Good evening and welcome to the regular schedule regularly scheduled city council meeting on Monday, December 8th, 2025. Would all please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Well, welcome. We'll start by calling for approval of the agenda. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. Next, we have call for the approval of the minutes which go from page of the previous council meeting which go from page 5 to 10 in the packet. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes from last meeting? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> All right. Next, we actually we have time for visitors and we have first asking if there are any visitors in the audience that have comments on any agenda item. hearing none. Next, we ask if there are any visitors that have any general comments. >> Okay, come on up to the microphone. >> We promise we do not bite. >> Fair enough. prepared speech. >> That's okay. So, how this typically works, go ahead and grab a seat. >> We are here. >> Can I start by Can I start by getting your name and address? >> I am Don Cook, 21107 Nelson Street, St. Peter, 56082. I moved here from Menota Heights where we paid less in taxes for a 50% larger house and 30% larger piece of plot that it sat on. And we're here because we have all recently moved into this neighborhood and are just appalled at the proposed property taxes. Now, there's several other neighbors that were not able to make it, and this is my first time to have to speak in front of a bunch, but we're quite concerned. And so, our request is we'd rather not pay those property taxes. We'd like to have uh we believe the rates are high. Um we're I may under misunderstand this forgive me for ignorance and that is I recognize it's my ignorance but uh maintaining the spending which I understand if is above and beyond the mandated spending there's a gap there and we're being burdened with meeting the gap from the federal cuts and that's putting an undue burden on many of us in our neighborhood who are elderly which really is hard to say at this point. So, we respectfully request that a we don't increase our property taxes. They're going up like $48 or something like that. Um, and we immediately reduce the amount by what was taken by the feds, which was our money, too. It's just going a different way. And immediately start a thorough and diligent look for fraud or misappropriation or misspending of the funds. And that's in light of the negative publicity that Minnesota is getting on a variety of fronts across the nation. I'm not from here and I know folks in many other states and they're calling up what the heck. But we need to look at that because other states are starting to identify fraud and it's a possibility. If you look at our property taxes, you will see that the two biggest chunks are the areas that have the most potential for fraud. Snowplow coming by. I know he's there. He he makes a lot of noise, but um and we do have snow and that's part of the mandated part. So anyway, I'm hopefully not poorly representing my neighborhood, but that's why we're here and we'd ask you all to take that into consideration. You're on the piece. You're on our bill that said to come here to do this. >> Correct. Absolutely. And just to be clear, um, when you're looking at that truth and taxation statement, I'm guess I'm guessing is where you're getting those dollar bill amount. >> Yep. >> So, for our purposes as a city council, we are only voting on the city portion of it. >> Okay. And then that and that is a question I had tonight. We actually at the dinner table talked about where this is the big number we're after. These are the three numbers. This is the only meeting we could make. >> Correct. Correct. >> Okay. So, where do we go to talk about what I just brought up? >> Um, we can definitely have a follow-up conversation for you. I would strongly encourage that. um we can get your phone number and have administrator Crafty, >> okay, >> place a phone call, whether that be with just you or if you guys wanted to have a meeting um to just help break down to help you guys feel informed and know where you can properly voice those concerns because >> Okay. So, I'll leave my number with the fella at the back. Would that be okay? >> If you wouldn't mind, if you want to leave your number with the gentleman in a check shirt right behind you and then we'll give you a call. I'd also mention if I may um Mayor Prom is that we have some fantastic information on our website with the budget. You'll see we have a packet here tonight that's about this thick. All of that is contained on our website in multiple locations and it shows where all the dollars go. You can also see the required audit that is done by the city of St. Peter on a yearly basis. And so um we can help steer you to the right location so you can see that and read that for yourself. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Happy to visit with you. >> All right. pass on my contact information for school district and county. Correct. >> You bet. >> You bet. >> Thank you. Happy to do that. >> Thank you for your time tonight. >> And I apologize for being at the wrong meeting. We just >> No, you're This isn't the wrong meeting. We are a share of that. >> Absolutely. City taxes are part of it, >> but we are a small piece of the bigger picture. >> Okay. All right. Thank you for your evening. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. Any other visitors? All right. Moving on to the approval of the consent agenda items which is on page runs from pages 11 to 35. Todd, did you have anything you wanted to share on that? >> Um, I don't. If you'd like me to run through it, I sure can. The majority of the information included on these pages are renewal license for a number of things including temporary dance, tobacco license, amusement device, um, show and theater renewal, jukebox licensing, dance licensing, solid waste haulers. It also includes a number of larger dispersements that are listed there as a part of your policy and then some surplus items which include a number of items that were surplused or wanted to be surplused through public works and some tables and things like that from the community center. It also includes the dispersements of November 21st through December 4th which are all listed within your packet. So if you look at the list of new licenses that's on page 33. I'm not going to go through a full page of license renewals. Um, and then the larger purchases are on page 34 in the packet. >> Do any questions or comments on the >> questions mainly? Um, I know in the past we've had issues with certain businesses not filing for their license. We notify them when they're coming up. In fact, it's not like we don't tell you in November that it's due end of December. It's in time. So if they haven't applied, they need to get their stuff together or as of January 1st. >> That's correct. >> See sale. >> My recollection is that we've had a couple of difficulties more with folks that are midyear licensing in July. Those are predominated by folks that have um alcohol licensing. Um but yeah. Yep. They get multiple notices. >> Cool. >> Yep. >> Any other comments? Okay. I'd ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Council member DVOS. >> I. >> Council member Sharstrom. >> I. >> Council member Johnson. >> I. >> Council member Ram. >> I. >> Okay. Moving on to unfinished business. There is no unfinished business, which brings us to our new business. The first item on there is the 2025 final levy and 2026 general fund budget which goes from page 36 to 148. And Perry is ready before I even ask for them. >> And I'm going to read every one of those pages for word for word >> all the way through. Uh I'm not sure how to address you, Councilman Shartstrom. Can I just call you that or >> or >> mayor >> prom >> guy at the front of the room? Um yeah uh so these are these are numbers and and reports that you have seen before uh with very few changes. We did have a workshop a week ago to talk about these and and from that workshop till now uh I think there was a couple of typos and and words that that were changed here and there. Um, I would though like to take some time now to for the record during this council meeting where we we are approving or potentially approving uh this uh tax levy and budget for 2026, particularly in light of the community comment uh that we had just a moment ago. Um I would like to look at uh really the summary of of what we're looking at in in this uh proposed budget and levy. So, if we could start, I think Todd, the easiest way to look at it, uh would be on page 44. Yeah, let's start there and maybe off to the right a little bit. Um I would like to talk about what our final levy is. And the way this works in Minnesota, which is a new thing for me, is we propose and and approve a requested levy and then the county then takes that, compares it to what turns out to be our final uh net taxing capacity, which is based on the market value of all the properties uh that are subject to our taxation and and the various exemptions and and things that Minnesota has set into law. Uh and they will come up with a a final levy rate. uh we can estimate that rate which is what you see in the blue highlighted uh area here. Uh and then I'll talk about that again in a second on the on the next page. Um but we are coming into a period of of some capital work that we've had to do um based on some things that are just starting to age out. Uh we are of course now modernizing and moving into a city hall that is more like a city hall and less like a bomb shelter. Um which I really appreciate and I think we're doing a really responsible job in doing that. But that does have a slight effect on how we are going to levy uh moving forward. Um, I would like to in light of the comment we had a moment ago talk about that our city portion of taxes and let's go ahead and move to uh the next page if you don't mind Todd. Um if you look at that highlighted box right in the middle of the page, you'll see that um our increase this year um which you know granted is a is a 6.9% increase over the pri prior year, but what that means for a value a home that's valued at $250,000 is they'll see about $17.71 uh increase in their tax bill this year. Uh, and I realized, you know, maybe 250,000 isn't the average home cost in in this area, but you can see other property values there. If you're at 300,000, that's about $33. Um, 500,000, it's about $95 for the year. >> Sorry, >> absolutely. Just people who are wondering clarify. Uh, they might see that their overall when they're looking at the bottom line, their tax bill is significantly larger. So, their overall tax bill may increase may be larger than something like this, but we're talking about the city portion. >> Just the city portion. Yeah. And that and that's often a a challenging thing because everybody within the city is not always seeing the same thing on their tax bills. Depending on where you are, you might be, you know, have a higher portion for one thing or another. And I'm not that versed into the city into the tax bills here. Um, but I think for for a lot of people within the city, the the thing that they're going to see in listing the different taxing districts, often the city uh within our city is going to be the highest uh amount of that tax bill. But again, I would like to stress that depending on the value of your property, we're looking at 17, you know, to $90 due to the city's um that that increase in your bill. What comes from the city is is that amount. And that that's not an insignificant amount for most folks. Uh and we understand that and that's why we go through this process. That's why we have a very detailed budget on what we're spending it on. And and I would look forward, you know, to the opportunity to talk about where that spending happens. And a lot of it is very tactile and things that we can see when a plow goes by. Um you know, when the police are there, when the fire department comes, whatever it might be. Some of it though is a little more difficult to understand. Uh, and I would look forward to also explaining how we interact with federal funding and how those changes affect us. Um, for us as a city, it's a little bit more delayed. For the state in general, they see the effects of changes in federal funding a lot more quickly. Um, but there's a lot that we can talk about there and I don't want to take up our time in this committee in this council meeting tonight uh to go into that, but I'm happy to do that at at a separate time. um that past this page and if nobody wants to has a question on that, these next couple of pages just go into more of our department where that spending is, how that's changing. Um a lot of this falls along with lines of increases in cost of living. We have to change things. We do have unionized groups that we negotiate with and we estimate, you know, what those changes in union contracts are going to be. uh our overall payroll in non-union, we're doing a a 3% cost of living increase. We do have a slight increase in our uh health insurance premiums that is factored into this. Uh we did see some savings due to the change in our uh dispatch uh moving to the county, but at the same time, you know, where we have challenges with overtime within our police force that sort of balance those things out. We are adding an officer and and many of these things. uh for folk folks that haven't heard this yet, it's all been detailed in prior meetings where we can go into that. I won't go into it again for the council. I do want to stop on page 49. And this is something that, you know, as a council and and as stewards of taxpayer money, we always want to be mindful of it. It's not our job to tax our citizens and then hold on to the money. uh it's our jobs to spend that on the services that we deliver to our citizens. Uh and this council um set a goal of trying to keep that uh essentially reserve percentage somewhere between 35 and 50%. And that's not always easy to do. We, you know, we can target where things are. You never know how much it's going to snow, how much overtime we're going to have for snowplow drivers, or how much overtime we're not going to have for snow snowplow drivers, or there's a lot of different things that go in this. So, we're just taking our best shot at trying to be between 35 and 50% uh of a reserve. And what that means is we could go 35 to 50% of a year without collecting any revenue. and we get revenue from a lot of different sources, but we want to make sure we save for a rainy day, but we're not we're not here to sit on our taxpayers money. We we're here to use it uh to deliver the services um that the council has has approved and that the process is is designed to provide. Okay. Um I'm not sure I need to go into a lot more detail after that. Some of this gets a little more in detail. We are planning on doing an equip equipment certificate for 713,000 that goes to replace various equipment that we have. We try to always do those on a five-year note, meaning the equipment that we're buying is probably going to last 10 years, 15 years. Some of it, you know, much longer than that. Uh, but we try to pay for that um ahead of time so that we stay efficient. Newer equipment obviously means lower operating costs typically. So, we try to be really careful about getting rid of equipment that starts to um weigh down on us from an operating perspective. Uh and then in a moment ago, you approved in the consent agenda some surplus equipment that we get rid of. Obviously, we try to get as much money from that as possible as we replace that equipment. Um going through really quick in revenue trends, we see where our money comes from on page 52. Um really the largest uh amounts that we get are from property taxes and in Minnesota from uh state aid. This is state municipal aid. Those are our two largest sources of funds for our general fund and for our um individual revenue funds etc. This is not including any of our enterprises funds which operate in a sense like business type funds that use the revenue that you pay in utilities uh for electricity for water for uh sewer and trash collection. Those are designed to offset those expenditures. Um our expenditure trend you can see on page 53 uh the next one over. Have you already moved to it? Yeah. Um, this is a quick breakdown of what we we're spending on general government, what we're spending on public safety, and again, public safety is really the largest uh share of this. Um, a lot of that's in our police force, but that also includes things like building inspections, uh, our public public safety officers and um, other matters. I'm forgetting one. That's it. Fire department. Thank you. Uh, is in there as well. And then public works there. That's primarily parks and streets. Uh public works does include our utilities, but parks and streets are are not funded on a fee basis. Uh that money comes um some from state aid, some from our property taxes, uh etc. And then wreck and leisure is the smaller one there. Um you can look at public safety and see how we broke that down. And thank you Todd a moment ago said so it's the police department, the fire department, our building inspections, emergency management, that's some things that we may reclass in the future. Uh it's a it's a small amount of that. And then of course our community service uh officer there. The next couple pages look at the library um the general fund, how we're spending that as far as what goes to personnel. Um and you can look at that in more detail. We've talked about it before. Uh I would say on page 57 we have a public safety fund that we are essentially winding down. Uh we've been using that. That's well actually Todd I'll have you explain where that revenue originally came from. >> Members you might recall that the state of Minnesota allocated a specific number of grant dollars over two years. And so we're winding that down. Those grant dollars have stopped and you've used those on capital purchases. The council's been very clear and your policy has been one-time expenditures for one-time money. So, it's spent on capital goods like squad cars and turnout gear and all kinds of different things for fire services. >> Thank you. Okay. And then beyond that, it gets into the nitty-gritty and the details. And at that point, I'll open it up to any questions, comments, or um any other clarifications you might want. >> Questions or comments? uh more of a comment. I just want to say that I know that we're probably I I don't know how other cities do it, but we are a council that really gets into the nuts and bolts and we one thing that that that department heads are really good at is sharpening their pencil and going back to the drawing board and making changes and then with the council willing to take a look at that fund reserve balance and use up about $400,000 to offset what we would have had to raise property taxes to still keep it within that 35 to 50% revenue uh reserve balance. Um I think we did a really good job. You know, when we compare ourselves to other uh cities around us, some cities have seen 12 14%. And the first time the budget came to us, it was it was 10% plus. But we were able to whittle that down and still keep the services that we offer, keep the city running the way that the we we want the city to run as well as what uh members of the community want the city to be run like. Um so I I just want to thank everybody for that. >> I I appreciate you pointing that out and and I should have mentioned that earlier on. We are, if you remember that graph from a little while ago, um, for those of you either watching this tape later or or here presently, we are trying to get that closer to the middle of that range between 35 and 50%. And part of doing that, thank you, uh, Councilman Ramp, that is that we are spending 400 and some odd thousand dollars into our reserves to try to get us back into that sweet spot. Uh, and and again, I will restate it. I think we're going to get closer to that sweet spot as a result of what happens in 2025 and then we're going to hopefully get a little bit more into the middle of that. But again, this is a budget and we're just making our be our best stab at it. >> I think it is worth pointing out for the people in the audience here and anyone who may be watching, this is by no means the first time we have talked about this budget. And as a council, we have met with city staff and the city administrator numerous times. And if you do recall, Perry, do you remember what the original levy percentage was? And I won't hold you to it. >> I don't, but I do remember. I think the increase was close to 11%. >> 10.9. >> Yeah, 10.9. >> Right in that ballpark, >> right, was I think what I remembered. >> So before taking a step back and looking at this, we were looking at over a 10% increase. >> Yeah, >> Brad. Um so first of all Perry I just want to say um while we've talked about the change in reserves uh that was an idea that you brought to us as far as h taking a different look at the way we calculate our reserves and that's is one of the things that helped free up that $400,000. I think you should be commended on bringing that as well as uh we're generating I think projected to generate $100,000 more in interest next year do another thing you brought on. So I think I I think you should be commended for for the uh the new the new thinking outside. Well, bring someone out bring some from outside brings out brings some of new ideas with them. So I appreciate that. Uh one thing I I want people to know also is um you know this budget doesn't just reflect year-toear. We look at decade to decade spending. Um that's part of looking at the new city hall which is not just a building but 18 acres of land. Um, so while while some spending for that is included in here, that is more of that long-term spending that investing in it now will actually save us money in the future when we would have to do it. If we had kicked this can down the road another 10 years, you're looking at significantly higher costs. So, one of the things I I've said particularly with the spending on city hall is I'm going to be living in this town a long time and this is actually the more cost-effective option for my property taxes. Um, but like I say, we don't just look at these budgets from year to year, but it is a decade to decade thing that we're looking at. Um, but I I once again, yeah, I I think a lot of there's been a lot of work that's put into it. Um, council doesn't make it easy on staff when we start looking at the budgets. Um, but they do they do a great job in responding and coming up with alternatives for us. So, >> I I appreciate that. You know, if it was just a rubber stamp, it you know, we wouldn't uh come up with a better product. You know, by the by the interchange that we have, the back and forth as we question each other, you know, and we do it respectfully, I believe. uh it gets us to a better place and it it it creates discipline not just in my department in finance but you know all the rest of the department heads are listening to this and they're understanding I need to have a reason for the way I'm doing things and and how I'm going to spend money. Uh I will make a quick comment on uh our investment returns. We are going to to beat that for this year. Uh I do have to say it is a challenge given what what the Fed does has a big effect on us because we only have a certain uh you know slate of options that we get to invest in. Uh and then finally on your your comment about how we look at uh reserve balances and and fund balances. I I'd like to go back to what what uh Todd said a moment ago about one-time money being spent on one-time things. And that's that was our idea there is let's make sure that we're looking at reserves in relationship to our operating uh funds and how we are spending money to operate because capital we can make different decisions on that but it's really our operating that we want to make sure is in that sweet spot. >> K. >> Yeah. I I just want to acknowledge um that I think many of us on this council, we know how it feels to open, you know, your your tax statement. We we all live in this community. I'm in a single income household. It's just me and yeah, it it it hits you have to um it in in a lot of ways uh a lot of things feel out of control with um prices and spending. there's a lot of volatility and there has been for the last few years. So, it's not lost on any of us um that uh people are losing income and funds in other places um and that uh you know we we really try to balance um that with what is the community expecting of us. Um as leaders in the community, you know, we still have to hold a vision for the future and invest in the future of this community. Um, but we always do that thoughtfully. Um, I feel like and anyone who comes to this meeting or sends us an email or says, "Hey, I want to have a face-to-face conversation to help me understand this better." I just really really appreciate um when people reach out. And I know it's harder to to uh get off Facebook and do that in person or um come to a meeting or to you know reach out, but that anytime our citizens in this community do that, it helps us be better council members. And so I just wanted to say thank you for the folks that that showed up tonight um and for your comments and we definitely take it to heart. Other questions, comments? As >> me, if I can, um, for folks that might be watching, there's a tremendous amount of information included in this packet. You can go on our website and see it. You can see the entire budget line by line. We articulate what we're buying um, very clearly. And tonight, if the council does not take action on the proposed levy or the pro proposed budget, you would need to have a special meeting before the end of the year. But included in your packet starting on page 145 is the resolution approving the tax levy 2025 tax levy collectible in 2026. Correct. So there are actually two separate parts of this. We have the first resolution that we need to vote on is for the levy. The second resolution is for the 2026 budget. So if there's no other comments, I would ask if there is a motion to approve the 2025 final levy. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Call the role. >> Council member Shrom. >> I. >> Council member Johnson. >> I. >> Council member Ram. >> I. >> Council member Devos. >> I. >> Okay. I now would ask for a motion to approve the 2026 general fund budget. >> Second. Call the role. Council member Johnson. >> I. >> Council member Ramp. >> I. >> Council member Devos. >> Hi. >> Council member Sharstrom. >> I. >> Next on our agenda is the 2026 non-union wages which go in your packet from page 149 to 158. >> Again, mayor members, there's a lot of >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Perry. There's a lot of information included in your packet as the mayor prom indicated. Let me scroll down to some of the most important what I think the most important information is. This is slightly different than what you may have seen in previous years because at least from my perspective, it adds an additional um category to employees that I'm looking to I'm asking you to change pay for for the 2026 years. That has to do with the amount of turnover that you've seen due to retirements and changes over the last year or so when you've had more than a dozen new employees in most of the categories that are non um unionized. So what you see in here is a generalized request increase for a generalized request for generalized increase of 3%. And then what I would normally consider anomalies and of course those are for those new employees and for changes mostly related to either pay equity or marketplace modifications that we need to make. You'll see each of the changes that I'm recommended are outlined starting on the bottom of page 150 and going into page 151 and then into 152. you'll see some significant changes as a percentage mostly in your seasonal employees which I'm looking for you generally to increase $1 per hour. That's really driven by what we believe to be market forces within that group and those include lifeguards and summer recreation leaders and all those folks that come back on a year and yearout basis or start new with you. Oftentimes this is their first job. There is a tremendous amount of competition in that marketplace to continue to get lifeguards and summer recreation folks as well. There is within many of the positions that you see that are non-unionized, some of which are some of your lower paying positions. This includes library, it includes public works, it includes really across the board in all of your departments. You'll see starting on page 53 um some of those summer ones that I articulated and are recommending 50 cent or $1 increases. you'll see building supervisors going up. Um we have people that are in charge of this facility when other offices are closed um making less than $20 an hour um to make sure that things happen here and are taken care of in the appropriate way. I'm happy to answer questions as best I can for you. Again, this meets the financial goals that we have set in place. I would anticipate that all of these increases u measure has was articulated earlier in the budget documentation that you saw um around $380,000. Um again, Mayor Prom and members, there's a resolution included in your packet and that resolution starts on page 156. >> Uh Brad, >> I have a question. It's on page 157 um under recreation leader. So the first category there um I see every other category has a increase from year 1 to year two but recreation leader is 1550 in both years. Was that intentional or an oversight? >> You know what that's probably a typo on my part Brad. Um if the council can approve that we'll go back and measure that appropriately. Generally what you see here is a 50 cent increase. Um so um I may have a typo in two of the rows there. >> Okay. So then if we did adjust that, that would be $1,550 to $16 to $1,650 and then $17 per hour. If I may, when we go back and look, we will start with year one. And the goal for those recreation leaders was to go up um $1 per hour. And so um I'll look to that first one and then we'll send you information if you'll give us latitude on that. That's a great catch, Brad. I I just might have a typo there. Yeah, generally there's a 50 points from a 50 cent spread from the figure. So, yeah. >> Go ahead, Carrie. >> Yeah. Um, so Todd, a ballpark of how many employees do we have that are not seasonal, not union? >> Um, I would say it's about 30ish. >> Okay. because when I look at this list of wage changes, >> it you know that's a big makes up a big part of that list. So I just want to be transparent that we're you know we're making important mark market rate adjustments that that do make sense. But I think as a council when we think about when we're doing like a we're going to do a 3% increase, there are a lot of changes and anomalies in there. And and part of this is is that as you know within most of your union groups there are steps or some people call them lanes depending on what area of government that you're in with most of these positions that is not the case. And so especially with those new positions part of my goal is to try and continue to move them to the midpoint. So you we're spending money on training employees and you've hired great employees. We want to make sure that we can retain them. And so part of that is moving them, at least from my perspective, to closer to the midpoint within the marketplace. >> And uh with union employees and non-union, not seasonal, how many how many people do we employ totally? >> Um 80 plus, 90 plus. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So when you think about all the employers in this community, um we do have some large employers, but the city really is considered a large employer in um our town. And these are people that live in our community. They're our neighbors. Um they help keep us safe. They um you know make sure the the snow is plowed and the you know streets are swept. And so I do like to just I didn't point this out before when we were talking about the budget, but huge part of any budget whether you're working in business or in city government are the people. And it's really important that we um pay our people um appropriately. So, I just wanted to make that comment. Thank you. >> I think it's also worth noting that it is important to make sure that we are competitive in our part-time employment salaries as wages as well. We don't have summer programming. We don't have a pool. We don't have the wreck program if we don't have these workers in the summer. And let's be honest, workers of that age, they're they're hard to find. Many of those kids are real busy. Any other questions or comments? Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the 2026 nonun wages? >> So move. >> Second. >> Call the role. >> Council member Ramp. >> I. >> Council member DVOS. >> I. >> Council member Sharstrom. >> I. >> Council member Johnson. >> I. Next on the agenda is the Paid Family Medical Leave Act, the PF MLA policy, which begins on page 159 and ends with the resolution on page 167. >> Mayor Prom and members, Dawn, your HR generalist, is here to help talk about this. If you don't mind, let me kick this off. This is something that, as you know, is required under state statute. You've seen a version of this at a previous workshop. Dawn is here to talk about two specific changes that occurred from the time of the workshop to this packet. So, she'll be here to outline this. I'm happy to talk about this at greater detail. This is not one of the things that you really get an option on. You do have to have some kind of policy. But, let me articulate four three or four things that I think are most important for you and the community to know. Um, again, one of which is this is required under state law. The second of which is that we will not be purchasing this coverage through the state of Minnesota. We will be purchasing purchasing it through Metife, a private company that has done this in other states and that actually provides a more affordable rate at least at this point. The agreement with them is for two years and we do anticipate that that does save you a little bit of money. One other thing or two other things that I'd like to point out as a part of the policy is that we will allow employees to top off with earnings that they have that are acred either through their sick leave or vacation or comp time. Um, and so those things can be layered together to ensure that employees are compensated in a way that makes sense for them to continue to pay their share of insurance and other things that are going on as a part of their employment with the city. Um, again, we're happy to answer um any questions that you might have. Um, but Dawn is here to talk about a couple of specific changes um that we've made since that workshop. I would also mention that as we articulated then and I'll articulate it again, um I would expect that we will have future changes to this policy after this is in place six months, a year, two years. This is Minnesota's first swing at this and so we do anticipate other changes as a matter of law or as a matter of best practice coming to you in the near future. So Don, if you could articulate those couple changes and I do want to call out Don and say thanks. Dawn is um the person that's done just a ton of research and drafting on this and we've secured um ideas and best practices and copies from other jurisdictions and other groups um that helped populate the policy that you see in your packet. This will be attached as a part of your overall personnel policy. So Don, if you wouldn't mind talking about those couple things, that'd be great. >> Sure. for the the first change that was made um I changed it from PFMLA to PFML. The reason was after giving it to a couple managers, co-workers, one of the distinguishing factors was how can we tell the difference between FMLA and then paid FML. So I took um many different cities are doing it different ways and I just decided I wanted something to distinguish the difference between both. So that was one change. So in the policy it'll be um PFML. The second change would be on page 136 under coordinated paid coordinate excuse me coordination of pay. What page was that again? >> Uh 163. >> 163. Okay. >> Sorry. 163. Coordination of pay. The third bullet point. Um payroll asked me to take out the payroll and put HR only on there. >> And so this is really the location where folks are are supposed to report or make their request for want of using some of their acred benefit. >> Sure. and payroll will be a big part of this but giving the information to me first so then I can give it to payroll. Um the other change is on page 165. Um we took out not payroll and changed it to HR finance because Joey in finance will be my backup if there is questions from MetLife once the claim is submitted. Mayor County members, what again you see in the packet is your policy for this. If you don't approve a policy tonight, I got to make you come back because under state law, you have to have a policy in place by the end of the year. >> Uh Ben, >> one of clarification on the verbage page 161 under premiums for PFMLA. It still says PFMLA on there, but that's that's not a big deal. Um it says that effective January 1st, City of St. Peter's employees will split the taxable wage rate 50/50. However, if the premium for the company that we're with goes up above the state maximum payroll deduction, it would be that. Is there any way to put that verbiage in there? Because there's a state maximum of what an employee could be charged, right? It they could be charged less, but they can't be charged more currently of 044%. >> So, with the state of Minnesota, it's 888%. Mhm. >> With MetLife, it's cheaper than that. They're going to pay half of whatever Metife is. But if Metife's goes up to, let's say, a dollar, the the the the employee could only still be charged 444%. I just don't know if there's any way to put that verbiage in there because right now it says a 50/50 split. I don't know if that needs to be clarified. >> Perhaps change the verbiage to the lesser of a 5050 split or the state maximum. instead instead of putting a instead of putting a number of 0.44 in there, just change it to state maximum because in two years down the road, perhaps there's an adjustment at the state level. >> The state will probably Yeah. >> So, so that's why I would say maybe just change it to the lesser of 50/50 or state maximum, >> which I think that would probably be perfect. Then it's clarified. Yeah. Just >> I'll make that change. Other questions or comments? >> Hearing none, I will make a motion. We'll make a motion for the approval of the Paid Family Medical Leave Act, which is on page 167 in the packet. >> I'll make a motion with that minor change. >> I'll second. >> Call the RO. >> Council member DVOS. >> I. >> Council member Charstrom. >> I. >> Council member Johnson. >> I. Council member Ramp. >> I. >> Next on the agenda is our legal service. Yep. Thank you. Sorry. Next is our legal services contract which is from page 168 to page 174 in the packet. Members, mayor for members, there's information included in your packet, including a memo with the modifications that were sought by your current contract legal council um that does your general counsel work and other prosecutions. As you may recall, the finance committee met on this issue and has recommended approval of what in essence is a two-year contract for the 26 and 27year. Um the most significant changes include a 15 per um dollar per hour increase for each of the attorneys based on their rate including a discount that we received um due to the fact that you were a really pretty substantial portion of the firm's work. in addition to that is a a a change um an ad related to utilization of AI as a part of their research work. And so again, the finance committee reviewed that and the recommendation is to approve a contract um with the Brandt Winkler Law Firm for the next two years. The resolution is included in your packet. >> We do happen to have two of the committee members. Um Ben and I are both on the committee. Mayor Noel is also on the committee. Um did you want to share some thoughts? >> The the one thing I would say about the addition of the uh of the AI for research um there's sometimes when going through researching reading law case studies and all that there's hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of time versus utilizing AI we can trim that down to a couple hours. So we should see a cost savings. We might not. We we'll see how it goes. But this is a an an awesome tool that they're going to be able to utilize to hopefully help us get answers quicker, get answers to them quicker, and um make things moving. Yeah, I think it's I think it's great. We did request um when they do their re annual report to us that they do include the estimated savings of AI versus the amount of use that it is the amount of times they're using it the estimated savings of this because this is year one of doing it and we wanted to see kind of where that baseline was and Jim didn't think that would be a problem. We both include that in the building every month. So it was still a monthly thing, but it just be a summary at the end >> at our annual presentation. >> Yeah. So we as a committee saw the increase in fees is completely fair and reasonable and didn't have any objections to anything. Questions or comments? >> Mayor Port members. Oh, I'm sorry. B had his hand up. >> Um, so on the AI on the AI perspective, uh, I'm sure Jim is aware of of the various stories that have come out about people using AI in their citations and that that that in the end that you are responsible for the the >> You have to be very careful. Be extremely careful because sometimes they'll give they'll point you in areas that don't quite say what they think they said. So yeah, you you have to be extremely careful with that. I mean, Last thing I was former assistant city attorney spanning calling me on the carpet for something that's not going to feel no good. So yeah, you you're right. Absolutely right. We got to be very careful with that. >> Thanks T. >> I was just going to mention the institutional history that we have with Jim and um with Steve is a benefit and does help us. It's not exactly the same as AI, but it does help us do many things faster. and we do appreciate the ability to contact them in the way that we do and the speed of with which they're able to respond. Um again, the recommendation in front of you is to approve the resolution on page 174. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Call the RO. >> Council member Shen. >> I. Council member Johnson >> I. >> Council member Ram >> I. >> Council member Devos >> I. Next on the agenda is the HA employment agreement that starts on page 175 and ends with a resolution on page 180. Members or mayor members, you've talked about this on a number of occasions. This continues to move you in a closer relationship with the HR. Um this is substantially similar to the agreement that we have with the joint powers board that makes up Minnesota River Valley Transit. This really means that um unless notice is provided, you will be taking on their employees and the HA board will compensate you for all of your costs related to those employees. The thought about this in the bigger picture has really been to provide for additional stability and sustainability within this and for them and the council to continue to meet your goals related to naturally occurring affordable housing and the importance of that that it has in the community and the role that both the council and the H board play in that. Um I'm happy to answer any other questions that you might have but again you've met jointly with them on a couple of occasions. Um the document has been approved by the H board and so it comes to you really at their request this would take effect at the beginning of 2026 questions or comments. >> Go ahead Ben. >> I do know from a conversation I had with Josh there was a lot of very good solid conversation going on about this. The board asked a ton of questions. They got all their questions answered. they were completely happy to move forward in this direction. Um, yeah, I think it's going to be good. >> I think this is another clear example of the council's continued support for adding and supporting affordable housing in our community. Other questions or comments? Ask for a motion to approve the resolution which is on page 180. >> So moved. >> Second. Call the RO. >> Council member Johnson. I >> council member rampant >> I >> council member DVOS >> I >> council member Charstrom >> I >> next item on next item is a new license which is on page 181 to 182 and members this is a little bit of an unusual case in that we're looking to have you approve this temporarily um the business has sold to new owners they're required to have a license um the sale starts at the beginning of the month and the licensing period you saw early intervening ends at the end of the year. So, they're required to have a temporary license. Due to them being brand new, it's required under your rules to come as a separate agenda item. You may recall that their longer term, their yearly license was approved as a part of the consent agenda. Um, so that's why this is on your agenda to make sure that everybody's um licensed appropriately. Again, I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have, but there's a resolution included in your packet on page 182. >> Questions or comments? Seeking a motion to approve the new license on page 182. >> Second. Call the role. >> Council member Ram. >> I. >> Council member Devos. >> I. >> Council member Charstrom. >> Hi. >> Council member Johnson. >> I. >> All right. Next on the agenda is a call for an executive a resolution calling for an executive close session on two items. One being on the police union negotiations. The second being the property at 1225 South Washington Avenue. >> Mayor Prom and members, it's the request from the city administrator's office to do this. I don't um expect this to take a long time. These are items that you've discussed previously. Um I do plan to come back into regular session or anticipate that you will to take action on one of these items, the union discussion, and then to provide for reports and adjournment. So, in this instance, sometimes we leave and go someplace else, but in this instance, we'll come back um to finish up the rest of the meeting, which may include taking action on one of these items and then reports and adjournment. >> So, to be clear, you're saying we will stay here. >> We're going to stay here and kick everybody else out until it's the appropriate time to come back. >> Promise we'll be quick. >> Do I have a motion to go to a close session? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Call the RO. >> Council member DVOS. Hi, >> Council Member Sharstrom. >> Hi, >> Council Member Johnson. >> I, >> Council Member R. >> Hi. >> All right. >> We'll come and get you in a little bit. >> It is 811 and we are going to call this meeting back into public order. Mayor Pro members, I have in front of you based on discussion that you've had um at your closed session a proposal from LLS for execution of a collective bargain agreement with law enforcement labor services number 241 which includes your police officers, your detectives and your sergeants. This would be a contract for one year. The most salient points of the contract include it is for one year an increase in wage for officers of 6% across all classifications for detectives at 8% um 7% for sergeants. Modification to the emergency response requirement from 25 to 30 minutes and a $100 increase in uniform allowance for new officers to your department. The information is included in the packet that we passed out to you. Um, including a copy of their contract tracking mechanism and a resolution that directs the city administrator, mayor to enter into the contract for the 2026 year. Questions or comments? I will do I have a motion to approve the union contract? >> Second. >> Call the role. >> Council member Shrom. >> I. Council member Jensen >> I. >> Council member Rand >> I. >> Council member Devos >> I. >> All right. That is our moving on. Next on the agenda is reports. Um I as mayor promp do not have anything. Do we have any council member reports? Do believe we do have some something from you. >> Yeah. So mayor proto members I have three on the list but I'm only going to cover two. First of all, just a reminder to you and everyone in the public that there are no more workshops or regular council meetings planned for the month of December. The first workshop will occur on January 5th and then January 12th will be your first council meeting of the 2026 year. So, we just want to make sure that people are aware of that. In addition to that, I know >> city in the event that there is an emergency meeting, I would recommend the third weekend of December for that. >> Thanks for that help, Brad. I appreciate that very much. Uh, I'll take that under advisement and I'll let Mayor Shannon know that that's what you've suggested. U, the next one that I have is is really important and so it asked Pete to come up. Um, we do want to mention um that Pete has been your representative on the ser board for a number of years and there are really two items that I want to address. One of which is that St. Peter's been elected for a four-year term to the board. Um, and Pete has been elected as president of SMA for a second year. So, um, I I'd love to wax poetically for a long time about how important this is to the community and how we really are talking about a major segment of your operations, uh, which are electric utilities as we're a member and I really want to congratulate Pete and thank Pete. It takes a boatload of time, energy, and effort to do that work on behalf of the city and on behalf of Simpa. So, I don't know if you want to say a few words, Pete, but I think we should give you applause when you're done talking. >> Sure. >> Um, it does take a lot of time and I'm happy to be a part of that. Uh, it does benefit St. Peter in in many ways. You guys have all been to the legislative meetings, know the impact that we try to make on a national level. Um, but locally it does help us meet some of our goals, including sustainability goals. Our partnership with solar projects that we've had at the wastewater plant, working through specialized grants through the state to get city hall solar and just meet some of the renewable issues that we're trying to accomplish. So, I appreciate that. We've got a lot of good things coming up in 2026, including investments in transmission. As you guys know, that's a that's a big winner for the Simpa crew uh because that allows us to maintain our rates. We do have quite a bit of debt coming off uh and we are going to be facing some uh changes in how Simp's organized with Rochester uh not being a member after 2030 and the other 16 cities moving forward with a plan to supply dependable public power uh from that point on. So, the wheels are in motion. It'll take many years and I appreciate the council allowing me to serve in that capacity. >> Well, thank you for everything you've done, Pete. >> Yep. Thank you. >> You give him a hand. Is that okay? >> Thank you, Pete. Mayor, that's all the items that I have for you for this evening. >> That being said, I will seek a motion to dismiss. >> All in favor? >> Second. >> Oh, sorry. Darn it. I jumped the gun. I made it all. >> There's a second. All in favor? >> I made it to the final one. All right, >> it was still good. >> Thank you very much.