Good morning. I will call the August 4th, 2026, Washington County Board of Commissioners meeting to order. Clerk, please take the roll. Commissioner Miron? Here. Commissioner Karwoski? Here. Commissioner Cox? Here. Commissioner Bigham? Here. Commissioner Clausen? Here. Roll call taken, all present. Please join us for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. We are at the comments from the public portion of the meeting. I do not have any speaker cards here at the dais. Is there anybody in the audience who wishes to address the board at this time? Okay. Seeing none, we need to approve today's agenda, so is there a motion to approve today's agenda? Move to approve the agenda as published. Second. Moved and seconded. Discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Motion carries. Are there any items that members would like to remove from the consent calendar? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve today's consent calendar? Motion to approve items A through G as listed. Moved. Second. And seconded by Commissioner Cox. Clerk will take the roll. Commissioner Miron? Aye. Commissioner Karwoski? Aye. Commissioner Cox? Aye. Commissioner Clausen? Aye. Commissioner Bigham? Aye. Motion passes, five zero. Thank you. The next item on today's agenda is approving a couple of joint powers agreements with the Secretary of State. And to do that presentation is our ever so busy Elections Division Manager, Matt Moore. Thank you for taking the time to join us today. Thank you. I was going to say, this should be my regular time slot on the agenda here. It's been a busy few weeks for us. So, good morning, Madam Chair, Commissioners. My name is Matt Moore, Elections Division Manager out of Property Records and Taxpayer Services. Today, I'm before you this morning to request approval of two joint powers agreements with the State of Minnesota, Secretary of State's office for recount services for the statewide primary election on August 11th, as well as the general election on November 3rd, respectively. State statute and administrative rules name the office of Minnesota Secretary of State the recount official for any federal and state contest in those elections. Under the agreements before you, Washington County will act as the designated recount official for ballots cast in the county for state and federal contests which require a recount. The county will be paid four cents for each ballot it handles, with a minimum payment of $100. And so, the department recommends approval of these agreements. Thank you. Is there a motion on... Commissioner Cox. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would move that we approve Joint Powers Agreement number 294285 for election recount services for the 2026 primary election with the State of Minnesota, Office of the Secretary of State. I'll second that. Moved and seconded. Commissioner Cox. I've never made a motion like this before. Didn't even know that we did this kind of thing, but so grateful that you bring this forward to continue to teach me all of the important work that we do here at the county, and especially with elections and all of the attention that they've been getting lately. Just appreciate this. All right. Any other comments? Did you have some, because you seconded it? Uh- Commissioner Karwoski- I concur- ... then Commissioner Clausen ... since, well, I'm not in a primary, that's why I vote on that one. I won't make the motion. We stay totally distanced from anything we're serving in, so that's, I think, a cool thing about our elections. Anybody up for elections aren't participating in decisions about the election, so probably shouldn't even have brought that up. Commissioner Clausen. Yes. I have some questions. Mm-hmm. Just talking about your services, can you also tell the audience about the work with the Secretary of State and how they also provide services to the county? Yeah. So the Secretary of State's office is the entity that is in charge of running elections in the State of Minnesota. And we look to them for guidance on nearly everything that we touch within the electoral process. It runs the gamut from how we're doing ballot orders to how we're doing ballot board. It literally is everything that we do, we rely on the Secretary of State's office for guidance. And which is really helpful with a changing landscape federally. It really helps that it clears some of that noise, because if something does get proclaimed federally, we do wait for the Secretary of State's office to give us proper guidance on how to react to any sort of change, if there is a change at all. Yes. And I think it's always really important to note that in Minnesota, we still keep our paper ballots. And so recounts, and things like that, we keep for 24 months for the next cycle. We keep it for a very long time, as you know, and we have to retain information like that. And we're also audited by the Secretary of State, so there is lots that is work for you because not only do you have to work with the guidelines from the Secretary of State, but you're also helping all of the contractual cities. And so there's a lot that is going on here, so I'm really glad that we have you in this spot. This is a new position as election manager. So, thanks, and I look forward to hearing how the primary goes next week. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions? Seeing none, all in favor of the Joint Powers Agreement number 294285, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Motion carries. Thank you. We have one more- That's right ... approval. There's a motion. I can make the motion again , Madam Chair, if you'd like, to approve Joint Powers Agreement number 294286 for election recount services for the 2026 general election with the State of Minnesota, Office of the Secretary of State. Second. All right. Moved and seconded by Commissioner Miron. Any discussion? Seeing none... Whoop. Commissioner Clausen. I just wanted to just put this date out here because I put it on, it's on the website. Our Washington County public accuracy test is October 9th at 10:00 a.m. That's correct. Yeah. All right. Seeing no further discussion, all in favor of approving Joint Powers Agreement number 294286, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Motion carries. Thank you, Director. Thank you. The next item on today's agenda is from Public Health and Environment, and Amanda Schuler, our program supervisor, will be asking us to adopt a resolution recognizing August 2026 as Breastfeeding Awareness Month in Minnesota. All right. Good morning, Madam Chair and Commissioners. My name is Amanda Schuler, and I am the program supervisor for the WIC program in the Department of Public Health and Environment Thank you for your time. I appreciate the opportunity to present to you this morning, as this topic is something I am extremely passionate about, not just as a public health professional, but personally, as a mom. I am proud to say that I have been able to nurse all three of my children, and I am currently still nursing my 10-month-old son. Every August, Breastfeeding Awareness Month is celebrated nationally and worldwide to highlight the essential role of human milk in community health. Here in Washington County, lactation support and education continue to be a top priority for public health and environment because of the incredible lifelong health benefits they bring. Providing this foundation gives our youngest residents the strongest possible start in life, playing a key role in early brain development, healthy growth, and long-term wellness for the entire family. In our department, several teams, including WIC, Family Health, and Healthy Communities, collaborate to support and encourage breastfeeding. We provide individual breastfeeding education prenatally and offer postpartum consultations to the Washington County's families served in WIC and family home visiting. We currently have 10 certified lactation specialists and one internationally board-certified lactation consultant within Public Health and Environment. These certifications exemplify our department's commitment to maintaining lactation education and expertise for the families we serve. We also support work in the broader community to encourage policy systems and environmental changes to promote breastfeeding and make it an easier and more accessible choice for families. The Statewide Health Improvement Partnership Grant has supported breastfeeding projects throughout the county, including supporting businesses in creating safe and inviting lactation rooms, providing training opportunities for our healthcare partners and public health staff, and offering a lactation tent free of charge for local community events. In addition to community and client-focused efforts, we also work in partnership with other internal departments to provide support and resources to county staff. This includes collaborating with building services to ensure our own lactation spaces are meeting the needs of employees. Recently, we have helped enhance lactation spaces at the historic courthouse, R.H. Stafford Library, county courts area, and are currently supporting efforts within the Law Enforcement Center. We have also partnered with the Human Resources Department to develop a new SharePoint page for employees to access lactation resources and a list of designated lactation spaces within the county buildings. As a Washington County employee who has had three children during my career, I am incredibly proud of the work we continue to do to support families within our community and our own employees on their lactation journeys. Board of Commissioners and county administration, we respectfully request approval of the resolution to recognize August 2026 as Breastfeeding Awareness Month in Minnesota. Thank you very much. Is there a motion to approve the resolution? Madam Chair, I would move that we approve this resolution recognizing August 2026 as Breastfeeding Awareness Month in Minnesota. Second. Moved by Commissioner Cox, seconded by Commissioner Clausen. Commissioner Cox. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Schuler, thank you for the presentation. I think as my kids get older, I forget how important that decision was for our family and just how stressful it was as well. And so to hear that there are 10 and 11 people on staff through WIC and home visiting that really give families in their homes that peace of mind and help in making these kinds of decisions is really fantastic, and I'm grateful that you shared that with us today. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Clausen. Yes. Thank you so much for the presentation. Every year we talk and we do this Breastfeeding Awareness Month, but we don't always tie it back to the importance of SNAP funding and how important that money and that program goes to really not just providing breastfeeding support, but it really does help keep the bottom line affordable, because babies are really expensive. And I was also blessed to be able to do that in my family, but it's not the same for everybody. And without all the equipment that actually goes into breastfeeding, without that, I don't know if I would've been able to. So SNAP funding, the grants that are provided, helps women be able to breastfeed even when they're at work. And I think that it's really commendable that your staff really prioritizes that for women who are working here and trying to find a quick place to be able to do that for their children because being a working mother, it is stressful. And a lot of times, if you're a head of household, that amount of stress also with the children, it's just a lot. So knowing that you guys are doing all the extra efforts here makes me feel good. We can't control what happens outside, but at least we can support that here. So thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Commissioner Mira. Yeah, I know it was mentioned in the resolution, but certainly, I appreciate the effort that Building Services provides in making sure that we have rooms and the privacy for lactation and the feeding of our babies, our next generation, right? And all the public health research that's gone into identifying the importance of that and the health and wellbeing long-term for these kids. So just appreciate Building Services and all the effort that goes into making sure that we've got private spaces for women to lactate and nurse their babies. So appreciate that effort. Thank you, Ms. Schuler. I just want to also appreciate all the efforts that go into this program and Coalition SHIP, the Statewide Health Improvement Partnership, and WIC. I really appreciate the partnerships we have with them, along with our nursing team. Would you like to read the resolution? Do you want me to? Absolutely. Okay. Yep. Yes. All right. So this resolution recognizes Breastfeeding Awareness Month in Minnesota. Whereas the August 2026 Breastfeeding Observance theme is Rise: Resilience, Interdependence, Self-Determination, Empowerment, and this theme uses the sunrise to show the bright future and lasting strength of our community. It emphasizes how public health programs and community partnerships work together to build strong, helpful environments where every family has the resources, confidence, and positive support they need to succeed at breastfeeding. And whereas chest and breastfeeding or providing human milk provides optimal nutrition and healthy growth in the early stages of life, giving young children the strongest possible start for lifelong health and wellbeing. And whereas lactation support has a profound impact on the long-term health of parents and infants, playing a key role in early brain development and chronic disease prevention. And whereas human milk is one of the most cost-effective prevention strategies for reducing many infections as well as acute and chronic illnesses. And whereas infant feeding is one of the most important decisions that a family makes. And whereas families need consistent support for their feeding journeys from family, friends, healthcare providers, support groups, the community, employers, and childcare settings. And whereas enabling parents and caregivers to chest or breastfeed is key to achieving core public health goals by improving nutrition, promoting food security, and reducing health inequalities. And whereas Washington County is committed to enhancing the WIC program support for families seeking to further improve breastfeeding continuation rates, particularly within the first year of life. And whereas the Washington County Breastfeeding Coalition, the Statewide Health Improvement Partnership, the Family Health Nursing Team, and WIC are partnering to provide clinic educational displays and enhanced professional support throughout August. And now therefore be it resolved that the Washington County Board of Commissioners hereby acknowledges the vital role of chest and breastfeeding in achieving optimal health for families and proudly recognizes August 2026 as Breastfeeding Awareness Month in Minnesota. Thank you very much. With that, Commissioner Cox renews her motion to adopt a resolution recognizing August 2026 as Breastfeeding Awareness Month in Minnesota. The clerk will take the roll. Commissioner Miron? Aye. Commissioner Karwoski? Aye. Commissioner Cox? Aye. Commissioner Clausen? Aye. Commissioner Bigham? Aye. Resolution passes five zero. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Next item up on the agenda is Public Works with a couple of items for County State Aid Highway 14, otherwise known as 34th Street North Trail Improvement Project. And Becky Hayden, our engineer, is here to present. Good morning, Madam Chair, Commissioners. My name is Becky Hayden, and I am an Engineer 3 in the Public Works department. Today, Public Works will be recommending approval of a construction contract along with a cooperative agreement for the County Highway 14 Trail Improvement Project. During my presentation, I will provide an overview of the project location and scope of work, discuss the bids received, provide an overview of the financials, review the project agreements, and close by recommending approval of two board actions. This trail improvement project is located along the south side of County State Aid Highway 14, also known as 34th Street North in the city of Oakdale. This existing off-road, multi-use trail extends easterly from Granada Avenue, approximately one half mile to Hadley Avenue, and was originally constructed in 2006. The county assesses the pavement condition of trails similar to highways, using a rating system called the Pavement Condition Index, or PCI. A recent assessment of this trail resulted in a PCI of 38. This places it in the county's red zone classification. A PCI at this level indicates widespread surface distress and deterioration consistent with the end of a pavement's life. The existing condition is negatively affecting usability for all trail users and will continue to degrade without reconstruction. The scope of the proposed project, number RB2803, includes removal of the failing pavement and installation of a new bituminous surface. Replacing the deteriorated pavement will improve accessibility for individuals using wheelchairs, mobility devices, strollers, and other wheeled equipment. The smoother ADA-compliant surface will provide a safe and reliable connection between adjacent neighborhoods and local destinations. Construction bids were opened on June 23rd. Four bids were received with a favorable low bid coming from Sun Ram Construction in the amount of roughly $182,000. So, breaking down the financial elements of this project, total project costs are just over $300,000. Construction project expenses are shown on this slide and include our typical 7% construction contingency It is worth noting that consultant costs on this project are a larger percentage than some other typical projects. This is due to the environmental work that was required due to the presence of contaminated soils. Revenues for this project total approximately $375,000 and consist of TAA safety and trails funds. Totaling the project revenues and subtracting the project expenses leaves a remaining fund balance of just over $70,000. So moving on to project agreements. We have only one agreement with the City of Oakdale to define long-term maintenance responsibilities of infrastructure along this trail corridor. This agreement includes our standard terms and has been reviewed and approved on July 28th by our partners at the city. There is no cost agreement for this project because our cost participation policy does not require a local share on reconstruction of a trail. Before I close with recommendations, I want to highlight how this project directly addresses one of the four strategic priorities from the Washington County Strategic Plan, a strong and sustainable environment. This defined objective is to maintain, develop, and expand multimodal transportation options to improve ease of travel across county. This project is meeting this objective by maintaining multimodal infrastructure. So with that, Public Works has two board actions that we are recommending approval on today. This includes the construction contract with Sun Ram Contracting and a maintenance agreement with the City of Oakdale. I will turn it over to the board chair, and I will stand for any questions. Madam Chair? Thank you very much. Commissioner Karwoski. Thank you, Madam Chair. To get this... And thank you, Ms. Hayden, for the presentation, and I appreciate the explanation of the consult fee on the soil. We have to really be careful with the 3M soils, so I'm sure glad that was recognized. To get this before us, though, for a few additional comments, I'd make a motion to approve contract number 18400 in the amount of $182,314 with Sun Ram Construction Incorporated. Second. Moved by Commissioner Karwoski, seconded by Commissioner Miron. Commissioner Karwoski. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I'm glad we're able to work with the City of Oakdale. Wanted to point out this trail connects to the east as Oakdale considers and has documented Hadley Avenue as a signature street. It's a street they put a lot of extra investment in to not only beautify it, but make it a main thoroughfare. As Ms. Hayden mentioned, we really promote that multimodal. And then this trail connects, it's probably about a quarter of a mile, but it connects Granada Avenue, so it connects some major neighborhoods to some retail opportunities. And also in the future, there's a future planned connection that would go further to the west. It's a shorter section that would connect to Century Avenue, which is planned to be a major corridor. So I think it's a vital trail that not only connects to Hadley and Granada Avenue, it kind of creates a loop so much needed. I fully support it, and the trail's in rough shape, and I'm glad we're making the investment. And as mentioned, the actual cost of the trail is under budget by almost a third. Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner Miron. Yeah, happy to support it. Obviously this has been vetted within our capital improvement program. As Commissioner Karwoski pointed out, and Ms. Hayden mentioned as well, just the condition of the trail, a 38 PCI is not good. But I think you mentioned 2006 this was originally constructed, so it's 20 years old. That's about the life expectancy that we would anticipate in a trail like this. So, the fact that it's in the CIP, there's been a lot of collaboration with the City of Oakdale here and their staff and their leadership there, so happy to support this. And I really appreciate you sharing the connection to our strategic plan, and I think that's something that's really important. As we look at the strategic plan that we were all involved in, we supported and approved, and how these projects tie back to that effort, I think is important. So I appreciate the fact that you tied this project back to the strategic plan. Thank you. Commissioner Cox. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Hayden, I do have one question, and I was trying to look back quickly, and I apologize for not doing this ahead of right this instant. But I believe it was County Highway 12. There was a trail that we just approved through there as well. I remember you telling us that there was a bonus for the contractor for getting it done on time because these trails can be these add-ons. I'm not seeing that in this project, and I'm just wondering why for one and maybe not the other, if you have the answer. Well, Commissioner Cox, that's a great question. For the County State Highway 12 trail, that is tied into the Mahtomedi School campus. They had a school start date that we wanted to have everything done by. In this particular contract, we actually have a flexible start date. They have over a month that they could start because it's a short construction timeframe. And when we talked with the City of Oakdale, they did not have any concerns with having it done by a certain date. I appreciate that. Thank you Commissioner Miron And if I recall, I believe the County Road 12 trail was a Safe Routes to School funded trail, if I remember. That's correct. So... Okay. Any other discussion? Seeing none, thank you very much for your presentation, and I'm happy to support this project. This trail is in some major need. So, all in favor of approving contract number 18400 say, "Aye." Aye. Opposed, say, "Nay." Motion carries. Commissioner Karwoski, the next item. Yeah, to get this before us, I'll make a motion to approve the cooperative agreement, number 18395, with the City of Oakdale for a maintenance responsibility pertaining to this trail. Second. And seconded by Commissioner Cox. Discussion. Commissioner Karwoski, or...? It's a standard agreement, so... Okay. Seeing no further discussion, all in favor of approving cooperative agreement number 18395, say, "Aye." Aye. Opposed, say, "Nay." Motion carries. Thank you very much, Ms. Hayden. Next up is general administration. Administrator Corbid. Madam Chair and commissioners, good morning. I do not have a report this morning. We are looking forward to presenting the recommended budget here in a few minutes. Sounds good. All right. Next item are commissioner reports and comments, questions. Commissioner Clausen, would you like to start us off today? Sure. I'm going to first start with just a couple of things that are going on. Obviously, Night to Unite is today, so we will be going, me and Senator Hemmes and Jaeger, will be going around Woodbury and enjoying talking to the neighbors. And also, the Washington County Fair. It was amazing. Another great effort by volunteers. There's so many amazing stories that have come out and things that... People just really love to talk to other people, and it's just a great time to really feel like a community. And then something that happened this weekend. Somebody very close to Woodbury passed away. Vivian Latimer Tannehill grew up in Alabama. As a Black woman, she made her way up the ladder to a corporate C-suite executive, a Woodbury resident and community leader and democracy activist. She is a volunteer for the League of Women Voters. She often sat in the audience. And many of us know who she is. She was inquisitive, a deep thinker, and someone I truly admired. She was just here a couple of months ago, and I had always noticed her immaculate style and her gorgeous long braids. And she told me that she wasn't feeling well and hadn't been in the best health, and I didn't realize that was my last time sitting next to her over there. And so, she left a new puppy and her family. And most important, people who loved her in Woodbury and her neighbors. We will never be the same without you, Vivian, and I'm not the same because of you. So thank you for the time you spent here. That's it. Thanks. Thank you. Commissioner Miron. Thank you, Madam Chair. Had an opportunity to tour and attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new housing development in my district. Excited to see that new market value come on for the various taxing districts, but more importantly, just providing housing for so many people. Brand-new facility and they had eight units still available for rent. I think there was 100 units in that. So it's unbelievable how quickly they were able to market those units. Certainly a need for housing in Washington County. And actually, the rents, I thought, were very affordable. Washington County Fair was mentioned. Commissioner Cox and Bigham and I attended the senior day at the county fair and helped serve the seniors there. I just appreciate Margo Rheinberger's leadership in helping organize that. It seemed as though all of the seniors, including myself, enjoyed that day. So, and then was able to... Actually, I spent a good part of three days out at the county fair. I was able to go, again, along with Commissioner Cox and Bigham to celebrate the Farm family. Richie and Beth Springborn were recognized along with their three kids. And just a really wonderful family from Commissioner Cox's district that farms, but more importantly, or just as important, I think, is Richie's service to Washington County. 26 years in public works down at the south shop there. When we noted that at the time of their recognition, he got a round of applause for that service. So people appreciate our public works people that continue to maintain things within the county and provide for all of our safety So it was fun to recognize them, and then I also went back to the fair on Sunday again and was there for the 4H awards program. Extension and the 4H program just adds so much value to Washington County in the way of family engagement, youth development. Just nice to see the young people going across the stage for their various successes. And of course, had an opportunity, my wife and I, to get through the Ferris Gardens area that the master gardeners have. Just really amazing demonstrations there and a lot of activity there. Had a number of watershed issues that worked on, and in particular, the interviews for the Comfort Lake-Forest Lake watershed. I just so appreciate the number of applicants that we're receiving for those watershed positions and the quality of applicants that we have. It really is difficult to identify one individual to serve, but appreciate people stepping forward. And then Commissioner Bingham and I attended the Recycling and Energy Board meeting, and I'll let Commissioner Bingham report on that. Okay. Commissioner Cox. Thank you, Madam Chair. I was able to sneak into about three-quarters of the Mapping Prejudice Lunch and Learn last week, so that was a great presentation, and thankful to the PRTS team for bringing them in. Commissioner Karwoski allowed me to join him on an Andersen Windows tour. So I don't think I've ever been driven inside in a golf cart before. And so that was really impressive. He was fast, too, Simon. But a great tour and some great comments and connection made there. The fair was mentioned. For those of us city folks, I was there for Farm Family, and I just learned, we stayed for the auction. And my kids asked me why we weren't bidding to take these animals home. Apparently, you don't take them home. You just bid, and it supports 4H. So, I truly lied to my son when I said we can't take that cow home, because you really can't. So it was a fun day for our family to be there and now to learn more about how the fair really works. So, happy to sit in and support the Comfort Lake-Forest Lake Watershed District interviews. Commissioner Miron forgot to mention that he also attended Workshop on the Water. So last Thursday night, we were able to, with Commissioner Karwoski, enjoy a great educational program on the St. Croix River. And then a couple different community connections then. So a community center group came and met with several of us here at the government center. I was able to meet with our public works team down at Lake St. Croix Beach. And then several of us from administration met with a couple residents yesterday afternoon on the climate action plan. So that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Karwoski. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, a few things here to cover. Major items were the Andersen Window tour with their leadership team, including... Made that contact with CEO, Chris Glavin, serving on Greater MSP. Kind of offered up the tour. So we, along with Commissioner Cox and their leadership, we-- It was a six-person golf cart. That's how big that plant is. And we included CDA Economic Development Director, Chris Ing. We all really appreciated the high technology and the skill of their employees. They're very prideful in what they're doing in that factory, and rightfully so. We really were able to highlight partnerships that we have, but we can expand on. Particularly, probably the highest area was in the workforce development. And Chris Ing and I serve on that workforce development board. Also, Andersen Windows is represented on the workforce development board, that there's more of an open door to use them as an example as we work through the school districts as an example on career pathways. But we certainly need to work to provide a stronger workforce that companies like Andersen Windows could grow and be even more successful here. Commissioner Cox, representing Bayport in that plant would be a key contact moving forward. But we definitely made an open door to more open and how can we be even a better partner. Also, if in the Bayport or the Cottage Grove facility, Commissioner Bigham would be a key contact down there. Who's mentioned the St. Croix River tour, Commissioner Cox and Miron were on. They call it a Workshop on the Water, and it really truly is two hours of a lot of how can we protect and even make the water quality better, really is, I think, the goal of that tour. Look forward to it each year. There were many sponsors, too. They really need to be recognized. Read the list. I didn't even want to mention one of them. But there were six or seven sponsors that pulled that together with all these different water leaders. Largely, a lot of watershed district people, a lot of elected people, but people that interested in caring about our water. Also attended part of that Mapping Prejudice Lunch and Learn. Wanted to take the time, in our audience, we have Glenn Birth Here from wonderful Oakdale. Glenn's a great community leader. He's the son of Ted Berath, who was my predecessor in so many ways. And if I could match even some of the community involvement and skills and passion that Ted brought to this job, I'm thankful for. But Glenn and his family, a large family, they're all really community-orientated. Glenn's really involved, probably in Lions Club, but many other things. So I wanted to recognize Glenn in the audience. And lastly, I'll be out Night to Unite or something. I just enjoy getting around and meeting neighbors. That's all I have. Thank you very much. Thank you, Commissioner Clasen, for the very fitting words and tribute to Vivian. She was absolutely a fierce advocate and fighter for our democracy and transparency, and was very active in League of Women Voters, and just a sweet person, and was here for the public auditing of our equipment with a group of League of Women Voter members. So, our condolences to her family, loved ones, and Puppy. Yeah. And Ted Berath was an amazing man, and his son is fantastic as well. So, thank you for highlighting the special guest. Night to Unite is a fantastic event. A lot of people out and about to be able to listen to about how to get to know our neighbors, keep our community safe, and the opportunities to be involved in our communities. It's great, and I'm glad it's been going on for so many years. The county fair was fantastic, and again, congratulations to the Springborn family. And it's just a great opportunity to highlight our agriculture community, but the contributions that they give to our community is amazing. And also want to thank Commissioner Miron for negotiating with that really nice boy to give the bunny back. He wanted to bring it home, and so Commissioner Miron had to assist the parents with the mediation, and so that was very kind of him. The R&E board met, as Commissioner Miron said, and we also had a finance meeting after that. But the board really dealt with the audit report from the state auditor and budget status, which we're looking really good. And we're just continuing to move forward on the expansion, highlighted the rollout of all of Washington County. So theoretically, all that is left is Ramsey County, St. Paul, and Mary Jo McGuire's district, Commissioner McGuire's district, which is noted every meeting. So appreciate that and the work that they do to engage folks on that. I attended the watershed meetings and for the appointments of... That was CARMA, right? Forest Lake. Forest Lake Comfort. Appreciate that. We have the other one coming up, so. And then had a meeting on the African American Family Preservation Act, and really had a pretty direct discussion about the rollout of guidance is coming out in, I would say, bulletins, and I don't think that's soothing any anxiety that our social workers have. And so we had a pretty direct conversation with the Department of Children, Youth, and Family. So, we'll continue to work together on that and be helpful in any way we can. And then had discussions about the Age of Delinquency Committees that I am on. So, that is all I have today. We do have correspondence from it appears to be the, where did that go? City of Woodbury on TIF, and the Mental Health Local Advisory Council recommendations for the upcoming budget cycle. And so I believe we all have a copy. If not, I have them here if people would like to see it. Real quick before we adjourn, we are going to start, as the administrator said, our review of the recommended 2027 county-wide budget starting today with internal services, which is accounting and finance, human resources, IT, and admin. So, seeing nothing further on the agenda, we are going to adjourn and take care of the workshops. So we had the grandkids. We took them up to that. We drove them up. Yeah. Anyway I see it today. All right. We are going to go ahead and get started with the 2027 budget workshops. I have a few statements, and then we'll pass it over to Administrator Corbid before, sorry, Ms. Wagenius, we get to you. No. So we're getting our first look at the county administrator's recommended budget for 2027 today. We received our budget books, thank you to everyone for those, last week. And at our desks today is the schedule that we're going to follow for the next five months leading up to the approval of the 2027 budget and levy. I also wanted to just take note that the schedule is a little flexible and can be adjusted if the board needs some additional information. We do have some deadlines, though, that we need to follow, which is adopting the preliminary levy in September and then the final levy in December. So we do have a lot of data in front of us. Departments have been working hard for months to prepare their budgets, and administration has met with each of them individually to go over, perhaps line by line, their requests and develop this recommended budget. So before we even jump in, I just want to say thank you to our county administrator, our deputy administrators, our department heads, and so many of the staff members here at the county that have put in work, hopefully not blood, sweat and tears, but into making this budget booklet a reality for us today. So as we move through these workshops, I'm just going to ask that all commissioners come prepared each week. Yes, there is a lot to read through. And if you're Commissioner Bigham, you take your ruler and you read each line by line. But the PowerPoints that are included each week as well are important that we read through for the presentation. Just asking that we approach these discussions with professionalism and respect, that we might have different perspectives this year on the budget, priorities and questions, but our conversations should remain focused on the work before us and finding the best solutions for the county. So as you're preparing, if you have questions that you know you want to ask during the workshops, it's advised that you please share those with staff ahead of time. What that does, it allows for a more complete answer to be prepared in advance, and then that question and answer can be shared for all five of us up here during the presentation, and then also recorded for the public to see. Board members can certainly ask new questions during the workshop. Please don't take that as you can't, but please know that depending on the level of detail being requested, staff that are presenting may have to get back to us at a later meeting or through email with that reply. Questions can be a part of this public decision-making, and disagreements as well, but making sure that they're communicated respectfully and in a way that supports a productive and respectful workplace is important. Our goal is to have a thoughtful, transparent discussion about the budget, and everyone should be able to participate in that discussion in a professional environment. In my role leading these budget workshops, I will do my best to allow all the commissioners time to get their questions asked and answered. If one of us does have a lot of questions, even myself, after a couple of questions, I will move on to others and then come back once everyone has had a chance to participate. I will try not to cut anyone off while also trying to keep us on schedule as best that I can. So this is an important process for our county. I appreciate everyone's time and preparation for these discussions. If we come prepared and keep our focus on the work, I'm confident we can have budget discussions over the next five months that are productive and respectful. So before we kick it to Administrator Corbid, are there any questions? Seeing none, Administrator Corbid. Thank you, Madam Chair and commissioners. Deputy Administrators Wagenius, Lucke, and I are pleased to present the county administrator's 2027 recommended budget. At the front of your binder, you will find a two-page memo from me introducing our recommended budget. Developing a $520 million annual budget is a daunting task and one that everyone involved takes with great care and seriousness. There are many county employees who have played a role in the creation of this budget, including department directors and deputies, managers and supervisors, and budget analysts in the departments, our budget contacts in the departments, and support staff in the departments and in administration. As you know, the key individuals administration are Si Tao and Trung Le, and they flank me here at the dais to help answer any questions that you may have throughout this process. And I also want to acknowledge the work of Keegan Miller in administration. Does great work preparing the information for us each week. In a few minutes, Deputy Administrators Lucke and Wagenius will begin our process by presenting an overview of the recommended budget. Today's presentation will focus on the key components and changes that we are recommending. You will get a much more detailed explanation as departments come before you and the public to discuss their portion of the recommended budget. I will finish my introductory comments by just giving a few thoughts on how we as staff approach this recommendation we are making today. Number one, we understood that we are asking for a levy increase that is higher than typical for Washington County, and we looked for ways to mitigate that increase as much as possible by maximizing non-levy revenue sources and making reductions in some areas to fund others. We understood that not only are we facing state and federal cost shifts in this budget, there are even more that are likely to occur in 2028 and beyond. Our recommendations are being made to avoid pushing costs into later years as those budget years are shaping up to already be difficult. And finally, we're making recommendations for increased investments in areas that we believe are critical to allowing us to continue providing services to the public. I should note that a written copy of my comments has been placed at your desk this morning as well, so you're going to have those as well. So thank you for the opportunity to present this recommendation today, and I look forward to many questions and conversations between the board members and staff as we put together our 2027 budget. If there are no questions for me, I would turn it over to Deputy Administrator Wagenius. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Vice Chair, Commissioners. Jennifer Wagenius, Deputy Administrator. This morning, I will share an overview of our organization, the budget recommendation, and core considerations influencing that recommendation. Deputy Administrator Lucke will then provide a summary of the budget, the estimated tax impact, and metropolitan area comparisons. Today's presentation is a high-level overview. It will be followed today and over the coming weeks by individual department budget presentations that will provide more detail on budget changes, major changes in funding and programs, and other factors influencing the budget. The countywide budget provides critical funding for mandated and core function services that impact lives and support the community. Earlier this year, the county board took a deep dive into those mandates and core functions in preparation for this challenging budget cycle. As an organization, the county has important responsibilities in the areas of human services and support, licenses and permits, property and environment, transportation, general government, public safety, libraries, and parks. For the purposes of this process, the budget recommendation is organized by the departments shown here. There will also be budget presentations from the internal service departments that support the whole organization later this morning. Rooted in connection, growing with direction. The county's slogan, vision, and mission embody how Washington County does its work. Some of the ways those play out in day-to-day operations are through the values that guide our work, the county's strong financial management that has led to a AAA bond rating, the public and employee surveys that connect our organization's work to individuals and allow us to measure our effectiveness, and through responsive service. As a guiding document that shapes the county's priorities, much of each calendar year is spent on the development and approval of the county budget. This year, the annual budget process began with the county board workshop in March. And while today starts the livestreamed and recorded county budget presentations, there has been an incredible amount of work from subject matter experts, as detailed by Commissioner Cox and Administrator Corbid, to develop the recommendations for positions, programs, and services before you today. While this budget makes investments in critical areas, this is a budget constrained and stretched by shifts in federal and state programs that are capturing individual and public resources that could otherwise be used to support individual households or expand services and respond to the county's growing population. Throughout August and September, county departments will present their individual budgets and get your feedback in preparation for county board adoption of the preliminary levy on September 22nd. By state law, a preliminary levy must be adopted by September 30th. After the preliminary levy is approved, the levy can go down, but not up, prior to final adoption of the 2027 budget scheduled on December 15th. The levy increase recommended to support county operations and manage cost shifts is 7.9%. This levy results in a 5% increase in the county's tax rate after accounting for modestly increasing values and new construction of 819 million. The Land and Water Legacy Levy increase of 56,600 is for structured debt on bonds issued under the initial bonding authority from county taxpayers in 2006. Under this budget scenario, if the Land and Water Legacy referendum is approved in November 2026, the first bond issuance and debt payment for that program would be in 2028. The Regional Rail Authority Levy remains flat. The budget before you today focuses on meeting the obligations the organization has to our communities, clients, and employees. The core considerations influencing the budget preparation are county operations, federal and state cost shifts, ongoing operating technology needs, and the capital investments needed for a growing and thriving community like Washington County. Where possible, non-levy revenue sources, such as the county's transportation sales tax and wheelage tax or fees, were identified to fund these investments. Within county operations, there are many different factors impacting the 2027 budget. As a service organization with about 40% of our budget consistently allocated for personnel wages, benefits, and employee supports, our employees who serve our residents each day are a major influence on the annual budget. Going into this budget cycle, the county is in year two of three-year labor agreements. During this time of unpredictability and funding volatility, those agreements are a source of stability for our organization and our employees. Similarly, 2027 is year three of our agreement on healthcare, which includes a cap on the increase in health insurance expenses paid by the county and its employees. The budget before you today also includes the ongoing shared premiums for the Minnesota Paid Leave program that began in 2026. Harder to quantify within the budget is the impact of those leaves, both positive and negative, on the county's workforce. Outside economic influences continue to have an oversized impact on the county's budget, with fuel, insurance, equipment, professional services, and supplies like salt increasing at a faster rate than seen historically. Within our facility or building operations, this budget increases internal rent rates by 4.5% to pay for staffing, professional services, and building repairs. This rate of increase also allows the county to add an additional project specialist in building services to support the ongoing facility capital projects being managed by that division. As you will hear from our public works director, the 2027 budget recommendation includes fee increases for park use to accommodate inflation, add ongoing staffing for grounds management, and temporary staff resources to fund wage increases, additional lifeguards, the Big Marine Contact Station, and the continuation of the Park Ambassador program. In addition to the growth of levy in the parks budget, all fees collected by parks are kept within their budget to benefit the users paying those fees. With the opening of the new Central Service and License Center, the already busy Woodbury License Center is seeing even more demand. That, combined with other factors, is often leading to longer wait times at that center. At the same time that that demand is increasing, the license center division overall is bringing in additional revenue that allows for the addition of four employees at the Central Service and License Center without the allocation of additional levy. And finally, in transit operations, based on the county board's direction regarding the county transportation sales tax, this budget uses a small part of the transit portion of that sales tax to supplant internal client transit supports that were otherwise paid for by levy or one-time funding. Okay, everybody get comfortable. We're going to be here for a little bit. The federal and state cost shifts that began with fiscal year 2026 are a major consideration for 2026 and-- excuse me, 2027 and 2028. So we are going to delve into a higher level of detail for a few minutes. These shifts and future considerations will also be covered in more detail during the community services department budget presentation. Beginning October 1st, 2026, the federal government reduced its reimbursement for the federal administrative costs related to the Supplemental Nutrition Program, or SNAP, from 50% to 25%. The change was enacted through the Federal Budget Reconciliation Bill as part of broader efforts to reduce federal spending, but it does not change state and county responsibilities to determine eligibility and issue benefits. The result of this change in Minnesota is 75% of the cost of administering the SNAP program will fall to county taxpayers through their property tax. The 2027 budget is our first full year of this shift, with increasing costs as calculated by the Association for Minnesota Counties, or AMC, at nearly one million for Washington County. Effective October 1st, 2027, as part of the same Federal Budget Reconciliation Bill, states that have an error rate of over 6% are responsible for a share of the SNAP benefit costs. This policy was designed to increase accountability. However, many factors contributing to the error rate are outside of county control, including increasingly complex eligibility rules, frequent federal policy changes, system limitations, and client-related issues such as incomplete or inaccurate information. These external factors significantly limit the county's ability to directly reduce error. Given the decentralized service model in Minnesota, the responsibility for the penalty amounts is anticipated to be split 50/50 between the counties and the state. The Washington County estimate for one quarter, beginning in October 2027, of this benefit cost in the 2027 county fiscal year is $422,000. At the same time the county is responding to federal legislative changes, various changes at the state level are also having fiscal and operational impact on the organization. The Minnesota African American Family Preservation Act, or the Act, takes effect January 1st, 2027, following pilot implementation in Hennepin and Ramsey Counties. The legislation was added to address longstanding racial disparities within Minnesota's child welfare system by strengthening culturally responsive practices and emphasizing family preservation whenever it can be done safely. While the goals of this legislation are strongly supported, implementation is estimated to cost around $400,000 and will require changes to policies, training, documentation, and court processes. Beginning in 2027, counties will receive less state funding to support child protection services. While the funding is reduced, the legal responsibility to investigate abuse, protect vulnerable children, and respond to emergencies remains unchanged. The impact for Washington County in 2027 is $96,000. State funding to support county behavioral health crisis response services will also be reduced beginning in 2027. This comes at a time when Washington County and communities across Minnesota continue to experience growing behavioral health needs and crisis services. In all, the county's grant reduction for these services was $300,000. This budget recommendation proposes cuts of 120,000 within this program and filling the remaining $180,000 gap with levy. Absent state legislative change, beginning July 1st, 2027, counties will assume a new cost share for long-term services and supports as part of the state's efforts to address its projected budget deficit. Long-term services and supports in Minnesota are a wide range of medical, personal, and social programs that will help older adults and people with disabilities. While residents will continue to receive the same services, counties will be responsible for a significantly greater share of the cost. Based on Minnesota Department of Human Services projections, one half year of this shift in 2027 is estimated at $800,000. That brings the county's total human service cost shifts in the budget year 2027 to nearly $2.9 million. Because SNAP administrative cost shifts also impacted one quarter of fiscal year 2026, there was already 307,000 in ongoing levy within the budget for these expenses, bringing the total 2027 budget need to approximately 2.6 million or a 1.71% levy increase. I do want to note the state has provided limited one-time funding to help offset the impact of some of these shifts. In 2027, Washington County will receive 291,000 to temper the impact of the SNAP changes, and 401,000 for ACT implementation. This funding falls well short of the overall projected costs. It has been Washington County's long-term financial practice not to fund ongoing costs with one-time funding streams, thereby creating a fiscal cliff. That practice has served the organization well and continues to be followed in the budget recommended before you today. Ongoing levy for the full amount of the expected cost shifts is included within the overall countywide budget. Moving to the right side of the slide, many of the programs discussed so far have implementation timelines that cross into the county's fiscal year 2028. The SNAP administrative costs will continue to grow with inflation, and the SNAP penalty will be effective for the full year or three additional quarters in 2028. There will also be another half year of long-term service and support shifts impacted by program growth and inflation, all totaling another $2.5 million impact projected in county fiscal year 2028. While this budget was being prepared, there was also uncertainty related to a projected increase in county program aid that Washington County receives from the State of Minnesota. Although the state did not increase the county program aid statewide overall, the Washington County did receive an increase of $1.1 million in county state aid due to shifting demographic factors. That increase does help the county fund our critical operations and was confirmed late last week. To help mitigate known shifts and remaining unknowns, there is an additional $1 million of levy within this year's budget recommendation. In other words, 2.38% of the recommended 7.9% levy increase is related to legislative cost shifts. Technology continues to be a critical part of county operations and a major budget consideration. Within this budget is one-time funding for network replacement and ongoing funding for additional organizational network support. Ongoing increases in software licenses for critical operating systems, including Microsoft and E1, and the county's telephony system, as well as costs for technology devices, which have nearly doubled. This budget recommendation also includes one-time expenditures for the replacement of the library's main operating system and interim staffing needs for the human resources information system upgrade. In the area of capital investments, there continues to be substantial overall growth. Within facilities, funding is allocated from the planned bond sale for investments in Park Grove and Stafford libraries with the county environmental charge allocated to the South Environmental Center and capital redirect funding included for fire safety upgrades and facility improvements at the Government Center, as well as a 10-year county space use plan. Road and bridge improvements increase under this budget with the county's investment in the South public workshop, the use of state and federal grants for major road investments, and the increased amount of the county's transportation sales tax allocated to road projects. Finally, a $6 million parks investment is included, largely of specifically allocated state funding. The budget also follows the county board's direction to increase debt service and capital project funding by 2.5% per year to support a stable and consistent investment in county infrastructure and avoid large spikes for our taxpayers. Within that planned capital funding program is the $40 million bond debt intended to be sold in the spring of 2027. Deputy Administrator Lucke will now lead the remainder of the presentation. Morning, Madam Vice Chair, commissioners. As mentioned, Jan Lucke, Deputy County Administrator, and I will take us through to the end. Just let me get organized there. Okay, I will begin with the budget summary. These next two slides will summarize the budget for you using major revenue and expenditure categories in our financial system. The community and employee investments highlighted in the previous slides roll up to recommended levy increase of 7.9%. Included here, along with the summary of other key revenue sources that fund the 2027 recommended budget. The regional rail levy remains flat. The Land and Water Legacy Levy increased slightly per county policy to levy 105% of debt service. In prior years, we had been levying 100% of debt service. The county program aid is formula-driven. As Deputy Administrator Wagenius mentioned, we are showing a $1.1 million increase for 2027. Non-levy revenue represents all funding sources not specifically itemized, such as other taxes, license and permits, intergovernmental revenue, fees for service, interest earnings, and miscellaneous revenue. Other financing sources includes bonds and interfund transfers. Interfund transfers include money moving between departments. The 2027 bond and the cell shop funding totaling around 85 million are included in this category. And finally, the Gold Line bus rapid transit project is entirely funded by transportation sales tax. There is no property tax levy being used to fund that project. We are seeing a significant decrease in revenue assigned to the Gold Line project as it nears closeout. Moving on to the expenditure side. Citizen client-related support includes a broad range of expenditures. The reduction here would have been much higher without the recommended levy increase that responds to federal and state cost shifts and cuts. Personnel services includes payroll benefits and insurance costs for the 1,498.7 FTEs in the recommended budget. Union negotiations settled during the budget process and final settlements are included in the recommended numbers. Services and charges includes a broad range of expenditures. Cost drivers in this category include higher amounts for environmental programs, most notably the recycling and energy cost share with Ramsey County, for the Recycling Energy Board. Technology and software licensing, most notably the new RingCentral phone system, equipment repairs and maintenance, and this category also includes the funding we are holding to buffer additional human service cost increases and cuts, or cost shifts and cuts in 2028. Materials and supplies reflects inflationary pressures, including building operations and technology. Debt changes each year based on the principal and interest scheduled for the county's debt. Other financing uses is primarily interfund transfers, which may include contributions to fund balance. And this year we're subtotaling the county operational expense for you to isolate the capital cost impact on the organizational budget, which you can see here in capital outlay. Capital costs naturally fluctuate from year to year, and this year's increase is largely due to the bond. Given the amount of levy required for existing positions and cost shifts in the human services space, there is room to only add one new levy-funded position this year, which is a network communication analyst in the information technology department, which is showing up as an increase in one FTE in the internal services line item. As Deputy Administrator Wagenius mentioned, the recommended budget includes an additional 4.5 FTEs in property records and taxpayer services using non-levy sources, including four full-time service representatives in the Central Service and License Center using license and permit fee revenue, and a part-time FTE in elections using the voter fund. And the recommended budget includes an additional 5.5 FTEs in public works, including a full-time parks maintenance worker and part-time grounds and facility technician using park fee revenue, an engineer right of way specialist and operations manager using wheelage tax revenue, and a building service project specialist using rent revenue. Finally, the recommended budget also includes the continuation of a legal assistant previously funded by mission-directed budget that was set to expire in the attorney's office, and a deputy training officer and the community service officer program previously funded by state public safety aid that was set to expire in the sheriff's office. Three departments are seeing a net loss in positions due to the expiration of special project positions, one in the attorney's office, two in the sheriff's office, and 13 in community services department. Despite the net loss of 5.0 FTEs to the organization, employees per capita ratio remains relatively or generally flat. Moving on to tax impacts and trends. When we compare the net levy increase with tax-based growth, these graphs often mirror each other, or these lines often mirror each other. The lines diverge in 2023 due to the dramatic increase in real property appreciation. In '25 and '26, we see those lines begin to mirror each other again. The dotted net levy line represents what the net levy increase would have been without the human services cost shifts included in the recommended budget. As Deputy Wagenius mentioned, that 2.38% of the recommended 7.9% levy increase is related to legislative cost shifts. Looking at the net levy compared to new construction in the community, we see a slight drop in new construction value added to the county's tax base with paid 2027 new construction value around 819 million. All these factors come together to result in a county tax bill that would be $67 higher per year for a median valued home that had a median increase in its value. That increase results in a percentage increase of 6.5%. Please keep in mind this is one example and an early projection. When we look at tax rate trends, we see a slight increase in 2027. There are many factors that go into the tax rate calculation, many of which we cannot control, such as growth in tax base and new construction We are strong in these areas. However, due to modestly increasing property values, a slight downtick in new construction, and a 7.9 levy in percent increase, the tax rate pushed up slightly from 2026 to 2027. It is still well below 2020 through 2022. Moving to 2026 metropolitan area comparisons. Keep in mind, this is looking back at where all counties landed last year with levy and tax rate. Washington County is below the seven-county average in levy per capita and right at the five-county average, which excludes Hennepin and Ramsey Counties, making us the third lowest levy per capita in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, as well as the third lowest of all 87 counties. When comparing tax rates, Washington County was the second lowest in the metropolitan area and fourth lowest of all 87 counties. This means that the same value property in any metropolitan county, except Dakota, would pay more in county property tax than they do in Washington County. With that, Madam Vice Chair and commissioners, we'd like to thank all those in the organization that participated in the development of this budget recommendation, and there are a lot of them, as Administrator Corbid mentioned at the opening. We'd like to extend a special shout-out to our department directors and the budget analysts, Trung Le and Sai Thao, for their exceptional effort in pulling this work together. And we stand for questions. Thank you. We sit for questions too. Thank you, Deputy Administrator Lucke and Wagenius for the presentation. Any questions, thoughts? Commissioner Bigham. Thank you to administration and to Trung and Sai for your work on putting this together. Thank you to the department heads, too, for what is the next couple of years extremely difficult with the shifts and cuts from the state and the feds. To think of a request of 7.9% levy increase, if you backed out and the state and the feds actually paid for what they're doing, we would be under a 5% levy, which is less than what we were last year. And so, just let that sit in for a second, if that's not frustrating. I still have hope that the farm bill, Commissioner Miran, and with the leadership of the leads of the agriculture committees and chairs working together to wrap that up with a bow, we may be able to get some help still with SNAP. And so, I still have hope on that. I'm optimistic, and I know that Director Brummell will obviously have a lot to say about the SNAP situation when it comes to that. A couple questions that I have or maybe requests going forward and whether the department heads want to talk about this during their presentation or if we should discuss it. I contact them ahead of time if I have questions. But the elimination of the special project positions, I would appreciate understanding a little bit more about what they are and the impact that that has, losing 13 positions in social services, and that seems a little concerning to me. And so, I just would like more details. I'm sure it has been mentioned. I'm just wondering if those types of questions will be during the department presentations. Madam Vice Chair, Commissioner Bigham, I can provide a summary of those expiring special projects positions, and then I'll lean on the department directors to provide more in detail. So, as mentioned, there was one in the attorney's office, two in the sheriff's office. The attorney's office is a public information officer special projects position. It's actually funded through March of 2027. The two in the sheriff's office, one was to backfill a long-term medical leave, and the other was to backfill a military leave. So there is little of no impact of those expiring. They're not needed going forward, and if they are, the sheriff's will come back and request that or add that to his FTE count. And the 13 expiring positions in community services, they're largely due to the end of Medicaid unwinding, which, if you recall, the reassessments were paused during COVID, and we received funding to hire a small army of community service employees to address that unwinding and that recertification. I will defer to Director Castillo and her budget presentation to speak more about that, but that is largely why so many special projects positions in CST are ending. Thank you, and I appreciate that. Overall, the fiscal pragmatism that this budget has is incredible during the times that we're facing, and it just shows the long-term fiscal stability and planning that this county has had and continues to have to be able to navigate times like this. So just a lot of gratitude, and really looking forward to the presentations and conversation about the budget. So thank you. Commissioner Karwoski. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Deputy Administrators Lucke and Wagenius, thank you for the presentation, and thanks to Truong and Cy for all your work, and all the departments from every employee to every director. This is always a good start, although I think Chair Bigham's comment about frustrating regarding SNAP funding, the federal cost shifts. Slide nine, if you put up. To me, it's beyond frustrating. It kind of makes me mad, to be truthful. At the top, I would like to see one thing change here. These are federal and state cost shifts. Why don't we add cost shifts to counties, put it right up there. Boom. I think it just strengthens it. I think this gets to be a blur to everyday taxpayers. We're talking about a lot of stuff here, but it's really a cost shift. And if you really want to put in small mandated, this is mandated. We have no wiggle room. So this is roughly about a third of your recommended increase of 7.9. This is about a third of that increase. I'm not arguing we should cut it. I think state and federal should take responsibility. It's their mandated service. It's the right thing to do, feed people in need and other benefits to these services. The other thing was mentioned by staff, and it's frustrating. These cost shifts was stated that they had to happen because of spending cuts by the federal and state. I can't, at the time here, speak about state, but I don't think we should give the federal that kind of language of federal cut. When you factor in some level of debt payment, they're actually spending more money. So they haven't cut anything. They're spending more money. We shouldn't give them recognition of spending cuts. They're making these cuts, but they're spending more money. It sounds great if they truly were making a cut in their budgets and passing it on. At least you start to see some benefit overall to the taxpayer, but I don't see it. But moving on, I think it's really noble. You explained it well about the employment cuts kind of largely through attrition, but reducing employment by five employees when our population is, we're still one of the more rapidly growing. Slide 17 shows the employees, and then slide in addition, that gives details to the employment. But slide 17 shows where per capita our population's growing, which typically would be reasonably justified. You need more employees to provide the equal amount of service to more county residents. But for us to find a way to cut five employees, and actually, we're not laying anyone off. I really commend staff for kind of... You described some of the details, but then also the shift of employees into the central service center to eliminate wait times, get those at a more reasonable expected level. I thought you did a fantastic job of reducing employee count, but in my mind, it sounds like we're improving service. And to see this drop from 5.08 employees per thousand down to four point, so just under five, I think the taxpayers appreciate that when times are tough, that we're not adding employees. Anyhow, we've got a lot of evaluation to do of... This is certainly the first public recommendation of the budget and the levy increase. I think we just need to take the next several months to look closer at details. Thank you. Yeah. Commissioner Miron. Yeah, I appreciate the observation of my colleagues here. I really appreciate the leadership early on in our discussion about core functions and mandates. I think that really helped us to prepare for today. Understanding those cost shifts and the potential impact that's been described by my colleagues here. So, we've got a lot of discussion that's going to occur as department heads present their budgets. I appreciate what's being presented. Certainly, uh Recognize the allocation of funding for the bond sale for capital investments and how that's impacting our budget. We continue to see investments in roads and bridges, which I really do believe is important to our economic development. We see how growth within the county really helps us maintain that tax rate or keeping that relatively flat even though we're seeing an increase. And then I think we continue to invest in areas where people have identified a desire to invest, whether that's our parks and trails or other areas, libraries, those types of things. And that's where the public input through surveys and that type of thing come to play here. So I think there's a strong attempt to satisfy within reason the needs that are being identified by the public as they come forward and ask for additional services and work for the county. And then I think in addition to that, just the partnership we have with the other taxing jurisdictions in trying to maintain some reasonableness within our requests from a property tax standpoint. So I'm anxious to go through the various department presentations and I think that'll help the public understand as well the significant effort we go through to try to temper the impacts of the county's levy and yet I also appreciate the forward-thinking that's been put into this budget and proposed levy. Kevin mentioned the concerns we have going forward in 2028 and beyond and I do believe that the economy is probably not going to be as healthy as what we've seen in the past. And we have to look forward and make sure that we're prepared for that and particularly to alleviate these significant spikes that occur. That has an impact on affordability. It has a significant impact on people on fixed incomes. And so I'm anxious to listen to the department presentations, but certainly share the concerns that my colleagues have shared. Commissioner Clausen. Yeah. Thank you. I enjoyed the presentation. Thank you for the printouts of the information that you shared as well and putting them into really large font. I really appreciate that. Similarly to what we've experienced in the past, this is the beginning of the budget discussions. And the amount of money that we have in front of us for that is what has been forecasted based on what decisions have been made. Looking at a couple of areas that I'm most concerned with is the growing cost of road and bridge. It wasn't discussed a lot in your presentation, but it is something that deserves to go over with a fine-tooth comb. That's a old term. And I believe that when-- and I have questions for the public works and it's about the cost of turnbacks and what percentage of turnback cost and what does that mean for us when a road is taken from the state, from MnDOT, and we bring it onto our county rolls. What does the cost really for that? So I'm looking at the total cost of turnbacks and what does that mean for the county going forward for operations and maintenance. I think that's one area that we really haven't been able to get really into detail about, and I want to do that. That's coming up next week. So if I can provide the name of the roadways and the miles of road and the total cost of all the turnbacks in the process, that it's in the process or in finalized form from 2018 through present, that would be really important for me to have. And then also providing the number of county roads in each district so that we can continue to talk about the needs of, and what I heard Commissioner Miron and Commissioner Kowalski talk about today is the continued need for investment and that we all acknowledge growth is occurring very quickly. My district is not seeing the level of road improvements that's necessary to be able to take care of constituents. I've seen, I've heard, and I've talked to Two people who were involved in accidents in Woodbury Drive and where it connects on Lake and Bailey. And growing safety needs are happening in my district. So, I do want to know what the continued investment is going to be for turnbacks. It seems as if we're relying on older agreements, and I wanted to have an opportunity to look at the older agreements and revise them based on the need for investment in Woodbury. And I'm realizing that that capital investment makes up about 183 million a year, and Commissioner Kowalski pointed out that 7%, 7.9% is the increase of the levy. But if taking out the 2%, that still leaves an increase of 5.9. So looking further at that, is that majority of increase, as I'm seeing it, it comes down to capital investment. Is majority of the area that I'm seeing it. You talked about professional services and talked about software increases. With software increases, as that's approaching, and I know that this is a discussion that's going to be continuous, the cost for software is going to become very difficult to be able to provide to all 1,300 staff. So I really am hoping to gain a little bit more forecasting of what are you thinking of. I know this is a year-to-year, but I would love to go a little bit more on what we're going to do with the costs of professional services, consulting costs, and software. I see that all together. I want to continue to, as Commissioner Kowalski pointed out, as we grow, we want to be able to grow our workforce here at the county. But how are you going to do that? Because I just don't see the numbers currently of being able to support more people, more workforce, and also support the software needs as well, the way that our current model is. And so, I'm interested to hear more details about how you're going to plan for that. And with building repairs were discussed as well, and I know a significant portion of the American Rescue Plan went to making sure that basically all of our maintenance in regards to our HVAC and our overall maintenance was covered during that time because I know it was a significant portion that was going to that. So if we do talk about the cost of that, it would be nice to remember or to be updated on what was the initial cost that we had put in to running a very expensive government center. And with the new fire safety, I know that we had some water damage, which occurs, but wanting to make sure that that is not a growing need percentage-wise, but that we're being conservative with facilities. I think that's really important moving forward. And if we can focus on the heaviest part of our budget, which is roads and bridges and public safety and those areas, I believe we won't feel as heavy when we have to pay the mandated services that are coming down. Otherwise, we can continue to talk about how that is, but if we can continue to move down or be conservative with the costs of roads and bridges, especially during turnbacks, that's going to be the best fiscally moving forward. So, thank you. Madam Vice Chair, I think those are great teasers or highlights for the director presentations, so I will defer to them. One quick comment is there's very little levy in the capital outlay line item, so we'll get you more information on that, Madam Vice Chair, Commissioner Clausen. And then, as mentioned, those detailed questions will be excellent for the directors to answer. Commissioner Bigham. Thank you. Just to piggyback off of that, it's also a macro global issue with inflation, which is causing a lot of the prices to go up on construction projects. It's unfortunate. The reason why I wanted to speak again is because something popped in my head as everybody was talking about the shifts to the counties. And I believe I said this at a board meeting, but something that I think the board ought to consider is the insert that we put in the property tax statement. It's the one that has the dollar bill sign, and it says that 20 cents off of every dollar goes to the county, and it breaks down different things. Scott County uses also a handout That kind of lays out the county portion of these shifts and the result of the levy increase from the state and federal mandates. So I think it would be a good idea at some point here, maybe when we get through all the department building budgets, we can maybe take a look at what something like that would look like to further demonstrate to the taxpayers in transparency that here's the breakdown of the reasons why the increase. So just a thought. All right. I'll share just a couple of comments, which are, I appreciate the fiscal responsible budget that has been brought forward, and looking forward to further discussions. But I think planning ahead, as Commissioner Miron said, is just good management of finances, and I appreciate us being cautious, but also planning for those. And then Commissioner Karwoski brought up the slide that's employees per 1,000 capita. And I think that slide probably by itself shows a lot of the push and the pull that we have to deal with here at the county. We are a growing community, so it would be fantastic to be able to add more employees to deal with the growing community. And yet we have to make sure that the levy is a reasonable amount to put on property taxes for the people that live here. And so I think it's just an interesting slide that just kind of shows there's a tight walk, and there's a balance that has to happen here. And for some reason, that slide sticks out to me as well. So thanks for bringing that up. But thank you both for the presentation, and I'm not sure who won or lost rock, paper, scissors to go first. But we have a few departments coming up next. Yes, thank you, Madam Vice Chair. We will pivot to the internal services workshop, and you're stuck with me. Okay, great. Just let me switch piles. And there we go. Okay, good morning again- Mm-hmm ... Madam Vice Chair, Commissioners. Jan Lucke, deputy county administrator. I am pleased to kick off the internal services budget presentation. Accounting and Finance Director Cat Piepho will follow me. Human Services Director Angie Nalezny will follow Director Piepho. And Director Adam Larson lost rock, paper, scissors, and he will be closing us out. And we will pause for questions after each departmental presentation before moving to the next. So beginning with the Office of Administration, there were several factors considered in preparing the Office of Administration recommended budget. For simple convenience, we allocate revenue from the tax on transmission and distribution lines as a levy offset in the Department of Administration, as we've done in previous years. On your budget sheet, that is showing up as 906,000 in other taxes revenue. The budget also reflects $76,600 in state revenue from the LeSard Sams Outdoor Heritage Council for our Land and Water Legacy program, and 25,000 in state performance measurement grant aid. On the expense side, we're seeing increases in personnel costs. You will see this across the organization as we adjust wages and benefit to negotiated agreements. In the Office of Administration, you also see two drivers in new planning work on the 2050 comprehensive plan and the enterprise resource planning assessment that was heard at the county board last week. Macklin Hutchinson will be leading the former, and Joel Ayers-Johnson will be leading the latter. I suspect you will see a lot of them in 2027. There is a 68%/32% split in levy versus non-levy in the Office of Administration, with the non-levy resources being the transmission line tax revenue and the state funding sources mentioned on the previous slide. The increase in personnel services reflects the negotiated wage and benefit packages for '27. The increase in service and charges is due to that increase in the consultant budget for the aforementioned planning projects. And the increase in materials and supplies is nearly entirely software licensing and the countywide technology allocation. Here is the 2027 costs for those countywide projects being kicked off this year. There are no changes in FTE count for the Office of Administration. And then although this cost does not live in the Office of Administration budget, we felt it would be a good time to share the 2027 funding request from the Washington County Historical Society. If you choose to fund this, it will be carried in the general operations budget alongside other unique costs, such as membership of the Association of Minne counties and the Minnesota Inter-County Association. Several of you have recently toured the new collection storage area at the Heritage Center. The county in 2026 made a contribution for a portion of the shelving project costs and also donated a rolling shelving unit that was previously used within the county. That project is now complete. The request this year is for one-time funds to upgrade the Historical Society's software and technology and to fund the cost of a curator, which would be the next step in the process of cataloging and preserving materials the Historical Society owns. Historical Society is requesting 132,000, which includes three years of salary for the curator. We are recommending in this budget a total of 48,000, which would pay for the software and technology upgrades of about 8,000, and it would fund a single year of the work that would be done by the curator at 40,000. With that, Madam Vice Chair, I would like to thank Jen Ohotski for leading the Office of Administration budget this year with support from Emily Jorgensen, Tini Elam, and Sai Thao. The Office of Administration is now happy to stand for questions, or I will pass the baton to Director Cat Piepho to present the accounting and finance department. Thank you, Deputy County Administrator Lucke. Any questions? Oh, Commissioner Corbid. Madam Chair and commissioners, before we go to questions, there was a question asked earlier, and I just want to make sure all five commissioners hear the answer. We did not talk about the commissioner's budget here today. The commissioner's budget, along with things like court administration budget and other miscellaneous things, are actually funded through either the general operations budget or the county operation budgets. Those are two business units that just handle a variety of things that are countywide expenses. We will put together a short presentation that would include the commissioner's budget for a later week, so you can get a sense of what changes we're making there. The detailed documents for those different business units are included right after the office administration paperwork under the Administration tab. So I just wanted to clarify that. But you'll get more information on those two pieces at a future meeting. Seeing no comments, it looks like Director Piepho, you're up. Good morning, Madam Vice Chair and members of the board. I'm Cat Piepho, accounting and finance director. Core considerations that are impacting AFD's budget for next year include annual wage and benefit increases, technology and software investments, training and professional development, as well as workload that's related to the HRIS payroll conversion. AFD relies primarily on levied dollars for its operations, as non-levied revenues represent approximately only 4% of the department's total budget. In the coming year, we anticipate an 8% increase in non-levied revenues, and the remaining support from levied dollars is projected to be just over $3.6 million, reflecting a 6.5% increase compared to the current year's levy. Personnel services represent 88% of AFD's total budget, with services and charges accounting for 9%, and materials and supplies comprising the remaining 3%. Personnel services are projected to increase by 6.3%, primarily due to annual wage and benefit adjustments, along with the modest allocation to support out-of-class work that's associated with the HRIS payroll system conversion. Services and charges are anticipated to increase by 14%, while materials and supplies are projected to decrease by 5.5%. Details regarding those changes are outlined in the next slide. AFD utilizes several software applications to support complex calculations that are required by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board. In addition to routine annual maintenance increases, we anticipate transitioning one of our cash and investment reconciliations program to a more robust solution that will provide improved reliability and greater reporting flexibility. These changes are expected to add another $9,500 to our budget. Also, the procurement division plans to implement an electronic procurement platform designed to centralize and streamline procurement processes. This digital system will help make the procurement process more efficient by reducing risk, errors, and administrative time. The estimated annual cost of this program is approximately $8,800. The increase in services and charges paired with the decrease in materials and supplies is due to the reclassification of some software licenses that had been historically coded in the materials and supplies category, but now that is up in the services and charges category. As far as our FTE budget, there are no changes to our FTE counts. However, I just want to say that at this time last year, our team was operating with one fewer FTE. But thanks to the outstanding collaboration from CCD, Director Terry Thomas recognized the opportunity to partner with our shared services division and made the strategic decision to transition his accounting position to AFD. Now, this move truly reflects the county's organizational excellence initiative, which one of the focuses is to strengthen collaboration across employees and departments to continually enhance service delivery. By partnering with AFD, Director Thomas ensured CCD would have dedicated accounting expertise, reliable backup support, and ongoing professional development within a team focused on excellence. Director Thomas' collaborative leadership didn't just meet a departmental need, it strengthened our shared services model and demonstrated how collaborative partnership drives success across the county. So, a heartfelt thank you to Director Thomas for his forward-thinking approach, his trust in AFD, and his commitment to making collaboration a win for everyone. Lastly, I want to express my gratitude to a special member of AFD who has chosen to remain anonymous. This person kept me on track with deadlines, provided essential support for our budget numbers, and ensured that the budget was entered and submitted in a timely manner. Their support made a meaningful difference. I also want to thank the entire AFD team, leadership team, for their partnership and support in shaping this budget and the initiatives within it. Their collaboration made this work possible, too. With that, Madam Vice Chair, I'll stand for any questions. Thank you, Director Piepho. Commissioner Bigham will start us off. Thank you, Director Piepho, and to your whole team. We have a AAA bond rating. We get the triple crown of public financing for 40 years. Not the triple crown, but the main award for 40 years. And it just shows that continued effort, investment, collaboration, and transparency of our budgeting. And just really appreciate that. In this binder, we have a lot of the performance measures, and the exceeding measurements that you and your department have is just really incredible and appreciated. It allows us to be held to that standard and really something to continue to achieve year after year. I just want to say as long as I'm a member of this board, help is going to be coming on that technology and the inefficient financial systems. The key challenges are about the decentralized accounting operations, which really is not efficient. And this is something that I started talking about a little over a year ago when the HRIS- HR ... yeah, discussion started too, and how we can maybe do this together. And so I really appreciate the thoroughness and discussion and deliberation that has gone into that project, along with your collaboration with HR. But we've really got to get moving on that for more reasons than we probably have time to discuss, but it's something that needs to be a continued push to get in our plans and finalized. I know it's in our plans, but let's get it finalized and see if there isn't something we can do to move it up, because it's that important when it comes to our auditing, when it comes to our transactions, our security. It's all tied in together. So, thank you. Commissioner Mirro. Yeah. Thank you, Director. I appreciate the work that you and your department do. Obviously, probably now more than ever we need to continue to work at maintaining trust, transparency, and certainly your department has set rigorous standards, and help us as a county board make sure that we're accountable to the general public with respect to our finances and accounting, and just appreciate all of the hard work your department does. I've been impressed, particularly with your leadership since you've come on board, and just appreciate all that effort. Thank you. All right. Director Piepho, thank you. Thank you. And up next, it looks like Director Nalezny. I'm running it, aren't I? Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. My name is Angie Nalezny. I'm the human resources director here at Washington County, as you know. HR is the smallest county department with 19.5 FTEs, and we are really proud of our motto, "Small but mighty," and we take that seriously. We want to be small and-- Well, maybe we don't want to be small, but we want to be mighty. We have a fairly simple, straightforward budget this year. So, the first item, of course, you're going to see in all the departments is the annual wage and benefit increases negotiated with the unions this year. The one ask, number two, or our second ask, is the human resource information system migration. You'll see this on a couple of the slides. This represents an ask of $100,000 for a consultant for us to backfill our HRIS analyst. Our HRIS analyst will be assigned to the migration to the SaaS version of our HR and payroll system next year. We begin implementation of that migration in January of 2027 with go live 2028. This is a really important consideration that we have somebody dedicated on behalf of HR and finance covering the payroll system to be able to really dedicate, learn the new system, and make decisions that are really important for the county to make sure that we are paying employees correctly, and in all the associated parts of an HR and payroll system. Commissioner Cox recognized last week that my best friend, Kat Piepho, and I will be joined at the hip next year implementing this project. But I also can't forget IT Director Adam Larson and Deputy Minister Jan Lucke, too, from the admin side in this migration So this slide shows a county levy. HR is primarily personnel services. The grand majority of our budget is personnel and benefits. The non-levy revenue items that you see there, the 2026 item of 65,000 represents the one-time employee engagement funding that we're right in the middle of right now, the annual, or I should say the tri-annual employee engagement survey that we're doing. And then the 2027, like I've already talked about, is 100,000 for that consultant to backfill the HRS analyst. Department expenditures, personnel services is of course a big part of our increase, and then services and charges and materials. Some of this is inflation and then some offsetting charges or offsetting cost reduction in the services and charges area. The HRS migration backfill again is a $100,000, and then we're also asking for an inflationary increase in the NEOGOV talent management software of 22.5. That includes the five modules that we do have. They're already SaaS modules with NEOGOV, and again, that's an inflationary increase. HR's FTE count will remain the same next year at 19.5. And lastly, I want to thank Jody Anderson in HR does put together the HR budget, and she does a great job, like Cat said, keeping me on track, getting all the documents and the data entered. And also the HR leadership team, Jody Brown and Cindy Ecklund. Budget planning is such a great way to continue to plan and try to make the best decisions for your department next year, and I really appreciate all their help. Along with Sai Thao and Truong Le, really helpful helping us with the HR budget. So with that, I'll stand for questions. Thank you, Director Nalezny. I don't think there are questions for you. All right. All right. Director Larson, IT, last but definitely not least. Well, good morning, Madam Chair or Madam Vice Chair and commissioners. I am Adam Larson. I'm the IT director here. I did draw the short straw, so I keep you from lunch. And today, I get to present to you the 2027 recommended IT budget as well as the county technology fund budget. So we'll do two presentations. Up first, the core considerations impacting the budget this year, and I've put both budgets in here. So the rising cost of technology, hardware, and software, supply chain issues with acquiring equipment, increased risk of cyber threats, and the rising cost for security. ARPA funds no longer being available, so projects that all started with ARPA now require other funding sources for maintenance, and annual wage and benefit increases. So starting here with the IT budget, as you remember, most of our revenue comes from levy, with just a small amount of revenue coming from the Bayport Library support as well as the Met Council for GIS regional data sharing. We anticipate these revenue streams will continue in the future. Let's see. For departmental expenditures, personnel services are going up 7% to accommodate a new IT network communications analyst and to pay for negotiated increases. A slight increase in services and charges is attributed to several small increases across almost all of our software and hardware support and maintenance, as well as general inflation. 2027, IT is requesting the addition of an IT communications network analyst to support our complex and growing network infrastructure. This will bring our total FTE count to 62. So any questions on the IT part of the budget, as we can get into the fun part? So as we transition away from the IT budget, we go to the county technology fund. As a reminder, this is the fund that IT uses to pay for technology solutions that are used countywide. So we break the county technology fund into six categories listed here with their totals. We'll review each of these and break them down in the next few slides. The table at the bottom shows the CTF funding trend. It should be noted that the county technology fund rose from 5.3 million in 2026 to 6.5 million in '27, an increase of $1.2 million. 650,000 of this increase is in one-time funding with 400... Well, we'll go into the details on that a little bit later. But please stop me and ask any questions of the projects or groups of projects in the technology plan as we go. Madam Vice Chair? Got a couple questions, if you don't mind. All right. Commissioner Karwoski and then Commissioner Clausen. Thank you, Director Larson. As long as you said ask questions as we go, it's pertinent to this slide, and it was probably maybe the only question for now I'm going to have. If you look at the bottom of this slide, 2024, the investments in technology, I realize software and the complexity of software, it's increasing. It's not unique to us, but it is concerning. So I wanted to get if you have the crystal ball of... So 2024 through to 2028, it's getting close to almost a double increase of investments. Is there any way to project out over the next few... Is it going to slow down? Because this is really such a critical cost to our budget. We have to do the right thing, be safe, protect public data. There can't be a ... broken into by corrupt actors and all sorts of various reasons why we need to keep technology up. But do you have any indication, the trend line in the industry for technology costs moving forward? Well, Commissioner Karwoski, there's no crystal ball, but I would say, and cost shift is kind of a bad term right now, but what you're seeing is a lot of we're shifting the way we do technology quite a bit. So as we move more systems to cloud-hosted, to these bigger systems, we buy less hardware on the other side. And of course, that hardware's now getting more and more expensive, so you don't see the cost. We're committed to ongoing licensing, and licensing costs have kind of gone out of control. So I don't really have a great crystal ball other than to say we're actively trying to negotiate contracts lower, as well as working through the procurement process on different solutions. So you'll see some of that later in this presentation on some of the solutions that we've, I guess, replaced and changed out for less expensive or broader technologies. So I actually don't anticipate these costs to go down in the next two or three years at least. Yeah. I didn't necessarily expect you to have the answer, but I thought I'd ask the question because you're going to know a lot more about it than I. Just a follow-up comment, and let me know, Director Larson, if I'm wrong. The employees that support these software enhancements seem to be pretty stable. There's not a lot of growth because the software we buy, that's probably driven by the employee, does a lot of the work, the automation. So your software is increasing, but the employee count is fairly stable or modestly go up. Is there any correlation? Am I correct in my comment? You're correct in the amount of staff it takes to support the software here. What does change though is the maintenance costs and the support that we pay for from third parties or from the vendor. Thank you. Madam Chair, can I just respond to Commissioner Karwoski just quickly before you go to Commissioner Clausen? We have adopted the 2026 through 2030 Capital Technology Fund, and the outyears in that are not showing the type of growth you see here from '24 through '27. One of the reasons why it doesn't show that is that the Capital Tech Fund is a fairly new document, as compared to the CIP, which we've been doing for decades. And we are continuing to refine that document. And what we try to do is move those costs that are for county-wide valued programs and hardware and systems into the tech fund so we can better plan for them. So I think some of the growth you're seeing from 2024 through '27 is not only the increased cost for doing the same thing or doing the things like Adam talked about with the new maintenance agreements, but also we're moving more costs into the tech fund and out of the operating budgets of departments and/or the IT operating budget. So these numbers are accurate, but it's being impacted by those two types of trends. So looking ahead in '26 through 2030, we aren't anticipating the kind of growth you see here from '24 to '27 or in '28. Thank you for that. Commissioner Clausen. Yeah. Thank you for allowing us to have a couple questions while you're presenting. My biggest issue continues to be the value of the increase that I'm seeing in software and the upgrades. How are we measuring whether a system is delivering for individuals? The idea is to make people's lives easier with technology, but what I'm not hearing is how it's doing that and if it's making a department more efficient, and if we're able to get more work out of the system because of it. And so I was hoping to hear maybe some examples, maybe you're going to present on something that you can show us of when we did this, this department went from 13 FTEs to 11, and we're able to simplify and streamline something. Because otherwise it's just continuation of more costs, and I'm just wanting to understand the value of it. Sure, Commissioner Clausen. Off the top of my head, I would say a good example of that is in our progress meetings. So I attend all the progress meetings as I can for the different departments as they come in and present their technology. Actually, their solutions. Some of them are technology-related. A big one in the past couple of years has been the implementation of Power BI. So we in IT hired a Power BI specialist. He's trained several staff across the county, and county departments are now doing their own reporting. They're making dynamic dashboards. They're able to use this data for several things. And watching their presentations and report out is an example of how we're using technology that was purchased as part of the Microsoft contract and expanding it across the county. Related to other departments, I can't give examples of how they've utilized software. Most of the software is specialized for their different departments. So- I assume the tax software is working great because I don't hear a lot about it. But that's the only example I could come up with right now. Thank you. Commissioner Bigham has a question. Thank you. I don't know if I have a question. I think just some observations. Again, I think there's a macro impact here from the economy with tariffs and just the simple accessibility of getting materials, whether it's laptops, iPads, whatever. That delays, and that also has increased costs with it. But I also think some of the acquisition of the software companies that slows things down for updates and transitions, and I also think AI has changed how we're able to detect whether it's viruses or cybersecurity, but also just regular documents that are almost sent to us. And it's critical that we keep up on the detection software and the... It's kind of like a football game, if you will, which is what I love to talk about. You got to play both offense and defense on this stuff. And it's not cheap, but you know what's more expensive? Ransom. So I just think getting ransomware and being vulnerable on that stuff is not something we want to deal with. And so, I appreciate the investment. I know it's not cheap. I appreciate the training. And I appreciate the efforts that go in by Director Larson and your team to stay ahead of what's coming at us to the best of your ability. So thank you. All right. Onward. Hey, we can dig into the categories for the CTF here. These slides follow along with the purple sheet in your budget book. So up first is countywide business solutions. Countywide business systems are the main technology solutions that impact multiple departments across the county. So overall, in the business systems, we're showing a 7% increase from last year's numbers. The big one here to note is, as Jan said, ITD009, which is RingCentral licensing. So this is our main phone system. This category also includes the DAS, or distributed antenna system. So in the past, the phone system projects were all paid for by ARPA funding, so this will be the first year that it's fully funded out of the county technology fund. Next is countywide technology infrastructure. So this is the backbone of our network. These are the systems, servers, storage, and network technology that support the county. This area of the technology plan is showing a larger 49% increase this year. This was driven up by having to replace several outdated uninterruptible power supplies and batteries, some of which were more than 20 years old. So running our server room, the big cabinets for the batteries were more than 20 years old. So we're also, in this part of the budget, replacing more than 230 end-of-life wireless access points and other network and server hardware to remain compliant with all of our different compliance pieces. We did see a significant increase in the enterprise agreement with Cisco for our network infrastructure equipment and support. But many of these costs are one-time costs, so the UPS batteries as well as the access points. As a side note for you, the business continuity, the 25 on here, it contains the UPSs, and it's replacing ITD26 in your county technology plan. In case you notice that they're different, it's actually the same thing. We're just renaming them. Data management allows for the collection, storage, and use of data securely, efficiently, and cost-effectively. We saw a 5% increase in cost here as we work to manage our licensing and contracts behind our main document management solutions. Departmental business systems. These are also countywide solutions but are managed or run out of one department. The one here is the five NEOGOV modules that Director Nalezny talked about earlier. So the increase of 19% is reflecting that $22,500 supplemental that HR was discussing. So end-user systems are the technology tools that county staff use on a day-to-day basis to perform their work. The bulk of this funding is used for computers, laptops, and of course, Microsoft licensing. Costs for hardware have been rising at an unprecedented rate. Our standard laptop in 2025 cost us about $1,300. As of today, the same laptop now costs $2,076. So an increase of almost 60%. Desktops saw a price increase from $850 to $1,550, or 82% higher. So couple this with the supply chain issues and vendors not being able to meet demand, we're having to change our processes internally on how we replace and process computer replacements and purchasing. So the technology plan is only showing a minor 3% increase in cost next year. This is largely due to us trying to manage the supply chain issues and extending the technology life cycles of laptops, desktops, and servers. So we've decreased the number of systems that have to be replaced and are forced to move a lot of these costs for replacements out a year or two when hopefully things level out and the supply chain issues are resolved. Information security is the final section of the County Technology Fund budget. Within this category, we pay for the many tools that keep our data secure, keep us in compliance with state and federal regulations. Tools here are antivirus, intrusion prevention systems, identity and access management systems, and other monitoring tools. We utilize a robust training program here at the county, which is also paid for out of this budget. We're looking at a 2% increase in this for 2027 to maintain our current security program. Just a quick shout-out to our security manager, Mike Starrett. He's been working hard to replace and update softwares and change out softwares in order to keep these costs manageable. His phishing test program has been very successful, bringing our scores down from more than 20% of people clicking on phishing test emails to below 7%. Kudos to Director Castillo for testing our remedial phishing identification training, as we've grown this program significantly over the past year. And with that, I thank Danielle Menard, our financial analyst, Deputy Director Eric Abraham, our IT managers Mike Erickson, Mike Starrett, Brian Salter, as well as many other IT staff who provided input into this year's budget recommendations. That concludes my presentations, and I will stand for any questions you have. Thank you, Director Larson. Any questions? Well, I will just say I appreciate the presentation. I think in everyone's presentation today, they mentioned software costs, so I'm assuming that's a theme we're also going to see as well as personnel. So it's really helpful for you to walk us through some of the reasons we might be seeing some of that. And I'll ask one question, which is if we are kind of forced, our hand is being forced to maintain our devices longer, laptops, desktops as well. Are we kind of offsetting and increasing the maintenance budget then, knowing that as devices get older, like cars, I'm assuming they need maybe a little bit more TLC to kind of get them through? So, Vice Chair Cox, yes and no. So we are buying some extended warranties on some of the server equipment so that we can keep them under maintenance. With laptops and desktops, we're going with more of a we're going to replace it if it has to be replaced, but because our software needs haven't increased the need for larger hardware, we're just trying to ride it out a little bit longer. Makes sense. I appreciate that. Well, thank you everyone for joining us and for some great presentations today. We will meet again next week for Public Works Department. Administrator Corrid has one thing before you go. Don't leave. Madam Chair and commissioners, I just peeked at Commissioner Bigham's binder book, and there is a purple sheet titled County Technology Fund. It doesn't look like it was placed in the tab called County Technology Fund, so we'll try to figure out where it is, but it's in the beginning of the budget document. It's right behind your letter. Okay, so it's right behind my letter. I'm sorry. That's not probably a place where you'd expect to find the tech fund document, but just that outlines the information that Director Larson went through. Before we adjourn today, just thought it might be a good time since we went through these internal services departments and they're some of the smaller departments as far as size and budget in the organization that you're going to hear from over the next month or so. One of the things that we've done in this budget that was unique from past budgets is that we actually provided the departments some amount of operational expense increases. So countywide, we divvied up 1.5 million of new levy to departments to handle operational cost increases. Typically, we have not done that. And so departments have had to kind of absorb or eat those operational cost increases with other revenue they're raising themselves or other levy we've given them for things like wages and benefits and other things. So you've seen that in these budgets, I think, more directly because of how small these budgets are. For example, Director Piepho's department was able to add the $9,500 for the new program cost for the analytics on the financial management. That was likely done because we provided that additional levy. If not, it'd have been very difficult, I think, for her to place a new item like that in her budget. Same thing happens in the larger departments, although it's just such a smaller portion of their budget, it's going to be harder to recognize. But I wanted to note that as a change. Also under the Accounting and Finance tab, you will find the debt service information, and I just wanted to reiterate that because it was said today at the beginning, but it was part of a big presentation. The debt service levy is increasing by 2.5%, which has been the board's direction. You might remember it has been 5% in the past, but we made a change down to 2.5 a year or two ago. That levy also funds the capital redirect funding that's transitioning some of our capital cost to as a pay-as-you-go versus debt issuances. And then the additional debt levy we need for the 2027 bond issuance is included in there going forward. Madam Chair, I think that's just the two notes I wanted to make, but certainly look forward to any more questions you have on these over the next week or so. Certainly get them to Jennifer, Jan, or I, and we can get them to the departments for responses. Thank you, everyone. Oh, Commissioner Clausen. Can you put that in writing, please? There was a lot that went over, and if you could put that in writing, that would be really nice. Thank you. Thank you everyone.