities as reductionist way? >> I don't know how we're going to um have the state of Minnesota kind of be in relationship to their intervention costs, the the cost if Henipin does not intervene on either state function or um just the mounting um cost that Henipin is taking on. and you um a significant part and uh among among uh a lot of line items Medicaid's the easy one to point at greater should Medicaid be gone today that's greater than our entire levy for the hospital and for us so I we can't tax our way out of this we have to get the data and the partnership which is what has been taking place so thank you but just wanted to put a finer point to some of those comments uh for the kind of general ether thanks madam chair >> other comments please go ahead just to that if we're going to talk to lawmakers, which I don't disagree with you on, one of the worst times to do that is when session's starting because they are have a thousand things going on. So, I don't disagree that that I mean, honestly, it's very unfortunate all the cuts. I mean, there's so many cuts, but one of the things that um just even as a former lawmaker, you're so inundated with so many things. So, I I think we should all as commissioners, as obviously share a few too, be talking to them now. So showing them now like look at what we just you know it may be emailing them now hey we just met with the sheriff's department and this was cut this is really hard for us. I I just honestly I because you get into session and they're they have a flood of things. They have a flood of things and so I just I agree with you. I just want to make us as productive as possible with this. >> Case in point commissioner one time testifying last year about um uh budiciary um help is that's what they did. They pointed back like well what is the county doing? Is the county not funding this? But you know that's why I'm trying to advocate certain things. That's what we have done and that's uh the fingerpointing came back to commissioners. So of course >> madam chair I think and to commissioner Edson's point I think it's lawmakers but this isn't everybody's thing. We need state agencies the governor's office. I mean this is these are significant numbers being cut. And so I this isn't we're kind of beyond fingerpointing like mathematically I think. So that's where >> just to be very clear, this is not, you know, just you you had mentioned the parent piece or anybody that has kids in their lives. If a basement is super messy that needs to be clean, I don't care who started it. Like how are we going to clean the basement, you know, so we can all get to dinner or whatever. And so I just want to be super clear. This is >> No, no, I get it. And and also we can work with the governor's office right now. Like right now, we can have our our legislative team go to the governor's office and say, "Hey, listen. State agencies are all government approval. State agencies can't literally do anything unless the governor signs off on it. So if we want to change it, I'm just saying like let's do the appropriate like let's do that right now and have our lobbyists let's change it next week at the board and say hey we just found out about this uh now it's not Korean team it's Liz and team now go right now and start working with the governor's office because I just think the quicker we can have that in line too the better results hopefully we'll see. So I agree with you. I totally agree with you. Yeah. Any final thoughts everyone? I am going to uh call a break now. Actually, my that clock is not right. I have 1:23. Let's be back at 1:30 and we'll start with the county attorneys. But thank you. Thank you to everybody who's here. Thank you to the deputies there and all the staff who's not here who also worked on this. Right. Appreciate you. Good afternoon. We are reconvening now and we're going to be going to the Henipin County Attorney's Office budget discussion. Um, we'll start with introductions again because there's a few new players here. Um, Debbie Goel, Henipin County Commissioner, District 5. >> Irene Fernando, District 2. Angela Connley, District 4. Heather Ottoendo. >> Mary Morerti, Henipin, County Attorney. Jody Wentland, county administrator. >> Joe Matthews, chief financial officer. Dan Ro, deputy county administrator. >> Good afternoon. Shel Busman Figer, assistant county administrator, Los Justice. >> Kevin Anderson, District 7. >> Meer, District, District 3, District 7. Nothing. Mr. >> Welcome everybody. Um I'm going to hand this right over to administrator Wetland and she can introduce this budget presentation. Chair Gotel commissioners. Thank you. Um today you are hearing the second half of today's budget briefings from the law, safety and justice line of business. This budget briefing is focused on our county attorney's office. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mary Morardi, our county attorney. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh thank you, chair. Thank you, commissioners. Thank you uh county administrator Wentland and also David Huff who was very helpful with this and county staff uh OBF uh thanks to everyone including our staff who helped put this presentation together. >> Uh next slide. So that's our agenda. We'll just skip through that to the next slide. So, we have, and this sometimes surprises people, over 500 staff, and most of the time people think of us as uh our criminal work, but we do a lot of other work uh including work you know about, which is with our civil division who works with you. We have uh mental health, child support, child protection, all of those different divisions. We, by the way, did not put a picture of staff on there, an identifiable picture of staff because our staff has also been the recipient of threats lately. Um, and to protect their privacy, we we put a different picture on, but this kind of shows you, uh, this is the auditorium. That's Kelsey up there, who I think is here in the back. Um, but we have a very large collaborative office. Um, next slide, please. So serving residents. Um here are just a few of the many ways we serve and support our res residents. So you can see there we had over 10,000 criminal cases that we received. One important thing to understand is that we don't charge cases unless they're submitted to us by law enforcement. Uh so we need to get those cases, but we had over 10,000 of them. And our criminal divisions include our what we call adult prosecution, community prosecution. We also have youth prosecution. Uh we uh in the yellow box there you can see we provided a lot of support to victims and that was through our victim service victim witness uh staff. Uh as you can see there provided support for over 8,000 plus victims. and through our domestic abuse service center uh we also provided a lot of support. I think one thing that you will be incredibly proud of is this year um unfortunately when enunciation happened our victim witness team came into my office and said we want to go out there and they did. They were on the scene shortly after this happened. They provided traumainformed support for the parents of children who were deceased uh and other people and they were there every day uh weekends, nights, they were there at the family center, the neighborhood center. Uh you they did astronomical work and you should all be really proud of them um because they really provided services that had never been provided before. In fact, many of you, all of you probably know um Eric Wagi. Um we met last week to talk about a different kind of model where if you have shooting, mass shooting kind of thing, um that traumainformed services are part of that response, which they haven't been in the past. So, I just want you to know how proud I am of our victim service staff. Diananna Smith is here. uh she led them uh and they did tremendous work in helping people get through that horrible tragedy. Um we have done tremendous work with UT visas. Uh in let's see in 2024 we had certified 96 and in 2023 we had serve or certified nine UR visas. this year 450 plus. So what does that mean? That means that when someone is a victim of a crime and they are an immigrant, one of the things that we can do uh is to certify a document saying that they were a victim of a crime. Essentially that gives them some status uh in the hopes that they will uh and gives them the opportunity to apply for a UR visa. It also helps us uh work with them to help them get services they might need, help us prosecute if necessary. But we took a very different approach when I came into office to be much more proactive and that's why you see the difference between nine and over 450. So our team that does those uh has just done a tremendous service. We've also done a lot of community outreach uh because even if we are certified them but community doesn't know that uh there's a lot of mistrust obviously with our immigrant community. So we've been out there uh reaching out we uh um we did a whole UT visa uh town hall sort of thing in Richfield entirely in Spanish. Uh so we've been doing great work getting out there. Next slide. So uh first slide there is about be at school. Uh that is an area we've expanded a great deal. We got over 10,000 referrals or have this year thus far. Uh it's an area where we really partner with other uh agencies in the county and I'll talk about that a little bit later. Um, next slide. 45 plus. Herposs. Ano is an extreme risk protection order, otherwise known as a red flag law. Uh, as you know, I think from last year uh I hired Raina Alexander uh because we just got the os from the legislature and people were confused about how to get one, what it was. Um, we have many law enforcement entities, over 38 in Henipin County, and there was just a lack of coordination. So, I hired Raina, and she has really been in charge of coordination and training for law enforcement. Um, thanks to you, we were also able to hire an HRO advocate, uh, Bridget, she is working with community members and organizations because you can file for one if you are a household member. And essentially just very quickly, this is a tool. It's a civil tool where if if you believe that somebody is struggling with their mental health and may have access to a gun or has a gun and that they may be at risk of harming themselves or others, uh you can get an herpo uh filed and that allows law enforcement to get the guns and actually in many cases people hand over their guns. We've had some really big success stories there about preventing school shootings, about preventing people from committing self harm to the point where uh one woman actually went to a store after threatening that she was going to go buy a gun and harm herself. Uh there was an herpo uh got filed right away. She went to a store. Uh the staff did what they were supposed to do and looked through the database and that flag came up. That's why it's called red flag. they would not let her buy the gun and hopefully that saved her life or at least gave her the time to interrupt that thought process. So our um and there was an article in the strip about how the coordination in Henipin County is pretty much going better than anywhere else in the county and most of that is because of Raina's work with law enforcement and and community members. um uh 500 plus uh records, felony records that we've sealed. We have done somewhere in the ballpark of six community expungement clinics, meaning we go out to various communities. We've been in South Minneapolis, North Minneapolis, suburbs to meet the public where they are and help them see whether they can get their record expuned. And that's been highly successful. Next slide, please. So, how do we serve residents by also serving the organization? As you all know, we have a civil division that works with you. Ben Schweard is there in the second row. Um, you know him well. Uh, our civil division helped navigate the county board navigate a governance reform process at Henipin Healthcare. Um they've also been extremely helpful uh in working uh on the issues that you've all been talking about with our funding. Uh as you know we're being sued, targeted, whatever you want to call the current administration and our civil division has been integral in responding to that uh to advising you and us about um various strategic ways of approaching that. So they've done an excellent job. Uh they've also supported 60 plus county departments. Uh you can see the number of contracts there. We just threw some some interesting numbers in there, but they work really hard on on your behalf and our behalf. Next slide, please. So, this talks about quite a few of our key county collaborations. And I'm not going to go through all of these. Um, but they're they're pretty exciting because in this time of limited resources, it's so critical that we work with other county agencies and organizations so that we're not duplicating our efforts and that we work together to produce efficiency and good results for the people of Henipin County. So, as you know, the domestic abuse service center moved in behind security here. Uh it's got a beautiful new space and I know some of you have been there. If you haven't uh please come down and take a look. The family playroom is I was going to say it's spectacular unfortunately for children who have to be there but it's beautiful. Um so come down and have a tour anytime uh you want to. So but we work with the sheriff's office, the city attorney's office, district court, social service organizations to meet victims where they are. People can walk in, they can call. Um, we do not, even though it is part of the county attorney's office, we do not have an agenda with them. If they do not want to prosecute, that's fine. We can help them with safety planning. It's all about meeting our residents where they are. Uh, truency intervention, that's be at school. Um, as you can see there, we work with child protection, Henipin County Education and Support Services, Henipin County Connect for School Success, Henipin count or Office of Broadband and Digital Inclusion, um, and school districts across the county. So, that's a really effective partnership. And then our youth I'm just skipping to another one there. Our youth autotheft early intervention project. We work with behavioral health in Henipin County, law enforcement agencies across the county. And um chair, that actually goes to a question you had earlier, a little bit about it. Um so we we met with law enforcement agencies. I met with them four times a month my first year and we said, um you know, what are you seeing out there? And they said, "We're having a hard time on car theft." As we all know, car thefts went way up um after CO and because of the Tik Tok challenge and at the same time they were being uh done by a lot of youth wearing masks and it was just really difficult for law enforcement to be able to put together a case. However, law enforcement knew who the young people were that were engaging in this behavior. So, we learned from um the data analysts, from the sheriff's office, and others that kids, and we're talking sometimes 10, 11, 12, young kids, it's takes a couple of months for them to escalate from that stealing a car to something more violent. And so, we were in this situation where we were understanding that that escalation happened quickly. And as you all know, if you're going to intervene with a young person, it needs to be pretty quickly, right? if you're waiting until, you know, law enforcement is able to get a case and bring it to us, that may be too late in terms of that escalation. So, we partnered with law enforcement uh to just have them give us the names, not for the purpose of net widening. We did not want to bring those young people into the system. We wanted to keep them out completely. So, what we did, and this has been a a county partnership, um that started out with our be at school social worker, but now is with the embedded social workers, um when we would screen these young people to see if they were getting any county services. And surprisingly to me, half of them were not half of those young people that were involved in the car theft were not getting any kind of services. So, those young people and their families were referred to get services. uh the data of success on this is is very very good. So that was one key collaboration that we continue to have. It's been so successful that law enforcement has asked us to expand it to robbery, that kind of thing. And that's more about a resource thing that I will be hitting you up administrator in terms of help from behavioral health. So it's been that successful. Uh next slide, please. So, our budget overview. Oh, next slide. Sorry. Um, I'm not going to read through the whole thing. As you can see, uh, we're talking about an increase of 4.9%. And the driving factors for that are salaries and wages, uh, health insurance premiums. I can break those down individually if you want or I'll send them to you later. Um, we did add that one extreme risk protection order, FTE, and three civil attorneys, an increase there that was authorized for hire in 2025, and that's going to be out of our budget in 2026. Um, so all of the personnel kind of costs. Um, that is the huge driver here. Um, we were able to offset some of that in network storage reductions of about 900,000. uh we were able to reduce due to changes in file management practices. So that was an area we were able to save some money. Uh next slide please. So you can see once again there we're talking about an increase of 4.9% in property tax. Next slide please. You can see the distribution here of full-time equivalents. We're not asking for any new uh FTEES. we understand where we are um in terms of overall staffing in the county and budget. Um and I we have done an amazing job actually of holding positions um even though it's a stress on our staff but I realize it's a stress on all county departments but we have done a I think a wonderful job of managing um to to reach the the goals that you have asked us to reach. Uh next slide please. So, these are some of our countywide, your countywide priorities, and I'll just highlight a few uh programs and initiatives that we're doing. Next slide, please. So, as you know, we created a worker protection >> team and we got the very first conviction in Minnesota on the wage theft law. Uh, and we are we are expanding. We've they team's done a lot of work. Um I when I came in I would have thought it was easier to get cases to us but because it isn't really the type of thing that many in law enforcement or many agencies uh usually investigate um and because many community members who are the victims of wage theft are very vulnerable. They might be immigrants or they might just not know who to call. Um they might know their wages are being stolen but who you call? If you call 911, they may get an answer of that's not criminal, that's civil. And our goal here was just to use all of the tools. Sometimes just the threat of us being involved is enough to get somebody to to change their practices. So um this team has really worked hard with the construction injury industry and other industries and with community building trusting relationships and creating a hub so that people know they can contact us and we will even help um funnel that case towards the appropriate investigative agency and sometimes that's the commerce and fraud department federally. So they've done a a terrific job developing those relationships. Next slide please. Um, one of the things we're working on is emerging adults. We have spent a lot of time on youth, um, and have really, really good success, uh, stories to tell, and we can follow up on that. Now, we're looking at those ages 18 to 25. They're not um, like I mean, the law recognizes or has decided that when you're 18, you're treated as an adult, right? Um and but we know brain develop isn't finished. There are there are a lot of issues that are still there and we're trying to build some teams to focus on uh what to do with young people in those areas to match them with resources that really do help with young people there. Now that doesn't mean you know some of our approach that happens actually to be the highest racial disparities we have um in that 18 to 25 year old there's a lot of gun violence there too. So, we're throwing a lot of different approaches at it. Um, including our group violence intervention contracts, uh, and other things, but that is one of our priorities. Uh, we've been talking to our partners such as probation. Uh, they have a TA unit, transitional age youth unit. We'll be working with them and and other partners as well. Next slide, please. So when I came in, we didn't have one children and families division. We our child protection child I mean it was all in different places. And so we created uh one one division there with the understanding that the kids that we see in child protection uh or that whose parents are getting child support or in youth prosecution are our same kids and families and so we need to have all those services there. We have worked very hard to try to break down the silos with those kids because because of privacy uh data practices it's hard to share information through more but we have worked really hard to have a uh coordinated effort within our office and with the county to address the needs of those young people and their families. Next slide please. So restorative practices, we have done significant work with youth on restorative practices and have been able to are about to expand that because of a state grant we received. Um we're also expanding our work in restorative practices with our adult work. We hope to have that off the ground early next year. Um I know Commissioner Conley, you and I have talked a lot about restorative practices and how it's really been missing um in a lot of the work in the system. So that is one of our priorities and work that we'll be doing in the coming year. Next slide, please. So challenges. So 87% of our budget is personnel. So that really limits a lot of our flexibility. Um and as you can see there, a lot of our work is mandatory. So, we get referrals from law enforcement. We can't turn down referrals. Um, referrals come to us and we have to do something with them. Civil division doesn't control the needs of our county clients. And one of the reasons we got those extra FTEES is because um Ben Schwiger showed me a graph of how the county departments had grown here and our civil division had not. Um, and so we're happy uh to do the work of the county, but it's it's having to do more with less because the county has expanded so much. Um, and they're just, you know, with child protection, we just we don't we can't just limit what's coming to us. And so that's kind of puts us in a position where what we're doing is uh the big um budget saver was to hold positions. Next slide, please. So that goes to this slide. So beyond the required vacancy factor, it did take me a while to figure out vacancy factors too. We're holding additional positions vacant for 2026. That is the primary way that we're holding um trying to meet the budget, which would be 1.6 million savings. Um we're leaving some contract funds unspent. We've used some fund balances. uh we've limited all the things um you know conferences uh travel all of that kind of thing uh and so I think we've done a wonderful job with that >> excellent >> thank you thank you >> all right that was that was quick was great great >> that was 21 minutes I >> thank you appreciate it I'm going to start with commissioner Eden are you ready for comments Okay. >> Um Okay. Uh I guess we'll just go with the last slide that you just said. So for positions with the vacancy factory, you said that you have um some that you're holding vacant. Do you Which ones which departments have you targeted for those? We haven't targeted I would say because we have a bunch of different divisions. >> We have treated our FTEEs as though they belong to the organization as a whole. And so Sarah Davis, our deputy, has done a wonderful job of uh meeting with every department and just seeing, you know, who who is really needing the FTE and we'll transfer it there. Um, but it's it's difficult because everybody needs their FTEES. There's a lot of strain on people, but it's just been a balance of where are we are, where are we at now, what does the workload look like, is this a a division that can hold off for a little bit while we fill this position over here and then we fill that position. So, it's been a balancing across the office. >> Thank you. Um, okay, then just two more questions. Thank you for that. Um, so with 8,000 victims served this year, um, and do you feel, um, first of all, that that that seems like a lot. I mean, what's that's has that up or down from prior years? Do you know? >> We or you can follow up with me. You can follow up with me. I just curious. That's that's good to >> chair, Commissioner Eden. We'll definitely follow up with with what the numbers have looked like in past years. >> Thank you. Thank you. And then for the extreme risk protection orders, um I would love to see those used obviously as much as we possibly can. Yes. Um I might imagine you feel the same. Um in terms of I know that this is newly rolled out. I appreciate the positions you've added for other jurisdictions that have had them in other states and other counties where they've seen them for longer. Are we learning things from that and do are we making changes so that we can utilize it as much as possible? >> Um Chair Commissioner Eden, thank you for asking that. When the extreme risk protection order law was about to come into effect, every town reached out to me and said, "Would you like help in implementing your purple law?" And I said, "Why yes." Um I I don't know enough about it. And so we set up a meeting and they have an implementation kit. We had conversations. That is actually what prompted me to decide that I needed to hire a person to coordinate because there were just a lot of questions um as there would be with any new law. Um and it it was is it the sheriff or the local police that are responsible? Um oh the prosecutor can actually file these. What does it mean to have a household member? How do you define a household member? All of those questions uh were kind of up in the air. And so, uh, every town was tremendously helpful to me in realizing we needed help. And so, we were fortunate to be able to hire Raina Alexander who has a lot of experience in training on these, and she just jumped right in and she's met with law enforcement. Um, and I, you know, if you, if you looked at that strip article about HPOS, um, it talks about how coordinated Henipin County has been, and that's led to more of them, uh, than any other county in the state. And I would credit that due to Raina's work with law enforcement and community. The what every town has said, other agency have said, we're way far ahead actually in some ways as some other states. I think in the whole state of Connecticut, they hadn't filed as many as we have in Henipin County. However, the fact that I mean, to me, it doesn't matter where we are in terms of other states. What I know is that we go out and we do presentations and I go out and talk to community members and they don't know about this tool and to me it's essential. So we have actually created a toolkit uh herpo toolkit that has graphs and frequently asked questions that we are about to roll out I think next week. So our goal is to get out there to talk uh to community members to make sure people understand what this is, how to get one, uh how to get help getting one. And so we'll probably be sending that toolkit to all of you so that you can get it out to your communities because I especially with you know right now um there are more guns than we have people here and we see gun violence and this is simply one tool uh that is available to us to at least temporarily get the guns out of the hands of people who are struggling with their mental health. >> Thank you madam and thank you for that. I I appreciate your passion on it and just thanks for hiring and trying to do whatever you can to build that up. I also um big fan of the auto theft prevention pilot you've launched. That's been great. I also love that you have sectioned off and did the um truency behavioral health um kind of under a children and families division kind of like we did at the legislature with looking at um DC YF. Sorry, acronyms are really tough. Um I think that's a great idea and I I totally absolutely um however we can do however we can treat youth in a rehabilitative sort of way so that they can go on and live successful adult lives. Um I just really strongly believe in that. I I love the be at school program. I would love of course a highlight of that. Uh if you want to speak a little bit more things that you've maybe done on that. Um, and then uh just if you could just speak to I mean for the civil division. I mean I know that we're talking about it but it's interesting. I'd be curious from like the perspective of the county attorney's office. Um and I know I've just lumped in two big different things here but for the federal funding and like what you guys are doing in the civil division behind the scenes because I always think of Ben as being a part of us but Ben's really part of your office. What are you guys doing when you're thinking about how stressful it is uh as we're looking at all the different things to track because the the chaos of what's happening at Washington DC I think has every legal brain or every policy brain um wanting to uh scratch its head and maybe explode I don't know but if you could just speak to those two things. >> Sure. Um, going back to be at school, um, one of the really exciting things the team did was to get a grant, uh, to embed two social workers in middle schools. Um, that was a pilot project we did this year and I'm not sure if we have the data on it yet. If we don't, we will, but it anecdotally was tremendously successful. And here's why. We had a convening of school board chairs, uh, superintendent, uh, end of my first year, I think, and we were trying to understand that time gap. You know, we're supposed to get notification of when kids aren't in school, but we often don't get it until well after we're supposed to. And what we heard from the schools was, we're overwhelmed. We don't have the resources to be doing all of this. That's one of the problems. So these two embedded social workers, one of them was allowed access to I think the records before school started and she was able to reach out to families and say, "Oh, you know, you're not registered for school. Can I help?" And you know, sometimes it's just something small. It's whatever. And she was able to help kids get registered to be in school on day one, which I think is critical. Another uh story that I heard from them was um uh because they're embedded in schools, they build relationships with these kids. And she was telling us about a child who was there, but he kept falling asleep in class. And so she talked to him and said, "Hey, you know, you're here, but you're falling asleep. What's going on?" And the the child, the young person said, "My mom works a bunch of jobs and she's not there at night and I stay up way too late playing video games." And so the social work was able to work with that child and say, "Hey, we got to have your body here. We also have to have you here. What what can we agree to do so that you can get more sleep?" And so that situation improved. So I came away thinking, "Wow, this is amazing." As you know, as you all agree, if we can get kids in school um and get them to stay there, the outcomes are going to be much better. So that was one of the creative things that our team did and I'm sure we can follow up on on other things and the data with that. The other question you said I think there's so much going on right now um nationally and you know was it last week I think Steve Simon's being sued to hand over our record you know there's just it's happening all the time and I think the way I look at it is that most of these things aren't actually legal um but they're not actually illegal I suppose until they're found in court to be illegal um and So I tend to think of it as a lot of scattered kind of stuff designed to make us not do the things out of fear. Um and so the way we're trying to look at it is let's continue down our path. Uh let's be careful. I mean I meet with Ben frequently um and gives me updates about what's happening in the county in terms of that litigation and what's going on with our own office. Um but there are a lot of successes and I think it's important for people to know that um when uh we push back um across the country we win uh and unless it gets up to the Supreme Court um but we have had many many successes around the country and so I think it's important for people to understand um we are pushing back um it's not always the best strategy to talk about how and why and what we're doing But there are many many wins out there. And I think that that's one of the things uh to take away that all this stuff is happening designed to make people fearful. It is making people fearful, but for those of us in these positions to stay the course, um be pushing back. Um it's helpful to know that a lot of the times we are winning those fights. So that's how I tend to look at it. >> Thank you. And I'm done. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner Connley. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Oh, excuse me. >> Sorry if I could, Madam Chair. Um, sorry, Commissioner Conley. Uh, I just want to add in on the on the work with the civil division and monitoring the federal response. Huge kudos to the county attorney's team. We meet every day >> and so I meet along with Lindsay Walshagger who's our budget coordinator, Beth Stack, who's our chief compliance officer, Jennifer Yang who's our uh director of grants management and administration. That team is really phenomenal. Um, and I'm forgetting the stats, Dan, maybe you'll recall. I think there was something like 75 different federal actions that we were holding pending um, protections. We've put a tremendous amount of time in. The bulk of the work is being done by the civil division team who is giving us legal guidance and also the staff from grants management which are digging through with all the departments and really framing things up for the attorney's office to process. And so, um, I think we can say with a very high degree of confidence, we have not agreed to any terms or conditions that we think would put the county at risk financially. That has been a major focus going back to the beginning of this year. Um, we also didn't really know where this path would take us as we began. And as U County Attorney Morardi said, we don't need to speak in great detail about the legal process, but on the administrative side, I want to just acknowledge we have looked at every single grant application, every notice of funding award, we've looked at every draw down, all of these bureaucratic steps that make the machine work behind the scenes. We have worked through with their team and they all have been reviewed. Uh her team has done a really phenomenal job of providing us with insightful guidance. Um, I honestly think, um, I don't think I'm overstating by saying I think we've had the best response nationally. It's been very proactive. Um, I'm very grateful for the amount of time that we've gotten. It's also a really great team. If you know, uh, that group of individuals, u, Britney and David and Dan. Um, and of course, I'm going to forget somebody when I start naming names. Becca. Don't want to forget Becca. um we literally spend so much time together um that you know I think we really become a cohesive team even though we're really meeting on a daily basis to try and triage this task. So, I just don't want to um leave this conversation without recognizing we will quantify the hours here as we come to the end of the year, but it is a staggering amount of time. And I will just say from, you know, putting on my financial uh manager hat, it's a huge amount of time that we could be spend investing in other areas of our community. But we are doing this to protect the taxpayers of the county and to make sure that we can continue continue to do the work that this board has identified as strategic priorities under the guidance of the county administrator and with the other electeds. So, it's been a real uh honor to do that work. It hasn't been a lot of fun. Um but I just I really appreciate the time. It it has been a tremendous commitment from a lot of staff. >> Wow. It's good to hear >> for all you guys are doing. Charlie, >> I can definitively say about that. I participate in prosecutors conversations throughout the country and with one exception maybe and we can argue about that. I think King County um and I would say we do better than them too, but we have the best I feel the most confident. I feel we have covered everything that needs to be covered. We can't control the results, but I think the residents of Henipin County are getting the best civil representation in the country. >> Thanks. Thanks, Commissioner Collie. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, County Attorney Morardi, um, for your presentation. Thank you to your staff and the leadership here that's in the room. Um, I can't say enough about, uh, some of the incredible work that comes out of your office. Uh I will start with I just felt a theme of prevention in what you've presented today. Uh moving upstream which is what we talk about a lot in serving residents and preventing what we see um sometimes on the other end of the spectrum. Um and I realize this is also a budget hearing so I do have budgetary questions but I wanted to start with that. Um, I can't speak enough about the incredible work that you led with and that was the work of our victim and witness services. Um, I was coming into the government center as you were rushing out and I think we stopped to hug and that was it and I knew exactly what was going on. And the fact that um, this core group of incredible human beings stayed with those families is not lost on me. I hope they're being well supported. Uh because when we talk about mental health in Henipin County, I think that also includes mental health for our first responders. It includes mental health for our victim and witness services staff and for anyone who is directly in uh the street, so to speak, with people who are just absolutely going through the worst times of their lives. The folks that show up for them need support, too. And so, um, this is just a a a group of incredible humans and, uh, I appreciate everything that they do. So, thank you for leading with that. Um, I also want to say that, you know, we have talked a lot about restorative practice and as a social worker, I will say that I know that this is something that we should invest more in because it works. Um because if I can get across the table from a 13-year-old who stole my vehicle, I might be able to prevent something h from happening in the future. It may change um how that young person views what it is that they did. It may stop another family from experiencing what I did. I just believe in the work. And when um when I was studying social work, we had Paul Schnell come in, as a matter of fact, this is a very long time ago, talk to us about why restorative practice works. And it is a Yeah, he was a adjunct professor where Okay, my undergrad. Anyway, um continue on this course because I heard that you are and read that you are and I just I can't speak more highly of it. I've seen data around um the effectiveness of it for both the victim and the person who committed the crime, whether it was a young person or an adult. This is um often a conversation that needs to happen. And I I think uh my question originally to you years ago was, is this something that the court can like sentence someone to? Like how far are we with this with this work? So, I'm excited to continue to to to see it evolve. I think it can change lives. You can speak to that. >> Okay. Chair Commissioner Connley, in our diversion programs, that's our choice. And so we have devoted a lot of resources into restorative practices um for youth. And so we don't have to wait for the court to do that. Uh which is good because we've talked about before kids need quick consequences, right? You can't wait until the court process. um for it to make any sense. So we have done that on our own. Um, I wanted to reflect on a conversation you and I had um that that you shared with me and that I completely believe in that, you know, if you if a young person steals a car um and they don't really understand the impact, it it's not, you know, we can do things over here that may not impact them as much as sitting across the table from the person from whom they took the car and perhaps hearing from that person, hey, I'm a single mom. you took my car. I didn't have any way to get to work or get my children to school. That is why I think restorative practices are so successful because the person who has harmed the other person has to apologize but also has to understand and own and and realize the impact that they had. It's on a person and it's hard to hear that sitting across the table rather than you know having to go be punished in some way. So, we very much believe in restorative practices. We are working on expanding that um uh in ways that I think will become more clear next spring. >> I'm excited for that. Thank you. Um and thank you for prioritizing it and expanding it. Um to talk a little bit about the budget. Um I appreciate the way that you've kind of uh looked at the uh 2026 situation and and and approached it. So, uh, I'm on page 12 of the budget booklet. I'm looking at how you offset personnel costs, how you've held those, uh, 13 vacant positions, which is saving money. Um, we we have had conversations since budget hearing started about moving soap from one bathroom to another or shaking couch cushions to find where there might be cost savings, right? And this is very much well reflected in your budget booklet uh, in your budget. So, thank you for for taking that into account. There's two things that stood out to me. Um, one of them is, um, you spoke very highly, and I will forever speak very highly of our DASK, um, of our domestic abuse service center. And I was wondering, their budget isn't necessarily a line item here. So, can you speak to the 2025 budget versus the 2026 budget for DASK or um, Heathers are trying, but I'd love to know kind of where we were this year versus where we'll be at next year for DASK specifically. >> Yeah, I think I'll have to follow up on that. um and get you the numbers. Um we very much realize that um Dask is critically important as is our victim witness department. Um they are the most diverse uh staff we have. Um and so we have made an intentional effort about recruiting um and making sure we maintain that uh group of people or that the size. Um but I will follow up on the exact numbers. >> Yeah, I appreciate that. Um, and that I think goes into the question too that Commissioner Ellison asked about where might we be holding some of those staff and just um if they are those two areas specifically. I'd be interested in that because I know that the need gets greater um and we want to be able to meet the need. >> It doesn't come from a particular department. Like I said, I think Sarah Davis and it's kind of reflects what you and commissioners have done is thinking about the FTEEs belong to the county as a whole, right? A whole um we have looked at it as these are all our FTEES and it's really a balancing of who needs what. It is never oh this division is underutilized, no division is underutilized or is less prioritized. It is where are you now in comparison to where this team is here? How desperate is the need here? And we are always balancing that way. And so it never comes out of one uh team. Um and we're always trying to make up here what we might have saved over here. And so we've been very intentional about that. Um and I'm very proud of the fact I mean we we did require I'm just laughing because you were talking about the same thing. higher level approval for soap um in the bathroom. So that was the level that we took a fine tooth. >> That was my comment earlier. >> We got to do it. We got to do >> we did that. >> Yeah. Okay. Um Madam Chair, I have a final just one final question and that's on page 15 of the budget booklet. Um you know, I uh remember when we got that African-American grant for victim services >> and it looks like we're losing it. So, it it's just 15,000. I'm wondering if that uh if we could still continue this very focused work. I think it aligns with disparity elimination. Uh I think it aligns with sort of what you said around gun violence and where the disparities really do lie. And if this was a federal grant that we had gotten for uh quite a few years and um losing it, but can we find 15,000 to keep that very specific focus? Um I will just say in general any area that we think is a focus and a priority we are trying to find the money to continue to do. Um and we know the federal grant we've been hit hard in certain places and not others and those are often the spaces that are critically important for us to fund. So we are very intentional and thoughtful about hey can we find money someplace else to fund this particular thing because we realize it's important. I can certainly get you the specifics of that as well. No, just um you know, if there's if there's a way to to keep that uh whole that that certainly would be nice and and I think I'll just end with saying that you know um I very much appreciate that we are that your office has committed to looking at things through a much different lens than we have like specifically looked at um in in the past. I think that they have not always been popular decisions as you're well aware in my opinion they have been the right decisions. They're the way that we move the needle on prevention. They're the way that we um move the needle um on overcriminalization of certain populations of people and rethinking what justice can look like and what it actually means. And I think that this is a budget that reflects that. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Commissioner Anderson. >> Thank you, Se. There we go. Thank you so much for the the presentation. I um appreciate the the overview, the descriptions. Thank you to my colleagues for asking so many of my questions already. So that makes my time faster. Um I do have I so I had I had mentioned this to the the sheriff. I will ask you as well in the um in the data blocks that we have here. I would love to see trend lines. Um, I love to see historical information to see where we've been, where we're going, how we're reacting to it. Um, another piece of the like the data that's been presented here, you know, we have, you know, 10,000 plus cases referred to us. How many of those are being acted on? Like, you know, kind of the the other part of the uh the work that's happening. I would love to just have information to see how that all fits together because I think it's helpful and and useful for all of us to see how that is. Um, I really appreciate the uh the collaborations and the the way that you are collaborating with so many different partner organizations. I think that is essential to what we are doing. Um and I think one of the things that I want to like we have talked about this in the past. I want to make sure that we are not duplicating efforts. Uh this is a huge part of where we are at right now is making sure that while we are doing work that we are not duplicating an effort uh that exists or is better handled in another area. So, um I just want to make sure that we are in alignment with the role that the county attorney's office, you know, the the function that you have versus the function that you know, human services or the sheriff's department or whoever uh might have um the the core responsibility of delivering a service that we are appropriately aligned. Um, I did have, and that's all I'll say on that piece. I did have a question on the budget component of it. Um, and maybe I just missed it, didn't understand fully. Uh, could you talk a little bit about the CAO professional standards line? Uh, I know it's it's a big percentage. It's not a huge dollar, but you know, could you speak a little bit to uh you know, I know that there was positions added there where others were held flat. Uh could you speak a little bit to that? >> Yeah, Chair, um Commissioner Anderson, on that I know it's what, a 33% increase, so that stands out. Um there were people who went there that transferred their FTEES there. Um it's it's really at reallocation. It's it's what I was talking about when we look at the FTEES broadly. Yeah. >> Um and so it so happens that those we had some people in limited duration. I believe that we had FTEES available so we moved that so that person could move in. So it I think it's an artificial 33%. It's not we haven't hired new people this year. I don't believe we had because we had some people in limited duration that are now stepping into those positions if that makes sense. >> All right. >> And we had some position one of the reasons county admin too went down is that we used I believe some of those positions to give an FTE to people in DOPS that didn't have FTEEs. >> Okay. Could you sorry just explain what that division or what that department >> Sure. Sure. I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. >> Yeah. I it's a division that we created when I came in. It's professional standards and it houses our expungement team, our Brady team, our conviction integrity work, um our pardons and commutations, our training. Um we now have comprehensive training for the first time in the office. Um where we and this this goes to, you know, conferences and stuff like that. We're not sending people to conferences that we're cutting down on that travel. we're having people come in to train um so that everybody can appreciate and learn from that person. So by having a a a comprehensive training division, we're able to bring that in inhouse. So that is part of professional standards as well. Um and I'm sure I'm missing it's Brady as well. So, it's a bunch of different teams that are doing a lot of really important work that either wasn't being done before or it's now centralized in a specific place. >> And so, that brings up just a a question that I've asked uh and will probably be asking in other budget hearings as we have the opportunity. Uh warning everybody, sorry. Um how much of the as we're looking at the work that we're doing, how much of it is uh statemandated versus work that we are trying to perform to get ahead of something. Um you know like I think so much of what Henipin County does and has been known for is being proactive. We talked about so much of the prevention work that I think is so essential to what we are doing, but you know, I think in in tough budget times, the non-mandated pieces are what we look at first, right? Um, and so I would I would welcome the like just kind of knowing a little bit more how you're looking at that in in terms of your budget. How much uh are we looking at mandated services versus non-mandated? >> It's probably less so than what you heard the sheriff talking about. I mean, we as you know are 87% personnel >> and really the say it's an unfunded we so local law enforcement we charge cases or we decline whatever we're going to do with cases. Those cases come from local law enforcement. So, our staff spends time looking at those cases, that evidence, reviewing it. Um, same is true with child protection, child support. Uh, pretty much everything we do has to do with uh, and civil included, what kind of work is needed in the county. So, I don't know that I mean that could be state mandate mandated by another department that we're helping with, but I don't know that we're particularly hit by unfunded mandates. Um, in the same way what I yeah what I will say in looking at the the department of professional standards which we just talked about when I mentioned Brady um that's constitutionally mandated. So we have a team that is has brought us into constitutional compliance which we were not before and that requires resources and work but that is required of us by the constitution. So I I don't we have um as everybody has lost some grant funding. Um we've been very creative and I think our people have been very skilled in getting grants and some of those have gone away and so then we just have to figure out okay can we continue to do that work or not. We have been very creative. For instance the youth autotheft initiative really doesn't cost a lot of money. when we started it, it was our social worker at be at school and really connecting to the county and the services there like FRSS. And so that's just being creative and it's a program that really hasn't cost much of anything and the returns are just huge. So I'm very proud of the creative innovations we have done in terms of the prevention work that aren't costing us a lot of money. >> Thank you. Oh, can I talk the data trends? Go ahead. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, please. >> And it's very I talk about data all the time. Um, we keep track of trends. Um, we look at them all the time. We do have a data dashboard, a public dashboard where you can look at our declines, our deferrals, all of that. Um, we do look at trends. I mean, if we're doing something that isn't working, then we need to find something else to do with. I have no interest in doing things that are not effective. I we have so much data um so many PowerBI dashboard that kind of thing. If there's a specific uh area that you're interested in, we'd be happy to send you that. Um >> thank you. >> Yeah. Anything that you want, I'm we're happy to send you. >> Any other followup? >> No, I'll we can follow up. >> Go ahead. Commissioner Anderson, um, County Attorney Morotti, the other piece is as you're looking at this budget, um, and we're seeing some adjustments in revenue and some new revenue coming in. I think part of the work that we will need to be doing is we yet do not know what the impacts are going to be coming from the federal government with the current budget shutdown and the budget cuts that are occurring. And so, it will be a challenge for all of us. Our commitment to disparity elimination will be critical. the positive work that's happened and we've been talking about it already. How do we start working together even more and even differently to assure some of those core critical programs that are delivered to our community that are the non-mandated prevention programs that actually make the difference on deep end um are supported and it will require us to think a little differently around that and how do we work across our departments but that is work that we already are in conversation. >> Thank you. Thanks. Go ahead, Commissioner Fernando. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, County Attorney Morardi, and the whole team who's here. Um, as you might have heard, I'm approaching this budget, this year's budget through policy direction, generational impact, data, and funding model. And so, for the first two, of course, as a duly elected individual yourself, just want to um express gratitude for the direction that you and your team have demonstrated to residents. it is consistently um upstream from my perspective trauma-informed restorative and that progression over the last particularly handful of years as Commissioner Connley named is very notable and uh I'm individually very grateful for that. Uh I also want to acknowledge just kind of the moment we're in you you like all the other areas are being expected to essentially manage through attrition and try to hold flat. So I just want to acknowledge that you know for anybody following at home pages wanted to show the whole org and even just looking at FTEES etc. we are largely flat with a few exceptions like you know elections etc etc. So I just want to acknowledge that uh your team is being expected to do um more because of the moment. Uh in addition to what uh Joe was sharing around wait let me step back. I I appreciated that you highlighted how demanding the county uh government civil side is on slide six. Uh that's not what how you said it but I just appreciated that the increased demand here. I mean I've been called worse than being called demanding county attorney. So, I felt very comfortable with that, but it really is a a really good reminder and when you know you you all kind of spoke um referenced it and so I want to put a finer point to the year 2025 for any residents who are who are watching in as uh the current administration's direction became um became more known analysis from dozens of staff across all departments, dozens of staff from a legal perspective and it seems as though the tolerance for unconstitutional and not yet legal actions continues to rise. And so from a county board perspective, we sought to engage with that with a lot of due diligence. We had advocated in DC, we advocated locally, we sent letters, we joined coalitions. And so I just want to share um on behalf of of all of us both to the residents of whom we are serving and to the workforce who we are seeking to keep stable and the taxpayer who's funding this work. We are really leaving those sewn unturned and seeking to be very deliberative. And you in your office represents quite literally the last line of legal defense or perhaps the first line of verified proactive action when there are just so many unconstitutional like observably unconstitutional and um actions that are uh really ripping our households and communities apart. So gratitude to everyone who has really I don't think we've actually talked about that yet that we've that we are joining lawsuits. We are prevailing in injunctive relief. We are there are hundreds of millions of dollars of financial um rel relief I guess you could say really uh because of uh you and your team's partnership. So thank you for that. Couple things I wanted to highlight. Um I've shared this with you already so this is not anything new. I like my colleagues will be very interested in focusing even more on um victims on how we think about that. Uh that is because writ large the cortisol in the air and the victimization of whole communities that is both unconstitutional and inhumane as mentioned earlier it doesn't seem like that will be decreasing anytime soon. And so how uh we are ensuring alignment there. Um I'm I'm very moved by where there might be systemic gaps and systemic corrections um or adjustments I should say as you are working with lots of various systems. So 3,700 plus people served at dask through the eyides of September. So that's like 15ish people a day if you even include weekends. So that's a material number of individuals that are coming to us specifically from a domestic abuse perspective. And so I just want to kind of clock that and say that out loud. Um in a time where uh attacks on race, gender, age, ability, country of origin uh continue to be further expanding. Um, of course, we know that the risk of victims increase and the risk of victims not reporting also increases. >> So, there's what's we're tracking and what is not yet being tracked or what people might be um uncomfortable to uh share. Um, even you know, there's not anything, you know, I know that everybody's very confidential, etc., But just the cortisol in the atmosphere has really placed residents in a really and households in a situation um that's kind of unimaginable in a in a lot of ways. So thank you for your partnership with with county government services and just I know I've shared this with you. I share this with you as we move forward. We have to with just with factual resolve identify gaps communicate those gaps. I said this at a budget briefing recently. Um you know almost talking about local governments as siblings like you know I'm a middle kid so I uh I am I'm aware that sometimes we have to motivate our siblings to engage in a way that is that is best for for the family party. and we are in unimaginable circumstances. So, how are we partnering in ways that have not yet been considered and how are we being bold in here? There's a gap that is identified. Um, let's convene the meeting to to work to correct that. Um, so I I also appreciate that the strategy that you've outlined and why you are not always naming your strategy out loud in the paper and whatnot. So, I I don't want to get too uh down too far down that road, but the attacks against women, people of color, transgender people, people with disabilities, people uh with various um life circumstances, and the just overcriminalization of poverty has just systemically worsened somehow in the last 10 months. Not because of us, but that's just what the data is showing. And so, thank you for holding flat this year. And we will certainly need to ensure um kind of a mutual understanding on on on what what progress means in this next period. It isn't just the data, it's how how that data is being analyzed and what are the precise tools that hopefully we're enacting. So I'm I'm more speaking a little bit to some of our you know some of the conversations I know that we've had over time um where I really appreciate the partnership. I didn't have a ton of questions. I other than how would you save $900,000 on like what's the denominator on that? I mean that No, I mean cuz it's a million dollars is impressive in general, but looking at your budget, 900,000 out of what line item is also impressive? I don't know if Glenn Gilbertson is also applying that to the rest of the county or how we're doing that, but where did this come from? that oh >> so sorry madam chair uh we can circle back with the number of list the county attorney has it handy we don't have it memorized in OBF but >> I chair commissioner our team and I give particular credit to Sarah Davidson and law >> they're all trying to find out >> well no I I I mean this was looking at absolutely everything we do non-personal right I mean we're 87% personal it was cutting out um at one point we we have donuts once a month um for our staff and we were going to cut that out but we just decided to do it out of our own pocket at one point. Um it it was you know we took this very seriously. Um and so we we looked at absolutely everything we possibly could. We really, and this goes to our staff too, having those conversations with there are just some positions we can't fill right now. If you can hold on another couple of months, then we can fill it. So, it has been a whole team approach uh to uh doing our very best to to comply with the board's request and I'm very proud of the fact that that we were able to do that. >> And you don't need to actually look. It's just it's just impressive. Like if once the once the denominator is identified, it was it's just it's a very impressive number to attain based off of your reported line items. Um I just literally don't know how you did that. Good. Good job. And I would love for whomever on any other IT department to attempt to apply those learnings. And then the um the uh the other thing that I just wanted to kind of um astric is immense gratitude for what you're calling emerging adults. I know we call it transition age youth. Um, I don't know what the right word is as a former youth worker because they are adults and they're not youth and I don't know if emerging is right. But what that is really getting at is every single young adult or young person in our sphere is a whole person of whom we can support and they can um you know live up to their individual potential and live up to their ambition and eventually contribute to um our community and our society and our tax base and uh maybe work at the county etc etc. And so I uh that focus aligns with brain development is a necessary workforce development tool and has all of the data that uh reaches the justice outcomes that I know we share. So I wanted to amplify that work um for you and your team. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> I did Could I respond chair commissioner? I wanted to talk about um domestic violence. um that is for victims of domestic violence. Um if they're immigrants, they're afraid to call the police. Now, um if um I mean the the domestic violence community organizations, the groups that support victims of domestic violence are losing funding, federal funding, um because of the cuts. And that makes us less safe. When when we know that victims of domestic violence uh are afraid to seek services or those services aren't available to them, it makes us all less safe. And you know, I remember when I first came into office, um there was a a young a girl, a teenager who was seriously injured in a car crash. And I had been hearing her name over and over um until she was in this crash. and she was very critically injured. And I remember thinking, we've all been hearing her name all of this time. What happened? And I asked our teams to come up with a uh what had happened in child protection, what had happened in youth, what had happened in the county, and we looked at this across the board. Um and you could see you could see what happened to her. But each of us was operating in a silo and we really couldn't see. I know if this particular entity had known what was happening to her here there would have been intervention instead of cutting off services. So I remember very vividly thinking wow um in any situation I want to make sure if something happens to somebody that we are serving um we need to be we need to have the humility to look and see was there something that we could have done better was there a policy or a practice that we didn't follow and even if we followed every policy or practice this terrible thing happened can we improve and I think that that's incumbent upon all of us, all leaders in this system. Um, and I just think it's so important, especially now, um, for us to come together, uh, and to really be looking at the causes of of certain things that happen in the community and really, and I said humility because it's hard sometimes to acknowledge that something happened that could have been avoided or maybe something was wasn't done right, but we have to have that. We have to have that. we owe that to our community and so that is something we take very seriously and we we do look at and will continue to look at. And just a quick follow up on that from a madam chair. Thank you. Uh thank you county attorney. Um I know I've been very vocal to county admin around trying to understand the full cost of a particular event or action, the full cost of gun violence because there is both death and there are um people in our hospitals. the full cost of um domestic violence and its impacts on child protection, its impacts on um in any the disability of any household or community. And so I just really echo appreciate that, echo that and that is the data that we have said that I have said that that that all of us know we need to kind of come together on. Um um so yeah, thank you. And then the second thing I appreciate your calling up forward and actually you and the sheriff both use um kind of in you know compassion and here humility. I I just grateful for the types of leadership traits and characteristics that um that is coming from today's briefing because that is what we need as we move forward. Um, a way that I try to think about that is too often we think about improvement from the um, individual's perspective who is delivering uh, versus the impact on the resident. And I think that's that uh, pairs really well with what you've expressed you uh, if I if I may you're sharing humility in way in order to give to a proper amplifying and centering which is trauma informed and evidence informed. Um, but I think too often, as you said, leaders are are looking at it as performance feedback versus resident outcome. And I'm very grateful for your distinction there. Thank you, Chair. >> Thanks. >> Well, I want I want to start with a women and domestic abuse resources center again because, you know, this is near and dear to my heart. I was the one who brought it to the board when I started here and it was actually outside of the county um having lots of conversations at the county attorneys level. We brought it inside so that we could do that holistic approach to to find out where did we miss but to fill those holes and I have, you know, the representation that we give these women is just amazing. I've heard their stories. They've come to us. It's it's great that we're doing this and we're holding up holding them up and their families. Lots of times they've got kiddos, something's going on. So, I just I wanted to say that. I loved your story about looking back and prevention because that's exactly what I'm talking about with our our felonies, our violent felons who are in the jails or in the system or anything. Where did we miss them? Where where did we miss? How many times did we touch them and we didn't get all the way we needed to be? And we're going to learn from those things. So, I I appreciate the fact that you talk about your organization as a learning organization. And I think the county as a whole is a learning organization and that really matters because that's how we get to prevention. Um I wanted to talk too about the UN and visas when I was many many years ago. I'm the senior one on on this board right now. Um speaking u I remember when they first came to municipalities the visas and how impactful those were to our immigrant community so that they would come forward and to see that you've gone out and done outreach and increased this is amazing. I did want to ask one question because there was one city that wasn't playing nice with these. Are all cities now on board with visas? >> Uh well, chair, what we've done, uh we actually made a presentation to all the chiefs, I think at the end of my first year, and we took our team that does these and we talked about them and chief shared with us that some cities were on board, some were not. >> And so what we said was, "Send them to us. Send them to us. we will we we do have the authority to do them and we will do them. Um and so it's been actually a great partnership with some of our law enforcement. Um so from that perspective we will certify those kinds of things if there's a particular city that is reluctant or for whatever reason. Um but we also work with cities too and try to get them on board. So I think I mean that number just think of that this year. Um it's a remarkable number for this year. um we knew how important this was going to be coming into this new administration and so we we've worked very hard at that. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. I wanted to talk about the be at school. That's another one of my pet projects and I have gotten a debriefing from the team of the pilot so far and I'm really excited about this and as I'm going around talking to my superintendents I'm telling them about this great pilot and you don't do it anywhere near the justice of all the work that they put in there. They literally went to people's homes, you know, day in and day out. They had community events for these folks, invited them in, they made them feel more like they were part of the community again. And as I talk about this model to the superintendents, I said, you know, we're not going to get federal or state dollars to do this. We're not. So, we're going to have to figure out how to do it with volunteers, maybe a subcommittee of the PTO or somebody, but we need to do this because it's successful. It's very successful. And you know, when I was just down talking to um Eden Prairie's superintendent and and they were not part of the pilot, um they could use a pilot because they said it's the same 200 kids. They know who they are and and and I think one of the challenges that you have and I'm wondering if this is um something that the county could help with a tool is that whole reporting of absenteeism. Maybe there's an app or something we could develop. Maybe there's some kind of tool we can develop. we've done this before and figured out how to get that reported in a timely manner because that's some of the kids that have fallen through. I know I've gotten calls from folks um from my from the school districts that I serve in the specific schools who track this and say, you know, we're having a hard time finding these kiddos are getting things through or getting enough information. And so I I understand their struggles with that. I understand that the schools struggle with that because it's it's just another sink of where we got to put time and resources when we need to be teaching kids, right? So, I just >> we I know Kelsey's right behind me actually. Um we've worked with legislators on legislation to help us with that. And so, I know Kelsey has been thinking about and her team have been thinking about it a lot. So, I'm sure >> Yeah. Well, she's going to call me again. I'm sure I'm going to get another briefing when all this stuff's out. And I just want to say how much I appreciated being able to have that conversation and to talk because this is a real um many many years ago I was a teacher. So that goes back to why I care so much about these kids. We all have skeletons in the closet. Um I wanted to talk about the red the red flag law. And first of all I think this is great. I'm glad you're going out talking to people around this um and trying to educate people. I think it's much needed. I think one of the other things that's much needed is the changes in the commitment laws and the education around that because people don't realize they changed, at least people I'm talking to. >> So, we actually had a mental health town hall um that we co-sponsored with Commissioner Conley here um and our uh team that does commitments uh did come out to talk uh with community members. That was one part of the program. They have a and I know it's a little diff you're I know what you're talking about the navigator that kind of thing. Yes. But our team has a community uh team that fields calls from community members about you know I have this relative or my son or something like that to help walk them through what the processes are. So I think we've really been proactive in getting out in community and talking to community members about available resources. Um and and we had herposs that night too. We had county, we had F FRSS, we had uh behavioral health was really successful and I want to thank Commissioner Connley for co-sponsoring that with us. >> Yeah, I could use it out in my community, too, because I'm hearing, you know, they're not they don't understand it and it's changed for the better for the better. >> Um Um and then I, you know, I I really commend you on the expungement work that you have done. That's that's a heavy lift. I've known people to go through that and it's been really great. I think what's frustrating and probably for you as well is that not all agencies will respond in a timely manner and pull stuff down for these folks and some of the stuff exists on the internet forever. And so, um, depending on where somebody's doing or what they're trying to do, it's really hard on some of these folks. And so, I just want to point that out. Your work is really great. If we could get everybody else on board, that would matter. And then I wanted to talk one more thing just about this um couple things I guess violence interruptors. You know, there's been a lot of news about some of these contractors and everything and I just can't say that we have to be very careful who we use. We have to audit them and we have to make sure that they're doing the good work that we need them to do. I really want them to be out there doing that. But I know there's problems with lots of contracts, not necessarily ours, but >> can I say on that? Um there is a model uh out of John J, New York. Sasha Cotton is an expert in that model. She was the head of uh the office of violence prevention in the health department in the city in 2017 2018. Um and we get technical help from >> okay >> Sasha Cotton and Center for Yeah. Center for Safe. She's now the executive director there um for the wonderful network for safety. They always get it wrong. Thank you. >> Yeah. And so, so what's really important about that is that there is a databased model that you must follow. So, not everybody that calls themselves a violence interrupter or whatever is actually doing that model of work. So, we contract with people who are trained specifically in that. >> Um, and we're very aware of that. And so that is something we're very conscious of and thoughtful about because we want to be working with people that uh adhere to the databased model. >> Yeah. Thank you. I really appreciate that. And then I I would uh I'm sure I'd be called if I didn't talk about Bloomington's restorative courts. They have had such success in their restorative courts down there and they really would like to figure out how they could work to expand it into other areas and do more around that court or the police department. >> The court restorative court they call it. >> We have restorative court. Yeah. But but they call it restorative court and maybe >> they do check commissioners. Yes. And we have staff from our behavioral health unit that are partnering with Bloomington um on their research and we've seen positive outcomes. >> Yeah, I know. I know. I know they they'd love to work more and do more with you. I just know that >> it might be the city attorney's office, but we're >> the city attorney's office. It is a city attorney's office. >> So, we don't >> Well, we're happy they would like to >> Yeah, you want to partner with everybody, right? >> We will partner with everybody. Can I just say one thing about your behavior, your prevention uh your comment there? It is one thing that I that's really been driven home to me since I've been in this job. Um the number of times that I have met with uh families of loved ones who've lost their lives uh or been injured and it's a young person that caused that and I read all of the documents about that young person and it's the same trajectory. And I often think rather than telling this poor family, I'm so sorry for your loss, I think, we could have prevented this. We could have prevented this. Um, and so I think that there's much for us to learn into how to focus our efforts into a what's a fairly small group of young people um that have highly complex needs. Um, but if we were to address those needs and wrap them in services, um, I think we could see much reduced violence. Um, so I think, you know, we we're all here to learn about that and focus our efforts to to help those. >> That's where I want to go. I want to go to prevention. Absolutely. Absolutely. >> Any last comments, chair go commissioners? Thank you. I would just like to express appreciation for Mary Morardi, county attorney, and her team. As you um many of our departments, including our county attorney's office, partnered really closely with all of us as we moved into a difficult budget year coming in um as we did. So, a lot of hard work and as you can see, some really strong services for our community. So, thank you. Yes, thank you very much and thank you to the staff who could make it here and those probably online listening and the background folks that don't get a chance to come up to the forefront. We know you're all working hard >> and thank you for your support. Oh, you're most welcome. Um, all our comments and and uh questions have concluded, so we'll move on to item 4 A, which is the old business. I would take a motion to lay over this item until 12:00 p.m. noon on Monday, October 20th, when we will reconvene for the budget hearing on the 2026 proposed budget to consider the capital budgeting task force. We're that far. >> I know that's awesome. >> I know. Second. >> Okay. All those in favor signify by I. >> I. Motion carries. Item five is the open forum part of this. Um, members of the public watching this budget hearing can call in to leave a recorded comment that will be played at the board at the next budget hearing. If there is not enough time to play all comments, the recordings will be sent to the commissioners. Your comments should be related to the specific budget hearing of October 1st public works law safety justice hearings um recorded message will but also the public works office the ones that we messed up. Sorry about that. I want to apologize. It was our snafu on our side. Recorded messages will also need to meet the following standards which are the same for inerson comments. Callers need to state their first and last name for the record. Callers will need to adhere to the rules of decorum as outlined in our posted guidance of addressing the board. Comments must be kept 2 minutes limits. Comments that are made beyond the two minutes will not be heard. To record your comments, 612 6883545. Again, that number's online. It's 612-688 3545. The line will be open for 4 hours at the end of this budget hearing. I'm going to call at 3:00, so until 700 p.m. tonight. 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. Inerson comments can be made at the annual truth and taxation meeting. That will be December 2nd at 6:00 p.m. here in these chambers. The 2026 proposed budget information and hearings uh information is all online at www.henipen. us/budgets. Thank you, Miss Wetland. Thank you, county attorney. Thank you to the staff. your turn. >> Thank you very much.