St. Paul City Council — Transcript
Tuesday, July 21, 2026
Collegebound Program Clarification
Audit Topic Selection for Future Cycles
Community Engagement Update on Audit Prioritization
Development of Self-Assessment Tool for Departments
Votes (1)
Recommendation of Audit Topics for Council Consideration
Dissent: None
Moved by Chair Ngerker [0:26:00]
The committee deliberated on four potential audit topics: Collegebound, Department of Safety and Inspections (DSI) focusing on business licensing and building code, Public Works' street maintenance and pothole repair, and District Council Reform under PED. Departmental directors expressed general hesitation for immediate audits due to transitions, new leadership, staff resources, and ongoing internal evaluations. Specifically, Collegebound was deemed not viable for audit at this time given upcoming changes and internal reviews. DSI's building code operations were problematic due to the new Poly system rollout and litigation, but business licensing was identified as a viable audit. Public Works, despite departmental concerns about duplication, was strongly advocated for by council members due to high community interest and support from numerous district councils. The committee moved to eliminate Collegebound and recommend District Council Reform, Business Licensing, and Street Maintenance & Pothole Repair to the full council, which would choose two for the upcoming audit cycle (late 2026/early 2027).
Notable Quotes (7)
We misstated an element of the Collegebound program at the last meeting and I just want to be really clear that the program is not it is automatic enrollment. So student children as soon as they're born are automatically enrolled in the program.
all four departments they're interested in the work that we are doing... however there is some hesitation generally to undergo an audit currently as in like this calendar year... A lot of it's due to timing. For one thing, there's been a transition. Um several departments have new um department heads. Uh there's also the concern about available staff resources and triage with us as we conduct these audits.
my kind of takeaway from it was more so that that's not that there wasn't really they didn't feel like there was much to really offer to the audit process and so it just didn't I left feeling like this wasn't necessarily the route to go
The department was concerned about duplicative processes when they are already in the midst of of doing some of this analysis about a lot of staff time going into this when they want it going into their own processes that are being designed to work and answer the questions that they want answered.
One interesting question that came up was this idea of um, the the the perception of DSI's work with businesses and permitting versus the reality and how a few really bad experiences, really bad permitting processes um, can color the rest of how people perceive the department and how the department is seen generally to engage.
15 out of the 17 district councils and also it was mentioned four times in the survey. So I just want to bring that up as a person who's just like it's often talked about in my area. Um and so I hear the department I completely understand that. I think the difference and distinction I'd offer just from being a part of all these conversation is that there's heavily relates to being relatively giving very little data for us like to actually make the process and the audit process cor like helpful and they're planning to do a lot of significant changes.
I think a lot of departments are saying don't study us because we're studying ourselves and to the extent that we can frame it as let's help you help yourself you know take some of this work off your plate you can study some other aspect of yourself there's enough to study um that might be received differently
Ordinances & Resolutions (7)
City program for automatic college enrollment for newborns, discussed for potential audit.
New innovation/system being rolled out at DSI, impacting audit timing for certain DSI functions.
Outdated city ordinances for business licenses that may not align with state law.
Code potentially needing updates regarding business licenses.
Proposed new tool for departments to conduct internal audits and provide data to the committee.
Contracts with district councils, whose evaluation was discussed as a potential audit area.
A formal recommendation to the council based on committee decisions.