[music] [music] [music] [music] Heat. [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [music] [music] >> [music] >> Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. Heat. >> [music] [music] >> Heat. [music] Hey. Hey. Hey. [music] Hey everybody, [music] baby. >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> Buoie >> here. >> Coleman >> here. >> Johnson >> here. >> Kim >> here. >> Nerre >> here. >> Yang [music] >> here. >> Cher Jones >> here. Oh, thank you for the music. Um, >> your walk on music and I think we have just about everybody here. Oh, we have everyone here. Wonderful. I want to welcome everyone to the September library board meeting. I I know we have a few guests here today, which is exciting. Um, we are the governing board for the library. The library um has its own levy. I don't know if folks know that. So, we will be primarily discussing the library budget today. We do have a couple of action items before us. Uh today we're mostly going to hear the mayor's proposed library budget which will be presented to us by director Hartman. Um we're not making any any decisions today. We're here to listen to the budget which will have important information on us to help us make choices about the budget prior to our maximum levy vote which is coming up on September 23rd and the final budget in December. Uh, I do want to recognize that um the primary item that we'll be discussing today in the library budget presentation is going to be the Dayton's Bluff Library. We'll be dedicating a lot of our time to that. Um, there will not be a public hearing today on the Dayton's Bluff Library. Um we do have a public hearing item on a different action item before that, but there will be a um discussion led by Council Member Johnson on September 24th at 6 PM at Metro State at the Ecoab Room 302. So I'd like to welcome, you know, folks to come to that. We also do have our public hearing um which is the truth and taxation hearing prior to the budget final adoption later this year. And so I just wanted to kind of make sure it's clear kind of what we're going to be discussing here today. And we also do have um in addition to Dayton's library, the entire library budget that we want to get through. So I do anticipate we will be going right up to 2 o'clock, pretty close to that, you know, so folks need to take a break, go ahead and do that. Um and I will do my best to keep us moving along so we can get through everything. So thank you again to everyone for being here. And with that, um, I will turn it actually back over to Kayla. >> Item number one, minutes 26-26, approving the minutes of the August 2026 library board meeting. >> Um, all right. So, we have the library board minutes before us. I will take a motion from um, Council Member Coleman to approve. Is there any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed? Seven in favor, none opposed. The minutes are approved. Item number two, resolution public hearing 26-243, accepting a gift of 309,000 from the friends of the St. Paul Public Library and amending the libraryies 2026 financing and spending plans. >> Great. Um, well, I'm really excited to accept this gift. This is also a public hearing um on this item. So um if anyone is here to speak on this item, please come up. You have two minutes. Uh and please state your name and where you're coming from if you're here to talk about item number two. Doesn't look like we have anyone. So I will take a um motion from council member Kim to close the public hearing and approve this item. All in favor say I. I. I. >> All those opposed? >> Seven in favor? >> None opposed. >> None opposed. >> So the item is that item is adopted. >> The item is adopted. Sorry. >> Of course. >> Item number three, staff report 26-176. >> 2027 library board proposal. >> Wonderful. So, now we are at the presentation of the library budget. I will turn it over to Director Hartman. Thank you for being here. >> Thank you, Chair Jose. Thanks everybody for being here. Uh, my name is Moren Hartman. I'm the library director in the city of St. Paul and I'm so grateful to lead this work in the city and especially grateful to my staff who do such good work and give me permission to lead and to our residents who support libraries and who use them every day. We are not 14 separate libraries. We are one system working together to serve the city of St. Paul. Presenting this budget today is very painful. No library director ever wants to be in a situation where where we might are talking about closing a library or reducing hours. But the city and therefore the library is in a difficult budget situation. The library cannot continue to deliver the same amount of services with a smaller budget or frankly even with a flat budget. Libraries are one of the best things this country invented and it is both a gift and a huge challenge that across the country public libraries are overwhelmingly funded by local jurisdictions, cities and counties. I am passionate about libraries and I will keep fighting for libraries just like all of us in this room. And I will fight for two things. That the library can't do more with less. And that in addition to community members supporting libraries, we also want community members to continue to use libraries. So, let's get started. So, as you heard council member Jo say, it's my um task today to present you with the mayor's proposed budget. It is not my task to convince you to close the Dayton's Bluff Library, nor convince you to not close it. It is for me to demonstrate how that is showing up in the mayor's proposed budget, the factors, the uh budget savings that go into this and the factors that led to her recommending this in her budget. In the 2027 budget, there is the proposed closure of the Dayton's Bluff Library. Included in that closure amount is the lease with Metropolitan State University. You'll see a number of $148,274 there. The city budgets $131,700. The library would absorb any remainder and any annual increases. In addition, there is technology savings. If the library were closed, we wouldn't spend library money on technology. The same thing is true of library materials costs. And there is also permanent personnel savings. So just to be clear with this proposed item, no library staff member will lose their employment, but we are losing 1.3FT through attrition, which means holding vacancies uh that we have right now. This budget proposal reduces 1.3 FTE as a permanent reduction and also proposes repurposing 4.1 FTE as positions become vacant through 2027 to permanently fund the remainder of the library safety specialist positions. Some of which, as you'll see from uh my slides later on, only have one-time funding through 2027. Maintaining the Danesluff library will eliminate the plan for the ongoing funding of four of the seven library safety specialists. You'll see in this budget they are wrapped together. They do not have to be and that is uh the work that uh could be in front of you and the mayor. Want to give you a little bit of an overview of Dan's Bluff. It opened in 2004 as an innovative partnership with Metro State University. as uh I think most of us know it is a public library within a local college. It was an expansion for SPPL at the time from 12 locations to 13. Our holiday closures differ uh at that location than our other locations due to Metro State holiday and weather closing policies. It is a little over 6,600 square feet. It's a portion of the ground floor of Metro State Library and the Learning Lab building. It has seven library employees. It's the equivalent of 5.4 FTE. It is one of two leased library spaces in St. Paul. Our second is the West 7th Library. The public library has one small meeting room that has a capacity of 10 people and it has 14 computers. All St. Paul residents can get a community borrowing card from Metro State for non- students that allows access to checkout materials that are metro states, access computers, and members of the public um also uh can print and use photocopying, get reference and research assistance, and use public st study tables and seating in the larger metro state library. I just want to clarify that. I want to make sure that you know that uh during the pandemic we had a partnership with the Ramsey County Workforce Solutions at our Dayton Library. So, we temporarily recommissioned this location as a career lab. We had uh this was actually the first space in the state of Minnesota that was doing in-person computer help during the pandemic. We opened in the summer of 2020. We had service levels six days of the week through walk-in and appointmentbased services. There was a significant investment of county cares dollars to support the staffing and marketing. This was library staff that were repurposed into these positions. There was an investment of over $500,000 and this uh was a significant contribution to the city's overall bottom line and um helped avoid library layoffs and city layoffs overall. Our library staff at Danesluff work really, really hard to engage the community and welcome the folks that are coming in. Up until this school year, our mobile library, which is a separate systemwide service, um had a regular visit to the Daytonluff Elementary. Dayton Elementary has asked us not to return this year, not because they don't like the service, but because they're interested in focusing their services and their resources on their media center. now that they have a media specialist in that building. So, we were delivering uh regular service to kids in that school and is one of our one of our best mobile library spots. Um our community services team, which is a service team that um works across the whole city, has an active and regular partnership with Clues and is a member of the adult literacy consortium delivering services and classes to um folks who are learning English. In addition, locally at our Danes Bluff Library, um they do regular visits to Delwood Gardens, a senior living up the street, regular partnership of Metro State on a book club, uh visits from and to Dayton's Bluff Wreck, um partnership with Urban Roots on the Seed Library. We'll have a outreach presence at Fiesta Latina and Ravoli uh Bluff Bash. I want to let you know that there are several locations uh relatively nearby Arlington Hills, George Ladder Central Library, and Sunray Library. There are also, as you can see listed here, some mobile library stops in the area. An additional mobile library stop is coming um soon uh on 7th. We're in active conversation uh with two different possible partners on 7th and that's regardless of what happens in the future with Dayton's Bluff. It's important for us to continue to uh connect with community members in the area >> and oh yes >> uh council president Maker and then council member >> um [clears throat] thanks chair Jo I'm just curious director you know 1.9 miles away close to two miles away is not very close I'm wondering especially when this library unique partnership was created with metro state um was there a standard or is there currently a standard as to how how our library coverage should be geographically, how far anyone resident should be from a library. >> Um, Chair Joles, Council Member Nger, we don't have a current standard like that. Coleman, >> thanks Chair. Thank you, director. Um, with the mobile library stops, how often are they going to each of those locations? >> Um, generally mobile libraries, uh, stops are on an every other week. So there's like the first and third Tuesday at 10:30 or the second and fourth Thursday at 2 o'clock. >> And then just a quick followup question for about how long is each stop? >> Rebecca, do you know and >> it depends on the stop and the interest. So between 30 minutes and two hours. >> Thank you. >> Keep going. So you're going to see some slides of data and I want to say a word about data. Data is just data. The primary driver for this decision is that I was asked to reduce our budget, right? And so I want to be really clear because I've heard this from community members and I've heard it from other folks. I can't reduce hours at other locations that we own without laying off staff. So hours reductions in buildings that the library owns equals staff reductions. Dayton's Bluff is a leased space. It is not fair that it is a lease space and that's where it is. But that's where the cost savings come from. So, as we look at this data and as I look at this data, I'm especially interested in having a conversation about what this data shows us about usage and what it doesn't show us. And Council Member Johnson is absolutely right. There are lots of different ways we can tell the story about usage. But I what I will absolutely um continue to emphasize is that visitor count, which is the way that we count how many people come through the door, is an important metric. I can't deliver library services to you at a location unless you come through the door. Circulation absolutely is not the only important thing. Wi-Fi use is important, PC use is important, program attendance, all of those things are important. And if you look in the appendex, you have all of that across all of our libraries. The main thing happening here is the cost of the lease. So, I'm not going to walk through all this data. Um, but you can see it here. I remain very interested and very passionate regardless of what happens with Dayton's Bluff to continue to have a conversation with Council Member Johnson, with members of this community to ensure that our library continues to be used in the way that I know this neighborhood values and wants their library to be used. >> Council member Johnson. >> Uh, thank you and thank you, director, for for that framing and just like the overall framing of it. I think it's it's really important to talk about that and I won't even say that you know looking at the usage data that is presented I won't take the time to really argue the numbers I will put in framing that Dayton's Bluff is open 51 hours a week um some of the branches are open 55 to 59 hours a week it has 14 computers and a 10person meeting room it's a fraction of some of the meeting room spaces of other libraries, Central Arlington Hills. Um, it's holiday and weather closures also follow Metro State University. It's closed on days that other branches are open. If you build a smaller store on a storefront and you have less hours and less inventory and then you measure it against a bigger store somewhere else across the city and then you go, "Wow, this small store with a smaller inventory has less usage than anywhere else in the city and you use that and compare it to another place with a bigger store with a bigger storefront and you're surprised that it has less visitors." I just want to share with you that that doesn't necessarily tell you the real data. It also doesn't communicate whether or not a a neighborhood deserves a library. It's comparing apples to oranges. And I think that that tells you more about how we are investing in a community than underinvesting and uh a community itself. And so when I look at these numbers, I just want to put them in the frame that in spite of having a smaller library with smaller resources with smaller hours of operation in other places across the city, these are still the numbers that we're putting up in 2025. I want to also be clear that Dayton's Bluff was not the lowest usage library in 2025. I want to also add in 2026 Dayton Bluff Libraryies usage is up 7% from where it was this time last year. And I just want to share like some of the pieces around data and what we're looking through for usage. Um this number is twice over the entire population of Dayton Bluff's neighborhood. And when you're thinking about just visitors and people that are looking if I assume that every person in Dayton's Bluff that lived in Dayton's Bluff, including myself, went there two to seven 2.7 times as this would be the number and metrics that you would see. I think data is really incredibly telling, but I just want to frame it. We have put these numbers up despite not having an infrastructure that we own as a city-owned operated library in our community. And it's been like that for 22 years. And so just putting in that frame of mind is that like these numbers are coming up despite the fact that we as a city has not have not invested in an actual infrastructure building to own, to operate, to turn, to maintain. And so like I see these numbers along with the other slides, you'll see things around like the 73% decline in usage when we have a 43% decline in usage of the systems all overall um as metrics and determinines. And I agree wholeheartedly that these aren't necessarily supposed to be indicative of whether our neighborhood stays there. But I have to reframe the usage data and to give it for context because you're talking about a a square footage that is significantly smaller than other places in the city. You're also talking about a library that has smaller resources, smaller staff that has maintained and changed management multiple times. You're also talking about just several disadvantage like several situations where we are disinvesting in Dayton's Bluff neighborhood, a neighborhood that is already disinvested in a neighborhood with a average income lower than $50,000 for a family of four. And you're saying use it the same as you would pretty much a supermarket in another area in the city. And that's just not a fair analysis. And so I just wanted to say that, reframe it, and to talk about why usage data in itself to justify a library existing or not existing is an inherently inequitable tool when you're talking about buildings of not the same size, operations of not the same size. And I will just add in 2025 with the cyber attack, we literally had no computer usage. And so it's just ironic that we are using usage data in a year where we have to take into account the fact that Dayton's Bluff Library continues to be a driving factor for Wi-Fi and computer usage. And that resource was not afforded to Dayton's Bluff residents along with the rest of the city and multiple times throughout the city. So just putting that into perspective. I'm also just like I have several other remarks that all come in today. So, I'm really thankful that Dan Bluff's library information was pulled out of the appendix and put in the beginning because I think it'll make for a fruitful conversation as we move forward. >> Great work. >> I really appreciate that. I think um what I want to just uh emphasize um it's difficult to go after you uh True Johnson, but is just to emphasize that the 15 visits per hour, even though like we're seeing the data, but that's a person that's getting engaged with resources with a library staff that deeply cares about them being not just present in there in the space, but that they're utilizing and accessing all of the wonderful things that our libraries have to offer. So, when I even see the 15 visits per hour, I'm thinking about an individual um walking in, seeing a friendly face, someone that's willing to help them, assist them with printing off a resume, right? Um connecting their kids to a homework help uh time, um signing their kid up for reading together or even accessing um you know, one of our um mental health assistants um through our library. So even though like yes to all the data and I I really appreciate that greater context here Johnson you know to me to be honest this number could be even lower in terms of visits per hour and there's still an incredible inherent value of a single person walking into a library like Gayton's Bluff that is walkable from their neighborhood that's serving their neighborhood um that assists them where they're at. And um and I just I I just want to emphasize for myself again like that number could be lower and it doesn't change the value that I see in terms of those folks walking into to access city resources. So I appreciate your comments. Uh Chair Johnson. >> Yeah, thank you. Um I I yeah, I hear what what everyone is saying. We're going to be there's a lot of data in this presentation. There's also even more um in the appendex. And I uh I agree that you know the usage data is much more complex just like any data set is. Um and there's a lot a lot of different different variables and things that could be talked about when you're comparing one library to another. And I also agree that you know the usage that we're looking at and the cost savings and things like that don't necessarily equal the value um that these that these libraries and these services provide for our residents. So, I appreciate that framing as we're moving forward. Um, I'm going to have us continue if that's all right. >> Thank you, Chair Jo. And and don't want to get in a quibble about data. Um, and knowing that all our libraries are open different numbers of hours. That's why I've included in the appendex our um by hour data, right? So, we've sort of equalized uh against a library that's open 51 hours versus a library that's open 59 hours, right? So, understood there's all kinds of differences. And also, I just want to be really clear that all of our this is not a value judgment. I know it feels like that. It feels like that to my staff as well. And um this library use is valid and it's important. And also, I have the almost impossible task of cutting a budget, right? So, I want to just be very clear that this is not a value statement. This is about me looking around in the library budget, knowing that the mayor had a priority for not laying off frontline staff and looking at the next thing that costs the most in our budget. And in this case, it's our buildings. In this case, it's the lease. So, yes, there are other libraries that have similar use patterns to Dayton's Bluff, but the significant difference being that I can invest in them. I can control more of how I hope that they will continue to be used more in the future. and Hayden Heights is a great example of that. So, I want to kind of refocus to nobody values libraries more than me and my team. And also, we're not having a budgetneutral conversation. Of course, 15 visits per hour is legitimate because of all the things that happen there. But I have a budget problem and I'm looking to you all and the mayor to um to help figure out what are we going to do about this and also how we can continue to get our libraries um better used. um all over the city. Uh question was asked uh to me in preparation for this meeting and so I appreciate uh the help of my uh OFS colleagues. The question was how to keep Dayton's bluff and fund the safety specialists in 2027 and 2028. So you'll see the chart here. Uh the total 2027 gap is $286,722. We were also asked uh what amount of increase that would be to the overall levy. You'll see that information there. Uh and in a minute I'm going to start talking about library safety specialist. Um and uh you'll see the information requested there approximately what that would result in for a levy increase in 2028. So I am going to move on to library safety specialist. Is that okay? >> I think that's okay. >> And I know there'll be more questions. >> We'll one more time at the end. >> Okay. It's it's intertwined and as I said, uh that's where it is right now. >> So, um as this body knows, uh and and has been so supportive of uh the library, uh started a new safety strategy um in 2021 with ARPA funding and it has proven u more successful than we could have imagined. In the 2027 budget, there is an investment in the library safety strategy. There is 3.0 FTE in our library safety specialist in the general fund base budget. Uh you can see the number there. There is and that's ongoing. There is 1.0 FTE uh for 2027 only. And then there is two FTE in the general government special projects carryover. So that's the remainder of the formally ARPA money. We request a permission to carry it over to use in 2027. And then we have succeeded in getting grant funding for one FTE in our library special funds through a grant from the Melon Foundation. So the this proposed plan for sustaining the remaining four of the seven safety specialists is the repurposing of public service positions from Dayton's Bluff Library as they become vacant in 2027. uh special fund investments. Um again, library safety specialists uh strategy. There are two library safety specialists in the general government special projects fund. This is a repeat of what I just said, uh but it's in special funds and then one library safety specialist in the library special fund via that restricted grant. Uh oh, Council Member Johnson. So, can you share a little bit more about why they're intertwined? You mentioned that this is the way that it is. I'm I guess I'm trying to understand um how gaining money from the interlure through attrition is somehow intertwined with library safety specialists being in the general fund. Like, help me understand how where's the swap and what is actually being proposed >> that um I don't know if this chart will help. Um so right now you'll see the chart of the 2027 budget proposal and you'll see that some of those positions are ongoing. These 3.0 are ongoing. Uh these others are only one-time funding. And so how this is intertwined with the Dayton Bluff Library is you heard me mention before the Daytonluff if the Daytonluff library closes my staff won't lose their positions but so those positions will be absorbed back into the library system but over time through attrition those positions would be converted into library safety specialists on a permanent basis. not the people, but the money for those positions. >> Um, and then as a followup, >> does that fact change if Dayton Spluff remains open? Do those staff not still have the same type of, you know, issues or I guess the reason why they would leave. Wouldn't that remain the same? >> Um, Chair Jones, Council Member Johnson, uh, just to be clear, it has nothing to do with the individuals at Dayton's Bluff. it has to do with attrition. So um in any given year in any department people quit um or retire or do anything like that and so then we have a vacancy. So, were we to have a vacancy, I would repurpose that into a library safety specialist. And um so, so I just want to be clear, if Dayton's Bluff were to stay open, I don't have a pathway for permanent funding of my library safety specialists. I know it's super complex and is an example of multi-year funding, which I know that this body and the mayor are really interested in, but but let's keep with it because I know it's confusing. Yeah, because like one of the questions that I asked that you shared that we budget systemically, we don't or systematically, we don't budget individual librarywise. Um because when I asked the question around how much money do we spend at each library? Could you provide the budgets for what we spend at each library? The response I got was we didn't we don't budget per library. We budget systematically. That's correct. And so I'm wondering how in this case are we budgeting specific to Dayton Bluff and not systematically around the staffing for systems for library specialists being that they service library specialist service the entire system. >> That's right. >> But we're asking for Dayton's Bluff Library to solve for the budget impacts of the library safety specialists despite not having one on on their site and my understanding is not necessarily having a permanent one placed on the east side. >> Council Johnson, I'm not sure I'm understanding your question. you want me to >> insuff library specifically the budget for the library is being used to fix a systemic problem but we don't tend to budget systematically so I'm just wondering how did we get there like how do we get there as a solution I think I I don't know if I can help um I think what is what director Hartman is saying is that because so the library safety specialists have a multi-year funding challenge um the lease and these their costs at the Dayton's Bluff Library are what are being proposed as being cut. So, so the library safety specialists and the Dayton Bluff Library are on the list of choices for places that cuts could be made. I don't believe that library safety specialists as a systemwide service are tied specifically to any library like the Dayton Library, which I think is what Council Member Johnson is getting at. So, thank you chair Jo and um I'll stick with it. Um you are right as a library system we do not budget individually by library. Our staff belong to the whole system and they are assigned to branches. Right? So when I have um in in this budget, Dayton's Bluff is proposed to close and so there will be staff savings from that and there is also a multi-year funding challenge for safety specialists at the system level that that is how they are intertwined. So, were Dayton's Bluff to be to not uh close, then uh that's great for Dayton's Bluff, but then I have a longer term funding sustainability challenge for four of my safety specialists >> that based on the proposed budget in front of us. I mean, >> thank you. Yes. In the proposed budget, one feeds the other, >> right? >> It does not have to, but in the proposed budget, that is how it is, >> right? Thank you. Um, Council Member Kim, >> um, how many safety specialists do we have right now and are there any positions vacant? >> We have seven safety specialists right now and I believe we have one vacancy. >> And I think um, the one thing I'll just point out and then I think we can keep keep going is um, on your slide, can you go back to the safety specialist? >> Yes. Sorry, I was just going back to that phrase there. If we uh maybe the one before that, if we were to find, you know, we do have a multi-year funding need um here, should we find another path for sustainable funding for library safety specialists that would help solve that would be one way to solve the issue um of the the cost for the or the cost savings of the Dayton's Bluff Library for 2027 potentially. Chair Jose, yes, thanks for simplifying a complicated thing. As you can see in the proposed budget, I have my need met for 2027, but I do not have a need met for four of the seven safety specialists beyond 2027. Right? I know right now we are in a yearby-year budget process, but I also have been asked by the mayor and also this body is to think about our needs on a multi-year level. And so that's what this chart attempts to do. It attempts to find a way through that does not uh plunk them all onto the operating budget at one time, >> right? >> And basically there's this is again only based on the mayor's proposed budget and the levy that was proposed by the mayor. So there could be multiple different pathways to um finding alternative sources for library safety specialists, finding sources for the lease for the Dayton's Bluff Library and those costs. Um but this is all just based on the proposed budget that's in front of us. Okay, I think we'll keep going. I'm just doing a quick yes >> time check here. We're we've got 20 or so minutes left. >> I'm on it. Um two other uh reductions to bring to your attention. We're taking an attrition reduction. An attrition reduction means we have to hold positions u more vacant. Uh this uh is about the same rate that we held this year in 2025 and we are doing okay. So uh move on to higher priority things. We're okay there. Um we are also you'll also see a shift of partial library materials funding to a special fund and that accounts for the revenue that I'm going to talk about right here. So, uh, long to make a long story short, revenue for the library, like how much you pay for printing or copying comes in through our special funds. So, um, you also see in this proposed budget a one-time investment in updated visit count technology across all library locations. Uh, right now it's a very manual process. So, just to be clear, we do have an a way to count people that come through our doors. It's like a clicker thing and uh our staff go and look on it, write it down on a piece of paper, email it over. I'm looking for an investment in real time technology there so that we are better so that we could actually track by location, by hour, by day of the week, which location when what locations are busy when. I think it's a really important thing um for us to be able to know and we we don't have the ability to do that right now. Uh you'll also see a fee increase here. Um the library alone cannot um solve the city's increase in revenue challenges, but but we also recognize we want to do our our part. Black and white copies and prints, we're proposing increasing from 15 cents to 20 cents per page. Notary services proposing increasing from a dollar per transaction to $2 per transaction. and um our staff are working to pilot a project to charge for professional posed photography at George Latimer Central Library after hours. history of our budget to actual is that we are always under budget and um library culture as all of you know is one of following the rules and so I would ask you to note the difference here that is all >> I [laughter] think um thank uh okay >> I think that's a really important point to make I I want to also bring up the um when the library doesn't spend uh it's budgeted amount at the end of the year. Whatever's left over goes into our library fund balance. We have our own library fund balance because we are the li separate library agency and we have our own levy. Um and so it's my understanding and this is a question for Miss Mitchell that we also have a library fund balance right now of close to $9 million. And um that in the past has been sometimes a way that we uh have used one-time funding to be able to support needs one time, but it's very challenging because the library fund balance is also part of the general fund balance. And we have a general fund balance policy that needs it needs to be at least 15%. And um that impacts our AAA bond rating. And if we impact that, that costs the city more money to borrow money. And so, as director Hartman also just mentioned, as we're looking at budget to actuals and the library has continued to be a great, you know, fiscal uh fiscally responsible by underspending, that's not the case with a lot of other departments. Um, some departments continue to overspend. And so, we're in the situation where the library has a large fund balance proportionally. Um, and that money has to be used to help solve other issues with the rest of the general fund. Um, which I'll say makes makes some of the problems we're facing here very very frustrating. Um, when we're looking at the cuts to the library that are being proposed and that's the situation that we're in. Uh, I don't know if Miss Mitchell, can you share anything else about the fund balance? >> Chair Jo, uh, you've got it all. >> Okay. Very good. >> Okay. Council member Johnson. >> Thank you, Chair. Um, can I just ask a clarifying question? Did in fact $913,000 from 2025 go to the library fund balance? Did the full total of that uh the $913,351 did it go to the library fund balance? >> Uh, Chair Johnson, council member or excuse me, Chair Jo, Chair Johnson. um 2025 numbers are unawudited. So I'm not sure where it will land once we finish all of our final entries, but that is what would happen if if that is the final number at the end once all final entries are done. That that is how that would work. >> Okay. So for 2024, the amount that went into the fund balance was 870,000. For 2023, it was 713 and so forth. >> Council member, yes. Um the other side of this that isn't showing is the revenue. So it's it's the net between the spending and revenue. Um library revenues I believe usually come in pretty close to budget. So I wouldn't expect there to be a huge variance there. So I would I would think that for each of those it would be in in that general range. >> Okay. And then as a just a followup and something to note here um I'm also looking at the 2026 numbers and I know that they're um on audited and we go into those spaces but just sharing that um how much again is the total for library specialists >> it the >> for like the total amount per library specialist again >> it's approximately $110,000. >> Okay. And so the budget for four like your short four library specialists so about 440 is that an accurate >> 440 plus 270 just doing basic math is lower than 913,000 that we return to the library fund balance. Um, and I just want to share that I am concerned with there being this presumed issue with holding Dayton's Buff Library in operation and maintaining library specialists. Seems a little interesting to me that for the last consecutive three budget cycles prior to this one, we've had a quarter of a million dollars or more in the budget fund for the fund balance that we currently operate that currently holds $9 million in it. I am really interested in knowing what your budget to actuals for 2026 ends up being being that this number was pulled in August 24th. I know it's not audited. I know there's a lot of things that go into it, but there's only three months left of the year. And so I am curious if we will actually spend $10.5 million um in the next three months because if we're not, then I actually would encourage my colleagues to really think about that number because do we need to put back in a million dollars into the library fund balance or can we save Dayton's Bluff Library or and can we fund library specialists? Because I think to this you know piece for me this was actually a slide that I thought was really important because it gives the reality is that we are seeing that is I think distinct in different departments. So often in departments when they come up and talk about budget cuts they are operating from a deficit. In the library budget in particular we do not have that same issue showing up in the budget to actuals. The variance is actually something to pay attention to and we're proposing a budget solve for possibly for an actual budget problem that does not exist. if we are able to be able to carry over funding in any way or even just to allocate with a decision that quite literally we get to make which is that library fund balance transfer may happen but does not have to happen and I think that's one of the questions that I have for us as we think about it because again the savings from this is 270,000 the amount of money that is needed to be found for next year is also less combined than the total variance that we had from 2025 and that was a weird year and so looking into this year the trend is that it's increasing. So I'm just looking at the trends, looking at the patterns and simply identifying that I don't actually think there's a budget issue here. >> And so that's something that I will just share for you all as your consideration. Yeah, Council Johnson, thanks for bringing that up. That number also jumped out at me. I think it's it's my understanding and director Hartman, you can correct me, but there's still a few months of payroll to be caught up on and some payments that only come through at the end of the year. But to council member Johnson's point, the library does continue to underspend its budget every year. The money I think we did use some of that money for transforming libraries um in the past before it went into the fund balance, but fund balance money in the library can only be used for the libraries. But it's also my understanding at the end of the year that the library spending gets compared to all the other departments and some of the overspending and sometimes that money is used to offset the entire budget at the end of the year. And so that's the other thing is like we it is it is in our best interest to spend the money if we can um in you know this year >> we certainly are trying our best. >> Yeah. And that's what but that yeah that's what's very frustrating is just that this is the library's money but it's being used um to offset other departments and that's why sometimes we don't always have all this money left over because we need it to balance the budget at the end of the year. And sometimes that's because of, you know, whether it's the cyber security attack. Um, you know, the police department continues to overspend their budget and things like that. And that's what puts us in quite a bind. Um, I will go to uh, council member council vice president Yang, council member Coleman. Did you have another? >> It was a follow-up. >> Okay. >> It was a follow-up clarification. >> You How about you, Council Member Johnson, Council Vice President Yang, Council Member Coleman? And just to clarify, we signed the lease for Metro State University under suspension as a council action last month. So when we're looking at just the the contract and actually the contract years, cutting a check to Metro State to protect our lease and this year as an this year expense is a doable thing that we can do. We don't have to wait till January 1, 2027 to to pay the the Metro State University for our lease. So, just to be clear, we signed a three-year lease with Metro State University under suspension as a council. That's an active thing that we have now. This would actually be a lease breach. So, just wanted to share that from fiscal year to fiscal year. It doesn't operate in the same fiscal year that we have. >> Uh, thank you, Council Vice President Yang. >> Thanks, Church. I first want to say thank you, Director Hartman, for your presentation today. I um know that it's you know I mean I definitely feel um what you're sharing um what you shared in the beginning about it being a really tough presentation. Um I do want to get my thoughts in before the the meeting ends which is that I'm not supportive of the closure of the Danbuff library. There is not an alternative at all for increasing library services for that neighborhood. Um, and I've mentioned at the table here, if we were to do something really drastic and big like this, it must come it must be married with like a plan on how we do ensure especially like our our communities of um communities that are from marginalized areas to areas of concentrated poverty, low-income families, working-class families to continue to have that access. I know that every single year we always have the same conversation about the library fund balance. I want to bring that up because I think this is was my seventh year at the council. Probably my seventh year hearing about it over and over again and I can't say enough how like our St. Paul public libraries has really been the one carrying the heavy load when it comes to even putting dollars into the fund balance overall and I really believe it's time for us to create major wins for our library system. I want that. Um and so I I wanted to express that um as you know my commitment in making strides toward that this year. Um and wanted to just really call on all of us on the board here to continue doing that too because I I believe that these um these cuts that you've had to navigate through and just even come up with we we don't need it um at all and we can definitely find a solve for it even if it doesn't come from the library fund balance. [clears throat] you all as my colleagues have heard me talk a lot about early desertification of tiff districts which I'm very supportive of um of all of them really and uh and so I just want to continue like bringing in that spirit of hope and opportunities for us and instead of like continuing to to keep us trapped in this conversation around scarcity. Um, overall I I just am hopeful um and I will continue um sharing that out and and again wanted to express I'm not supportive of of the closure and wanted to just let you know council member Johnson that um I am uh here as a partner with you in that work and thank you as well for being an advocate for our east side communities. Oh last thing is I I just noticed that there isn't anything around library collections in the slides here. So last year I did share that I'm not supportive of us using cultural star money um as onetime funding for library collections. I've even heard from star board members who are very opposed to the idea of continuing to do that. Wanted to just reiterate where my stance is on it. And so is there any sort of proposal at all for library collections and where that money would come from? >> Um chair Jose council member Yang. It's in the appendex. Um it's page 33 that illustrates um the council investments in the past and um what the amount needed in 2027 would be in order to get to that 15% of um keeping our spending power level. Um I defer any conversations about what that spending source would be to to all of you. I I don't have a I don't have a secret one. >> Okay. Thank you. I did see that slide, but I didn't see like, you know, what basically the plan for next year would be to increase the >> the um dollars for that. So, I figure that out. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. So, we have um Council Coleman and Council President Nagger. Um Director Hartman does still have >> maybe five or six more slides after this. So, I will >> have you guys answer your qu ask your questions, I think. then let's go through the presentation and then >> maybe we'll end up with a few minutes left at the end if that's all right. Council member Coleman. >> Thank you, Chair. Um I'll just quickly pick up on the theme of a little bit of hope and optimism from Council Member Yang is I do think that it's very clear that there's no interest in on this board in closing the Dayton Library and I think it's just a question of what is the mechanism that we use to make sure we have the funding, but it it feels like a non-starter from my perspective. Um, and I totally appreciate that, you know, you have to present the budget as it is. And also, I'm really grateful that we have this board that is that is willing to do whatever it takes to save the library because we know how absolutely essential it is. With that in mind, I just have I'm trying to understand the different mechanisms that we might be able to explore. So, actually, my question is for Miss Mitchell because I don't have seven years of talking about the fund balance. Can you just explain is it a legal requirement that all of the like if we were to say whatever money is left at the end of 2026 we're putting to to the libraries in 2027 we want that to roll over. Is that a law that we change? Is that a resolution? Is that something that we can't change? What would that look like technically? >> Um Chair Jose, Council Member Johnson, uh thank you for the question. First I I want to correct something that I said earlier. Um what this the slide that we saw saw had just the spending side. Um I have some other information here that I'm looking at that shows actual contributions and use of fund balance in the last few years. Um for 2025 the contribution to library fund balance once we factor in revenue and all other sort of like very technical accounting things. The contribution is actually 68,000. And then in 2024 it was actually a use of fund balance of 120,000. And then in 2023, and this I don't have details on what this was, but it was a it was a higher contribution closer to a million. So I'm not really sure what the variance is there. So [clears throat] more more details um we can dig into the details on on 2023 in particular, but this is only sort of one less than half of the of the equation for fund balance. Um there's an adopted policy around the fund balance percent that we have to maintain as a city and that's 15% and as chair Joe mentioned the library is is a portion of that. Um the library general fund and the city general fund combined need to be 15% of the next year's adopted budget. Um so that's that's a challenge for us every year and just the way that that policy is set up because every year the adopted budget grows. So for us to even maintain that a percentage with the denominator growing like we need to be contributing to fund balance every year to stay at or above the 15%. And I'll say the 15% is is low like that's our like minimum um minimum percent and actually like cities of our size usually target 20 to 30%. So coming in at 16 and 17% is pretty low for us. Um I am not sure if there is a legal um requirement around sort of the the way that things get accounted. I I believe that it's just sort of a natural accounting function that the the funds unspent in the library fund remain in the library fund. Um but I mean they are they're certainly accessible in a number of of ways and we can um do budget amendments that access use of fund balance. not sort of like totally walled off. Um, does that sort of answer? >> Yeah, it's a question. Thank you. >> Okay, >> Council President. >> Thanks, Chair Jo. I two comments on the question. First of all, I in response to that information that you just shared, Miss Mitchell, I have to say it's really discouraging to see this information be shared with us in advance, presented here, and then to have that context that you're referring to from something we haven't seen. Um, this body can only make decisions that are as good as the information that we're presented with. and that this slide should not have been presented to us without that additional information. It is misleading. It's erroneous. Um and it leads us to a line of questioning that is not backed up by the data that you're talking about that we haven't seen. So I just think partial information is similar to misinformation. We have to know the rest of what you're talking about. And I just really want to ask double down on OFS in particular as you're reviewing department slides. please make sure that we have full information and um and that we're not talking about things that are that are backed by additional data that we haven't seen. Um that's one thing. Secondly, I do want to say director to the vice president's question about u materials budget. I'm disappointed to see that it seems like since we passed a resolution at this body saying that we would be keeping purchasing power constant year-over-year in the library materials budget that the base budget for materials has gone down. Um the goal of that resolution wasn't to give ourselves an obligation to fill a larger and larger gap every year because the base budget that's being proposed is decreasing, but to really put the onus on the library board on the library director and department to present to the board um a materials budget that keeps pace with inflation and assault for that. And to the vice president's point, I don't think any of us want to use cultural star onetime dollars to make up that gap. But it seems like every year the base budget is getting smaller. And so that gap of what it would take would is really growing. Um so happy to hear your thoughts on that. And then my question relates to and I agree with Miss Coleman, Miss Johnson, everyone around this table. I don't think there's interest, Vice President Yang in closing the Duck Library. I'm wondering what conversations we've had with Metro State about the lease um about the terms of the lease. I it seems that the full cost of this is truly the lease arrangement that we have and it is surprising that we just signed a new lease a couple of weeks ago when this was being considered or proposed. Um and I'm I'm wondering what we discussed with them. >> Yeah. Um Chair Jo, uh Council President Nre um just sort of respectfully um in in response to your question about needing to make sure we have the actual information from OFS. This is a council provided template. So, we're going to need your um ask ahead of time in order to provide you with the information that you seek. This this template is about a variance, not about what remains in the library fund balance. So, we can do a better job, but only if we know what your questions are ahead of time and in the template. So, I'm just I'm wanting to work together, but also I don't think it's um fair when that template is um provided to us ahead of time. We're doing what we can with what you've asked us to provide. So, thank very truly respectfully. It's just I know that continues to come up and we're doing the best with what you've provided to us. All the departments are >> um Okay. I we have four minutes until H is supposed to start and I have a line of questions from folks and I know we still have about five or six more slides. So, I guess um I don't know. Chair Johnson, do you want us to keep going? I know we have H. >> So, sorry. I just have to respectfully as the chair of the budget committee and who creates the templates the on Friday when the slides were given you had a direct question about the fund balance and so you know director it was there was a question that was given matching our norms and our council process for how to give those to you. Um, Director Harney did respond to my office with um unodudited financials that I could easily out in this conversation, but I'm choosing not to in regards to an ongoing offloading um conversation offline. But yeah, I mean like in reality, I asked those questions to Miss Mitchell knowing in some places that I could continue to move forward about this slide. The slide itself looks factual. The question is how much money got into the fund balance which does differ substantially. So the question remains where did that money go? So 913,000 from 2025 is unspent in your budget and it did not hit the fund balance. The question remains from for OFS. Where did that go? And so that's the question that's given to you. But I just want to respectfully share with you that we did send it to you and we did send it to you ahead of time. I asked a specific question. It was chosen not to be added to the slide or the slide deck. That was a choice. And so I just want to share that with you um in full transparency because I have my email that I sent you 21 questions on Friday and I did not see your slides until then. So you know I appreciate the template use. I do not respect sharing that the template is the reason that you're not able to ask a question that answer a question that was given to you. And that maybe isn't related to just you. That's related to the information that we will receive. But I just wanted to correct that because we have been talking about the fund balance specifically. The decision to not include the fund balance or information regarding it was a choice. I think uh council member Johnson I just I I was in the library preview meeting a few days ago and we did talk about the library fund balance. I think that with the library fund balance um numbers some of them being unodudited and things like that that's why they weren't put into publicly into this presentation. I think also that the I know that you did ask a lot of questions and we do have our our template that we send um in advance. Um I do agree that if if OFS could follow up with more detail on the amount of money put into the fund balance that would be helpful. Um and I know sometimes we have deviated from the budget template but it does take time to pull that information together. And so I don't I don't think that it was intentional of not providing information. I don't think that's what's happening here. I think that it takes time to be able to pull those things together um accurately, especially when we're talking about, you know, finances that can be that haven't been audited. Uh to make sure that accurate information is provided and that staff has a reasonable amount of time. Um ideally not over the weekend to have to pull those things together. Um I think Council Member Johnson, we do have to start AH at two o'clock. Is that correct? >> Yes. Okay. So you want So I guess we should probably wrap up here. Um I know there are a few more slides left. I don't director Harmon, do you have anything you want to say? I'll give you like a >> No. Um and sorry to end on that note. I just I I really um respect this body, respect the work that we're trying to do together and um also just we're gonna have to keep working um respectfully together forward and and it's my job to work with both you and and OFS as well and I stand ready to provide you with any information and look forward to continuing to support libraries and thank you for that. >> Thank you. Well, this is a big discussion. I know we didn't get to get to all of these slides today and I thought that that might be the case. So, please follow up with questions. You can include myself and Kim and we'll try to get them answered. Um, I do just want to say in closing, you know, I I hear what folks are saying at the table as we're talking about the closure of a library. That's very painful. It's difficult. Um, I do agree that I I don't think that there is um an appetite at this table to move forward with a budget that includes the closure of the Dayton's Bluff Library. I'll say that I am fully committed. I've appreciated working in partnership with Council Johnson, Director Hartman, and with all of you on a matter of what this does that look like. And I'll say that I am supportive of a variety of different ways that we could do that. Whether it's um you know, we do have our own levy power here at the library. We can we have our own levy that we can control. We could consider raising it. We have a lot of information to explore about the library fund balance or unspent dollars. Um, we might have alternative uh ways to be able to fund the library safety specialists, whether it's within the libraries or even considering you're being creative and considering the police budget. They provide public safety. Are there ways that we might be able to support that? That would really um I think be more ways that are more equitable and more fair when we're looking at the ways that the library budget is disproportionately impacted relative to other departments. So, I'm open to any and all options. I appreciate the discussion today and I know that we have a big challenge ahead of us, but I um am confident that we'll be able to come up with solutions that will be in the best interest of everyone. So, thank you to all of you. Thank you to Director Hartman and thank you to all the staff that put so much effort into this presentation. I really appreciate it. And with that, we are adjourned. Naker here. Yang here. Chair Johnson >> here. There are seven present, zero absent. And one the first item for your consideration is approval of the minutes. MIN26-27 approval of the August 2026 H meeting minutes. >> All right, we had a chance to review those. I'll take a motion from uh Commissioner Ying to approve. All in favor? >> I. >> All opposed. >> Seven in favor, zero opposed. The minutes are adopted. Item number two is a staff report SR26-172 tax increment financing tiff update. And this was laid over from the August 26 H meeting. >> All right. So, as promised, we brought this item back just to give more time to it because uh we had to quickly kind of do a rushed uh overview and summary of such an important topic. And so I wanted to give it the time that it was due. So I see Miss Wolf uh back with us. Thank you for coming in and being willing to kind of to take the time to go through the actual presentation. >> Oh yeah. Good afternoon, Chair Johnson. Um H board commissioners. My name is Jenny Wolf with PED. Um I'll be presenting today on tax increment financing and descertification. The summary of topics uh will include our descertification refresher, H tiff districts and debt obligations, HA tiff districts to descertify pooling for affordable housing, affordable financing needs and future HR board action required. Uh first I'll provide just a quick refresher on descertification as I have covered this topic with you all in the past. Um so when is descertification statutoily required? Um as mentioned previously, state law limits the spending within a tiff district that could result in early descertification. The driver for this law is limiting the pooling abilities. Um pooling not only applies though, however, to expenditures outside of the tiff district boundary, but also to expenditures that occur after a certain date. um generally five years from the certification date. Um this therefore restricts the use of our collected tax increments and when a determination is made that um no additional spending is allowed, the tiff district must be descertified. Uh should we elect to descertify a tiff district early? Uh first and foremost, I just want to confirm that the HRA only keeps the district open to pool for affordable housing. If a district has met its development obligations, objectives, and covered all of its obligations, it can be closed early even if pooling opportunities still remain. Alternatively, a district can be kept open and pool tax increments for qualifying housing activities. If the housing tiff district is the district kept open, um this does require the project that was financed in the tiff district to remain affordable as long as we keep the district open. I just want to note that. And on this um line of things, in 2024, the H board and the city council amended the Shepard Davern rental housing tiff district even though the obligations were um fully paid. and we did that to enable a long-term ongoing revenue stream for affordable housing. Um, and then lastly, upon descertification, the tax capacity captured in the tiff district becomes available for the taxing jurisdictions. And this is the graphic I've shown in the past um from the state auditor's office. Um, so they're representing here that when a tiff district is descertified in the following year, the tax capacity that was captured in the tiff district will now be part of the tax base and the taxing entities can do one of two things as they're demonstrating here. They can keep the levy the same and then that'll bring down the tax rate and the taxes um across um all of the taxpayers. Alternatively, they can make a choice to increase the levy and keep the tax rate um at the same level and then that means that they're basically taking advantage of the tax base growth from the descertification. I don't know if there's any questions on that. Okay. Um so for pay 2026 of the HA 47 TIF districts or subdists we have six um that have obligations that were fully paid through the end of last year um or they are without obligations. And so I've listed those here. Two housing tiff districts, the affforementioned Shepard Tavern rental housing tip district and then the Highland Point housing tip district. And then we have three subd districts within the riverfront Renaissance redevelopment tip district. Um this district does have two additional subdists. Um but those have existing obligations. Um the final collection year for Riverfront Renaissance is 2028. And then we have one subdist um in within the Emerald Park TIF district and that's known as the 808 Berry project. Uh, additionally, there are four districts or subdists expected to pay their obligations in full in 2026. Um, this includes the Emerald Gardens subdist and the Metro Loft subdist. Um, both of those are part of the Emerald Park redevelopment tip district and then the Failen Village uncommitted subdist and the Pioneer Endicott redevelopment tip district. Um, so as previously mentioned, we can collect and spend tax increments from housing and redevelopment tiff districts if if legally permissible after debt is retired. For the four districts that I've just listed on the other slide that are going to pay off their obligations, we will need to descertify those early because they have maximized their pooling abilities. Um, one of those tiff districts also will need to amend the plan, the budget plan. Uh, additionally, there's proposed HRA subdists that could be descertified early, and those are within the Riverfront Renaissance TIFF district shown here. Um the reason they could be descertified early is um that we are continuing to pull for affordable housing with the other subdists and if we close some of the subdists now we'll just keep the remainder open longer to maximize our pooling. Um so what I'm showing here uh in this table are the districts that would be descertifying at the end of 2026. So this 2026 would be the final collection year. Um those are the the ones that I've I've listed previously. It includes those that are ending statutoily. The top two there, Minnesota Life and Block 39. Their statutory final year is this year 26. And then the next four are listed as early descertifications. The Emerald Park tiff district which includes the three subd districts I I mentioned. Um and then the Failen Village and then the Riverfront Renaissance subdists that we can close early and the Pioneer Andicott tip district. Um so many of these u are would be terminating uh two years early other than Pioneer Endicott downtown here would be um terminating about 14 years early. Um, and that I'll just preface on that one that when we um set up the district to pool immediately for affordable housing and so everything kind of ends all at the same time. >> And Miss Wolf, I did see Commissioner Ner's hand, so I'll be going to Commissioner Naker. >> Thank you. Thank you, Chair Johnson. Um, so Miss Wolf, just to understand the if we were to descertify all the ones that you are proposing and and we'll see more explanation as to ones you're not proposing to descertify later on. Um, first of all, I just want to say it's wonderful to be having this conversation and I want to thank Vice President Yang in particular and all of our colleagues for um bringing this bringing this discussion to light because I think it's important to be these were not discussions we had at this table before. Um, and we're talking about potentially 4.6 million returned to the tax base. I know you're not able to comment on what that would do in terms of the the same amount of levy next year and how that would affect property taxes for individuals because that's a complicated formula. But my understanding is if we were to descertify these, the 4.6 million goes back into our tax base for 2027 having some impact on what the consistent levied amount would be. And then is there any uh immediate cash that comes back like when the port descertified last year or was that a unique situation? >> Um Chair Johnson um Commissioner Nger that was a unique situation and I do kind of get into that um further on. Um I will just say that really rough back a napkin. Um I um calculated about $10 to the median home value savings with those that are descertifying by their terms here. So the top two and then another $11 per median value home for those that are descertifying early. And that is the city's the city's portion. So that would be if the city um reduce their tax rate by not increasing the levy and was were able to capture uh or or to um use the greater tax base to do that. So that's just real rough back in napkin. I know it's a complicated formula like you said. So with all the helpful but for the chair because I know the mayor is talking about her proposed levy increase roughly equaling $58 increase on the average home. So, if you're describing 20 $22 off of that, that's significant. >> Um, yeah, Chair Johnson, Commissioner Ner, the only thing I would um reserve on that is I don't know if if the $10 was already factored in because those tip districts are expiring by their terms. So, I'll just caveat that. But, um, yeah, half of it perhaps. Um, definitely. So, okay. Um, so, um, as I've shown in the past, um, we continuously track what percent of our tax base is captured in TIFF districts. And this slide shows a 5-year history, which is common, um, and reflects the current, um, pay 2026 captured percentage of 6.08%. And then I've estimated now for pay 27 to have a captured percent fall to 4.6%. And this is based on accounting for the descertifications that I um have on the on the prior slide. Um and I'll just say that this is only the H tip districts descertifying early. And as you mentioned, the port authority um is considering doing so as well, which means the percentage would fall even further when we would factor in their early descertification. Um so now I'm going to go on to pooling for affordable housing. Um, as mentioned, the HRA only keeps the tiff district open when permitted to collect and pull tax increments to advance affordable housing projects located anywhere in the city. Um, the total tracked by peed's resource team is 14 million as shown here. Um, I would also like to note that these tax increments are not excess tiff as defined in Minnesota law. As such, these tax increments are not required to be returned to the county for redistribution. So, this gets to um Commissioner Nre's earlier question about by closing these, do we need to return dollars? We do not. Um these are dollars that are on hand for pooling for affordable housing and and we have uh um they're able to be spent and they're not considered excess. Um, and then >> um just a quick question for you just I know that we have a couple slides that talk about it not being excess tiff but would you also just mind clarifying will we have any access tiff? >> Um chair Johnson commissioner all of our dollars that we have on hand um and expect to have on hand by the end of uh pay 26. So with taxes collected in 26 for all of the expiring tip districts or the districts that we would descertify early are all legally able to be spent for affordable housing. So they are not excess. >> Okay. Thank you. Um so here is the 2026 estimated amount um as well um showing what we expect to generate for pooling for affordable housing um through the end of 2026. Again assuming that we collect everything that um the county has estimated for us that we would collect. Um and then just real um quickly, you know, the HA board is the one that approves anytime we um obligate pool tiff dollars to a project. And this slide here is just to represent that over the last decade. Um there's been uh nearly $10 million that's been um provided [clears throat] to projects throughout the whole city producing 700 nearly 700 housing units. Um, so the pooling for affordable housing considerations, um, as I mentioned, we have two housing tip districts that do do not have obligations and staff is recommending that we keep those open and continue to collect. Um, those two tiff districts generate an estimated 1.5 million every two years. And this is an ongoing revenue stream that would be lost if we elected to close these districts early. Um, and I'll just say this is noteworthy because pooling from long-standing redevelopment tip districts is anticipated to end by 2028. Um, reflected in those other slides. Um, the housing team has identified 12 projects seeking $20 million in funding and they're earmarking poolled tiff as a potential source, a potential gap solution. Um, this this source would create or preserve over a thousand units of rental and ownership affordable housing throughout the city. Um, I'm just sharing a tenative schedule that ha has been put forward to bring the descertifications to the HA board, which is a requirement that the HA board authorize an early descertification. Um so I'm indicating an introduction at the end of of this month um with action the first meeting in October. Um and this timeline hopefully allows for additional review. Um uh just to conclude the monitors tip district obligations and collections and seeks approval to close districts when required. Available tax increments are held to finance affordable housing, both rental and ownership, which may be located anywhere within the city. And closing tip districts early, requires HR board action. Um, and the proposed schedule is shown here, September um, and October. Um, this concludes my presentation and I stand ready to answer any final questions. >> Thank you, Miss Wolf. Uh, Miss Wolf, we had a couple questions I saw. So, um, I'll go over to Commissioner Daker and then, uh, followed by Commissioner Yang. >> Thanks, Chair Johnson. Um, just going back to the previous slide, Miss Wolf, can you can you reiterate? I just want to make sure I understand why you're not recommending closing Shepard Davvern Highland Point. Is it because they're the only ones? I thought they were all pulling for affordable housing. So, why those two would you not recommend? Um, Chair Johnson, Commissioner Naker, the um the pooling balances that we have on hand are from expiring or soon to be expiring tip districts and so that source will be ending. Um, this is the only ongoing source that we've identified. Um, we do not have um the scale of um districts in place that will generate these kind of dollars going forward. So the 20 million is is kind of what we have now and and once we use it, that's all we'll have pretty much. And these are the only two through the chair that are um that we I guess I'm just wondering why we wouldn't keep other ones open that could continue to pull that don't have to be descertified. >> I there aren't any of those listed here. >> Okay. >> So these are really the only two that could be Okay. >> Yeah. The Yeah. Yeah. Chair Naker, Chair Johnson, um, Commissioner Nger, these are the only two that we have the option to keep them open. The others that I've listed, um, we have maximized the pooling and and they need to be closed. >> And if we did not keep these open, we would be >> not pulling for affordable housing. >> Right. So, we'd have we' be down 1.5 million in our total amount for affordable housing. >> Um, Chair Johnson, Commissioner Naker. So, the 1.5 is future looking. So, um, the 20 million that I'm showing here, the 14 plus the six is, um, is is solid unless there's a decision to do something with the 20 million. >> Okay. >> So, >> even though it's not excess, I'll just say that. [laughter] So in so in simplistic terms because I think it's really important for folks to understand that um with whenever we have been talking which we have been about um the decision to descertify or desertifying early I think it's really important for us to kind of understand that um my understanding based off of what's presented is that um we have 12 projects seeking 20 million in funding. We have pool tiff that's being able to be offered as a solution. That's a projected f 1.5 million that we could have by keeping these two open that if we didn't have we would have we wouldn't be able to get that 1.5 million from that total pool. Is that correct? >> Um Chair Johnson, Commissioner Naker. Um I guess it maybe um I can articulate this a little better. Right now, the current landscape of of housing um potential need right now today is $20 million or more. Um that doesn't look at what we may see next year or the year after. Um and the the pooling for for affordable housing from the redevelopment long-standing redevelopment tip districts is ending. um our tip districts um largely are expiring that have been generating these volumes of pooling um and so that tap will be turned off and so staff is recommending that we keep these two open to at least try to replenish um some of those uh tiff pooling tiff dollars. Um, and on the scale of things, the keeping these two open is not it, to your, uh, point earlier, um, Commissioner Naker, it's like $3 to a taxpayer. So, that's kind of how we're looking at it. Um, it's it creates an ongoing revenue stream um, knowing that the the pooling is, you know, we're we're basically seeing um, it ending. So, >> yes. And so, thank you, Miss Wolf. Um, you know, I think that that's the dance that we that just the board will have to continue to have conversations with staff on when we're talking about tiff certification overall. It is the pulled uh the pulled dollars, the pulled tiff dollars that go towards affordable housing investment. And so, that's something that I would share that I'm just continuing to monitor. You know, I appreciate that the recommendation from staff on these two um districts cuz that's an area that I will be also looking into as well because then my question for this body will probably be where would we want to generate the 1.5 million elsewhere if the choice is to desertify these districts and so you know that'll be a question I think for the discussion as well because I don't necessarily see some of the federal and state level investment in affordable housing that we've been seeing consistently and I would really love to see more housing and redevelopment authority dollars go to housing um and redevelopment. So, uh just something that we can continue to talk through, but as there's not any other questions for Miss Wolf. Okay, Miss uh Commissioner Bank. >> Thank you, Chair Johnson. >> Yang, excuse me. >> Thank you. I know I say this every time, Jenny. I learned so much from you every single time you come and give us a tip presentation and so um thank you for for the education and just the really important work you do in peed. I am wondering the so I'm looking at slide nine here and my understanding of this slide is that it doesn't include the total amount that could be generated in property taxes to the city. Um if well well basically Shepard Davern Rental and Highland Point it's not included in this slide. Is that right? Uh, Chair, um, Chair Johnson, Commissioner Yang, that is correct because staff is recommending, um, that we keep those open. >> Okay. I I would like to see what a proposal um, what what a different version of this slide would look like with those two districts included in it, though. Um, and I'll just name that for me. Like I I definitely come in with a lot of tension in the space because I know that we we are utilizing TIFF to make development possible. And a lot of that development that we've approved to for it does include affordable housing. Um I really support the pooling concept overall to bring in more dollars for affordable housing. And at the same time, we're keeping these districts open for the sake of affordable housing even though we've already built been able to make affordable housing possible in the first place by utilizing TIFF. Maybe you know if there's any information I said that was incorrect, please correct me on that. But that is basically what I've taken away from the many conversations and presentations that you've had um with the with the H board here, conversations I've had with other staff and even community members too. I also really want to recognize um every time we've had conversations about TIFF, we have had community members from Insight St. Paul here. Um, also like you know the the conversations about the state of the city in terms of our finances and the the property tax burden has really prompted for even um community members that don't do any sort of work around financing or navigate city systems. You know, it's prompted them to actually get engaged. And I want to name that because in my word, we've had uh residents come together and form fair tax St. Paul, which is a a group where they're now talking about TIFF. And that's probably something very very new um a new topic for them overall. And so I just come into the conversation here just really realize um recognizing that we have such a huge opportunity here to relieve our property um taxpayers of the burden they've been talking about for years and years to us. And I'm definitely invested in um in being able to make this year a big year where we create a dent in it and we bring we put more properties back onto the tax role. And so I've set it at the table here already. I um my where I'm at right now is that I am very supportive of us descertifying all of the tiff districts that we can for this year. And that includes the six um it includes the six that have obligations paid off through December 31st of 2025 and then also the four that are expected to pay their obligations in full in 2026. I'm happy to connect more with um my colleagues about it and also community members. I just know that, you know, it's, you know, we have a a very huge challenge ahead of us in terms of the budget deficit. We have an opportunity to really close the gap um through TIFF descertifications and that's something I'm committed to. Oh, just one last thing. I do we have time for another question? >> Yeah, we do. Yeah. Go ahead, Commissioner Yang. >> Okay. Thank you. I did I was wondering the 12 projects you've identified or that the housing team has identified for funding through the poolled money. Do we have a list of those projects? I'm wondering if it's the ones on slide 13. No. Okay. Can you share the housing share that? >> I would I would bring up um someone from the housing team. I don't think the the list is ready to be shared. I mean, these are projects that have not some might not have even formally applied to us yet. They're just they've talked to us about their their project, their proposed project, and and as part of the process, the housing team kind of keeps, you know, a good dashboard of everything they're seeing out there and tries to uh evaluate what tools that we have um to fill gaps. But none of those are, you know, they'll they'll come to this body for approval um at the time. So I don't know if >> Thank you. Yeah. Like even if it's emailed out to us um some as a followup, that'd be helpful to know. I I recognize that there's many other entities that can provide money for affordable housing and we are definitely one of them. I'm al constantly hearing from housing developers who want to meet with us and ask, you know, their first question is what can the city do to support our project? and I want us to be able to to um you know support them um through um you know those funding the funding sources that we have available. I just again want to go back to all the points I've made earlier. I mean those are really the the reasons why I'm supportive of of descertifying all of the ones on the list here. >> Yeah. Chair Johnson, may I ask just a quick followup um of Commissioner Yang when you mentioned descertifying them to help fill the fill the gap. Um so as as mentioned here when we descertify there's just the tax base grows so it it doesn't fill a gap. Um it it can then reduce the the amount um each taxpayer has to pay but it it's not going to generate dollars I guess. So, I just wanted to clarify that um you know, and and I'm happy to update this slide um with the additional um uh two housing tiff district so you can see it. I mean, just my rough notes, it's about 800,000 would be added to this 4.6. Um but I'll go ahead and send that around um to the the board. And Miss Wolf, just to clarify, so with the port early desertification, we actually received money back to the general fund. In this case, we would not be receiving any fund any funding back to the general fund. Um, and I just want to be or like back to the the city to budget solve for anything. Just being very clear about that question and wanting to also clarify based off of what I'm hearing from you as that was a unique situation. So there wouldn't be funding that we would get from doing that action. Um yeah, Chair Densson, my understanding is that um when the port authority is descertifying, they have the dollars on hand that they can no longer legally spend and that's why they're returned to the county to redistribute. We are descertifying. We we have dollars we can still legally spend. It's just that we've paid off the obligations and going forward, you know, I do project forward to see if there's any ability to keep collecting and that's why I mentioned the housing tip district that we can keep collecting. Um, and those other three subdists that we could keep keep those open and keep collecting um because we we haven't maximized our pooling yet and our pooling is for affordable housing. >> Yeah, I think that'll definitely be a part of the conversations as we move forward. I will um also be kind of checking in with all of the commissioners around that. I will share that my some of my thoughts may differ from what I've heard from Commissioner Yang, but I also am very interested in talking to each council member to seeing where the will of the of the board is because I do want us to be able to have that real conversation with staff um hearing fully around the recommendations and the preferred avenue for staff. I think it's really important for the board to be involved in the question, which is why we brought the topic here and wanted to make sure to bring it in front. Um so thank you for posing that question and also for um a lot of the community members. I know that you acknowledged a few um some of the folks including Mr. Bise who's here is a W7 resident. Um so I also you know have a lot of uh community members that are watching the tip presentations and also encouraging room for information and so I appreciate this level of transparency and we'll continue to be talking about this topic. So thank you Miss Wolf. >> Thank you. Item number three is staff report SR26-181, introduction to the amendment and deemed reissuance of conduit revenue bonds for Nelly Francis Court and Emma Norton Restoring Waters Projects District 15, Ward Three. >> All right, this is what we like to call a hard pivot. [laughter] Welcome, Miss Saurin. >> Hello. Ready for me? >> All right. Good afternoon. Um I'm here to introduce a request for an extension of the maturity date on the taxexempt um revenue bonds that were issued for Nelly Francis Court and the Restoring Waters project. Um the action requires a public hearing and approval by the H and City Council. Both of these projects are located at Highland Bridge. They opened to residents in 2004, sorry, 2024, a little different. Um, Nelly Francis Court is a 75 unit workforce building affordable to households at or below 50% and 60% of AMI. And Restoring Waters, which includes the corporate offices for Emma Norton, is a 60-unit building affordable at and below 30% of AMI. The H approved a conduit bond issuance for Nelly Francis in the amount of 11.2 million in October of 2022 to finance the construction of the project. And that original bond maturity date was May 1st of 2026. Um PPL has been working with Greater Minnesota Housing Fund to extend their financing and they've requested a 12-month extension of the bond maturity date to May 1st of 2027. The H approved a conduit bond issuance for Restoring Waters in the amount of 11.25 million in October of 2022 to finance the construction of that project. And the original maturity date on that one was June 21st of 2026. Again, PPL has been working with GMHF to extend their financing and they've requested a 12-month extension of the bond maturity date to June 21st of 2027. Um, as I mentioned at the top, the extension requires an uh the HA to hold a public hearing prior to approval by both the H and the city council. Um, we're anticipating that public hearing to take place next week on September 9th. Um, and then city council action will follow immediately after. All of the other bond terms will remain the same. And then any questions? Thank you, Miss Orin. And I do want to acknowledge that we do have uh Director Robinson here from PPL and um PPL team that's here as well. Um, is there any questions at all for this? Yes, Commissioner Akre. >> Thanks, Madam Chair. Great to see some very familiar faces here. Welcome back. Um, just to confirm, there's no financial just like there's no financial impact on the city to issue conduit revenue bonds, I assume there's none to extend a maturity date, >> Chair Johnson, Commissioner Naker, that's correct. The only thing that we'll be doing is extending that maturity date. >> Thank you. >> All right. And excuse me, my brain is not working for me because I've been in meetings all day. Miss Henderson [laughter] from BPL. Um, if there's anything PPL wants to share with us at this time, I'd invite you up. >> Hello. Welcome. >> Thanks. Thanks for having us and thanks uh, Miss Zorn for the presentation. I'm Kayla Shuckman uh with Project for Pride and Living and um we're um appreciative of the consideration of the HA for this extension to allow us to just um complete the project and and position it for success. So, thank you. >> Thank you. And um we sincerely appreciate you being here as well as members of the team to make it out for this as we consider it for next week and have the public hearing back in front of the body. Um, I honestly genuinely don't have too many questions for you because I felt like the ask itself is pretty straightforward and we appreciate the continued work of PPL to invest in our city and develop here in St. Paul. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, Missorn. >> Thank you. Item number four is staff report SR26-182, introduction to the sale and conveyance of property to Dayton's Bluff Neighborhood Housing Services and authorization to amend the development agreement for the Village on Ravoli project District 5 W 2. And I believe this is also Miss Saurin, correct? So you'll be back like you never left. >> Yep. I'm here again. Um, so here I'm introducing the land sale to Dayton's Bluff Neighborhood Housing Services to facilitate development at Village on Raulli. Um, this presentation is going to look very similar to one that I gave about a year ago. Um, same thing. We're just doing another land sale. You saw this last September. Um, Village on Ravoli is located on the western edge of the Railroad Island neighborhood north northeast of downtown in Ward 2. Um, redevelopment efforts in this neighborhood have spanned decades and Dayton's Bluff has been a key partner in those efforts, working closely with the District 5 Planning Council and the Railroad Island Neighborhood Group to develop a plan for the site. Dayton's Bluff has also worked closely with the city and HA, MHFA, HUD, and the Pollution Control Agency to clean up this former street sweeping dump and prepare it for residential development. Um, the neighborhood had expressed an interest in ownership opportunities. So, Dayton's Bluff incorporated that into the plan, which also laid out new streets and subsurface in infrastructure as well as connections to the surrounding neighborhood. To finance the infrastructure and development that's taken place on site, Dayton's Bluff has been successful in securing funding through HUD, LCDA, MHFA, new market tax credits, private financing, and some city dollars as well. Um to date, four phases of single family development consisting of 29 homes have been completed or are nearing completion and homes are being sold to households with incomes ranging between 80% and 115% of AMI. The first phase of development um consisted of seven single family homes along Ravoli Street and the second phase consisted of five additional homes. You can see those here in the image. The third phase of development was nine single family homes. Fourth phase of development, which is currently finishing up, consisted of eight single family homes in the Pocket Neighborhood area on the south end of Ravoli Street. And the fifth phase, which is the subject of this land sale and the final phase of residential development on this site, just want to pause for a minute because that's huge. It's been a long road. um will consist of nine single family homes again at the uh south end of Ravoli Street. So the action next week um will nope, excuse me. The next action will involve a public hearing to sell the nine Howned parcels to Dayton's Bluff and amend the existing development agreement to just incorporate those nine parcels and their corresponding budgets. um that action will be scheduled for um September 23rd. Um so that's when we'll hold the public hearing and that action can take place. Um I have a couple of slides showing just the home designs. These are the same designs that were used with the previous eight homes. So those will all look similar in that area. And then we have a sources and uses. Um Dayton Bluff has been um successful in securing a lot of grant funding through MHFA. So that's the bulk of the financing on this portion of development. There is no request for city dollars associated with this. Um Jim Urgel, the executive director of Dayton's Bluff Neighborhood Housing Services is here if there are any further questions. Commissioner Ner, >> thanks Madam Chair. Miss Zoren, can you going back to that previous slide? So there's no dollars being requested from us. Is it correct to say that the 63,000 in acquisition is coming to us? Uh, Chair Johnson, uh, Commissioner Nre, each of these parcels are sold for a dollar. So, the acquisition price includes things like title fees and title searches. And so, that's just the developer's cost to facilitate the acquisition. >> A girl can dream. >> Yes. Thank you. [laughter] >> Just kidding. >> In exchange, you get nine homeowners contributing to our tax base. >> Even better. Thank you, Miss Saurin. I do see Mr. Urchel in the audience and uh would take the time if you if there's anything Mr. you wanted to add or say, um this is your time to do so. He's good in the He's good now. So, um well, I appreciate your your report back for us on this important project. It's definitely um been in the works for quite some time. So, it's great to be at this stage and and the conveyance. Um, I appreciate the line of questioning from Commissioner Daker as well. Um, not in this case, but also as we get into uh the next couple weeks, we look forward to the public hearing. I'm sure it will be very available. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Item number five is staff report SR26-184, smallcale development update. >> All right. So I just want to preface this one a little bit as well that as we get through some of the projects that we have um the ability of doing smallcale development throughout the city. We asked Daniela uh Miss Lawrence to come and talk a little bit about how we fund smallcale projects and also just where our uh CDBG and small scale development work is taking place and so looking forward to hearing from you around this. I will share just a quick time check. We have about 15 minutes and I'd love to be able to give you a time to get through the duration of your slides. Um, so I would encourage folks if you have any follow-up questions, we can hold them to the end to see if we have additional time and or we'll be able to follow up with you too about things that come up as we reading it in full time. But I want to prioritize getting it through as we do have a pack agenda for the 9th and the 23rd. >> Absolutely. Thank you, chair. Um, as the chair mentioned, I'm Danielle Loren. I am the uh economic development supervisor in peed and I get the distinct pleasure of managing our folks that do our small scale development work at the city. Quick update. This is just what we're going to be talking about. Don't need to spend a ton of time on that, but I did want to ground us in what exactly we do on the development team. So, you've probably heard us kind of colloial colloquial I shouldn't have even tried to say it talk about our development team. We split it into kind of two big buckets being our small scale team and then our large scale team. This is just a snapshot of what those it's about five project managers plus myself do every single day from managing our larger scale um projects something like the heights or United Village. We do financial analysis when we have developers come in and asking us for resources. Um we're connecting with the developers and consistently thinking about our systems and how we talk to them, communicate about our properties and other available opportunities pass through grant management and then of course management of smallcale project which is what we're primarily talking about today. I also wanted to talk a little bit about the history of smallcale development. As I was putting this together with some help from um people that are on my team, I'm thinking about this as sort of like the eras of smallcale development back to about 20 2006 at the city of St. Paul because this really kind of does have some distinct areas of how we were deal dealing with and thinking about smallcale development in the city and um at peed. So from 2006 to 2007, city of St. Paul invest um established something called the invest St. Paul initiative. This was a largely um star bond funded project that didn't just focus on small-cale development. But within the work that they were doing as a result of that investment from the citywide initiative, we were focusing more on neighborhoods with a real focus on investing in single family home stock and um reducing the number of vacancies at the neighborhood level. So that really positioned us quite well um in the 2008 and 200 or the 2008 foreclosure crisis to be ready to go ahead and then apply for those national or neighborhood stabilization program dollars which were around again to stabilize neighborhoods after um and during the great recession um that everybody was feeling kind of across the country but certainly in the city of St. Paul, which led to us receiving over $31 million in NSP program dollars, which helped us really stabilize neighborhoods. A bulk of the work that we were doing as a result of receiving those um NSP dollars at the beginning of 2009 into about 2010 to 2012 were rehab projects. So that's when you think back about our rehab programs where the HR was really kind of primarily serving almost like a developer in that case. Um, in 2013, we started to pivot away from only doing rehab projects or primarily doing rehab projects and into doing more developer-led work where we were redeveloping properties that we were acquiring. So, at that point, that's where you really started to switch, as you can see across the bottom there, from 2013, I would say, all the way into today where we were doing a lot more um RFP processes. were working through what you all know as the inspiring communities program to one um work through and make sure we were meeting HUD's n national objectives as a result of those NSP dollars, but then also driving forward some of our own um priorities on the small scale side, meaning home ownership opportunities, rental ownership or rental to ownership opportunities as well for specific um income levels at the city. So since 2013, we've run seven inspiring communities RFPs. We're continuing to do those as we're winnowing down our NSP properties. You will continue to hear about that in the coming weeks. Actually, we have um RFP8 that we're we're prepping now um to get published before the end of the year and then we'll probably do two or three more of those. Um but it's it's really a testament to the great work that the team has done because we had a ton of these HUD properties and we have very very specific obligations that we need to meet um that are very well aligned with peed. um expectation for what we do on smallcale lots but doesn't mean that we can just sell the properties to anybody. We do have very specific criteria there. I wanted to add in that in 2003 this body or the city council I should say adopted the 1 to4 unit housing study and I think that's important because I think that also indicates a shift in how we're thinking about getting more density on Hown lots. um we started to prioritize more, especially in our RFPs, giving more points to um properties or developers that were willing to do twin homes, triplexes, and even forplexes if not more where the zoning supported that. And I think that's important because again it's kind of changed how we're thinking about how we subsidize projects, the amount of subsidy um that we want to bring forward to projects, the kinds of developers that we're working with um and you know how we can talk to developers who are interested in working with us. And then in 2005, the establishment of the small-cale development team. Um, which really meant they came over onto my team on the economic development department. Um, and we are now thinking about, yes, running RFPs, but also thinking again about how we incorporate these ideas about density, some of our zoning and planning kind of conversations that we're having and continuing to think about how we work with developers in a really holistic way, um, to make sure that they're both successful and we're meeting all of the H's objectives objectives. um when we're thinking about our small scale work. So the history of smallcale development the outcomes what we're seeing here. So this is just our inspiring communities um work. I shouldn't say just because it represents a lot of work and a lot of really really amazing outcomes. So um since about that 2013 space 257 properties rehabbed or redeveloped for more than 300 units. You can see across the bottom um the um median incomes that we were able to hit among those 257 properties. A majority of the properties go toward home ownership. That was a real um objective of this body. Um when we established the program, it continues to be an objective of our small-cale development work is giving um affordable home ownership opportunities. But there are also rental properties within um within our portfolio of projects that we have accomplished. This represents I did the math uh just about $45 million of investment over time which is again an incredible amount of work from relatively few number of people um since we started doing this work. This is the map of where a majority of those properties have taken place. Unsurprisingly, because most of our NSP properties um and a lot of our HA owned properties are concentrated where there were um more foreclosure crisises where we're trying to really stabilize those neighborhoods. This is maps over pretty consistently with that. um the neighborhoods that were hit the hardest from um economic shocks over time. But this represents at a high level where we are seeing a majority of the projects taking place um at the city. So how do we fund smallcale development projects? Um so we primarily fund these projects through a variety of sources that overall I know it's budget season so you'll probably see it as a smallcale development budget but it's actually a conglomeration of a number of different funding sources. So, we've used STAR in the past through some of those bonding dollars. We don't do that anymore. Um, there are projects that will kind of individually apply for STAR through the competitive process, but typically we are not budgeting out of STAR for smallcale development anymore, but I wanted to acknowledge that there are some STAR dollars within that line item there. A lot of it's coming from our housing trust fund dollars. And then um more and more we've been using our local affordable housing aid or LAA dollars as well because it meets some of our similar um affordability criteria um to get us where we need to go on those. And then CDBG on a very limited basis. I'll talk about that a little bit more in a few slides. Um there are some restrictions for how we can use CDBG that sometime make it difficult to just be a more open fund in the way that housing trust fund or local affordable housing aid dollars are as well. And then I'll just note that when we are thinking about sizing projects, we really have used that inspiring communities um program framework, which typically means when somebody comes in, we're looking at not giving them more than about $200,000 of subsidy per unit. Um we have gone higher than that before um at the board's direction. And I'll even say um and our project managers could talk about this too as we're learning more from developers and just understanding the economics of getting projects done now. even that $200,000 um per unit subsidy is probably too low. Um we're seeing more of them are coming in about that 250 to almost 300 depending on what we're getting there. So again, all the eras of of smallcale development and as we're kind of responding to um lending markets and just the economy in general. So how do we work with developer? This is why I would say we do a a bulk of our work day-to-day on the development team both on the small scale side and the large scale side. So, a reminder that we do work through our disposition policy which allows for multiple methods of solicitation and disposition of our HR and land. You've heard about me talk about this before, but again, we do quite a few license agreements. This would be for shorter term um uses. Of course, we do sideyard sales for certain specific parcels, but primarily what you would see the small scale team working on would either be these requests for proposals that we do either in these batches where we put out two to three properties at a time or we do kind of larger single properties as we go. And then we have been doing more direct sales where we are just taking in a proposal um from an interested developer or an interested buyer. They're buying it from us or buying the land from us at market rate and then we say good luck to you. Develop something gets it back on the tax rules. So it's very specific about how we decide which property falls where. A lot of it has to do with what funding obligations are tied to it. But um we have a number of different ways that we can talk to and work through this with the developer just depending on how they want to interact with the city, what they're looking to do. So again, the location of the property, the size of the property, and then the obligations um with the property really influence how we decide that we are going to go forward um and how what type of disposition strategy that we would use on a specific property. Um and then staff is available to work with developers who want to purchase HO land for development. This is something that we're continuing to kind of shore up. I've liked and appreciated what we've done with our business intake forum as a way to just track our work and I would like to establish something like that for our developers as well. Just one to track our work to make sure we're getting their contact information and then getting them where they need to go. Again, we get a lot of developers who come into the city. They want something. They want to do something which is great and we want to facilitate that. But it really is kind of putting our arms around them and understanding, you know, what do you need to know about site plan review? What do you need to know about subsidy? what do you need to know about this and this permit fee? So, um, you know, I would say informally providing a little bit of TA. I would never say we're doing technical assistance. We've got partners that we can pivot people to, but of course, we are kind of the technical assistance advisor for how you actually work through a process at the city, too. CDBG and smallcale development work. So, uh, most CDBG used on HA property is it's used for eligible costs. We tend to use CDBG for like site prep things. it works really well for that. So site cleanup if there's contamination, certainly demolitions. I know this board has approved a couple of demolitions in this past year with CDBG dollars, rehabbing properties. So again, that good work that was happening kind of 2009 to 2013, those rehabbed properties, that was a lot of CDBG dollars as well. And then we do do um some new housing construction or large development construction with CDBG, but we need to work with a community- based development organization to do that per HUD's OB um rules um with CDBG. And then of course CDBG is secured uh through their annual CIB budget and the use of it is determined on a project by project basis via our resource team. So, a resource scheme is an internal group where it's housing, economic development. We've got our accounting folks in there as well who all sit down, learn about a project, understand the intended outcomes, and then we kind of pair um the appropriate resource with the appropriate project. Um, and a lot of that has to do one with any obligations and outcomes that we would need to be tracking over time, but then we also look at what kind of funds have spending obligations. Not all of our dollars need to be spent at the end of the year. CDBG is different in that way where there are spending deadlines. With CDBG, we can carry over some of it, but the city cannot have more than one times, one and a half times our allocation in our bucket at any one time. And I'm noticing here that I left the date out. April 1st is when we have to have those spending deadlines done by every year. And this is another map of our CDBG funded smallcale projects. The next slide um kind of enumerates a little bit more, but I'm happy to kind of toggle back and forth. Again, you can see um there's new construction projects in there that would primarily be work actually done with um Dayton's Bluff neighborhood organization because they are a CBDO um that has worked with us. But then of course lately we've been doing a lot more acquisition and demolition work um with CDBG and then of course lots of rehab project. And this just represents work from 2016 to 200 or 2026 for the last 10 years about $6.1 million of CDBG spended spended spent um on small scale work. Snapshot of just some current projects talk a little bit about what we're working on. So I know this board has seen 560 Brunson 47 Douglas and 1087 Ross. Those are new development projects that we've been working through. Well 47 Douglas is a rehab um project. So, that's really excited to get those under contract and see those underway. Hopefully, they are done around this time next year. Um, we've got some potential direct sales, HA approval pending. You have not seen these come before the board. They have been publicly noticed though. Um, so these would just be direct sales where they're approaching the body um to ask for um land to be sold for development or other use in the future at market rate. Um, and then of course we do quite a bit of work with license agreements as well. I'm acknowledging that because it does take our time to manage these and it is another way that we're bringing different um income sources in and seeing active uses on HA owned property even when they are still actually owned by the HA. And then we've got a number of projects in pre-development that I am hoping that we will be bringing to the board um soon um pre-development or even demo projects. um you've seen some of these are familiar with some of them, but we will continue to be working on them um to get them ready to either make a financial ask or celebrate a ribbon cutting at some point in the future. And then a look ahead to 2027. So like I said before, we are planning to run at least one more batch RFP potentially two in 2027 for specifically those NSP properties. Um and then we have a number of large scale sites that we would like to also RFP. um given their size, their location, they kind of just warrant a little bit broader solicitation than simply marketing for them to get interest from the development community. And then other properties that we don't have specific funding obligations for, continuing to make sure that we're marketing those and pushing them out and um talking to developers about those opportunities if they're not interested in applying for an RFP or have something working on. And then always always we're working on more automated, transparent, and consistent marketing communication systems. um this is really important. This is how people get to know us in the first place. So, making sure that people know what's available, know how to talk to us, reach us, and ask us the questions that they need to. Um really kind of boils down to to being open about those things there. That's what I got. It was quick. Let me know if you've got questions. Thank you so much for doing that presentation and bringing it forward and being able to accomplish so much in 15 minutes. I also appreciated just like getting the the dive of where things are where we're investing in our small development program and also just like how the funding sources I sincerely appreciated doing uh the kind of full picture because I feel like so much of it can be sometimes individual project by project and so just seeing the full impact was actually really insightful. Um, if you guys haven't uh commissioners had a chance to talk about some of the high housing finance pieces and just understanding how we make development real and and a reality here in the city, it was a very helpful um download with the housing team. So, I appreciate the work that you all do and thank you for being here today. With that, we are ajourned.