Lake Elmo City Council — Transcript
Sunday, October 26, 2025
Firefighter Brian Johnson Retirement Recognition
Council and Staff Reports & Community Events
Votes (3)
2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report Audit Presentation
Moved by Council Member [0:23:05] · Seconded by Unknown [0:23:10]
Ryan Schmidt presented the results of the 2024 audit, delivering an unmodified (clean) opinion. The General Fund saw revenues exceed budget by $1.7 million and expenditures below budget by $378,000, resulting in a $1.4 million increase in fund balance, significantly better than the budgeted decrease. A common 'lack of segregation of duties' was noted but not deemed a material issue, and no non-compliance with Minnesota statutes was found. Council members praised the staff's financial management and transparency.
I94 Lift Station and Force Main Improvements - Authorize purchase of new pumps
Moved by Council Member [0:27:55] · Seconded by Unknown [0:28:10]
The council considered authorizing the purchase of three new Flight pumps for the I94 lift station. This action is critical because the force main is being upsized from 8 inches to 16 inches to accommodate the ultimate discharge scenario, necessitating more powerful pumps to operate effectively. The estimated cost for the pumps is not to exceed $170,000, and existing pumps will be salvaged.
Adoption of Pavement Management Plan Update
Moved by Council Member [1:00:20] · Seconded by Unknown [1:00:30]
The City Council adopted the updated Pavement Management Plan, based on 2025 street ratings by Goodpoint Technology. The plan shows a significant improvement in the city's average Pavement Condition Index (PCI) to 89, with 88% of roads in good to excellent condition. The plan details various maintenance strategies and includes a 10-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for 2026-2035, totaling $47.6 million, though the CIP itself is for review, not adoption at this meeting. Recommendations include continuing 4-year street ratings and maintaining an annualized street maintenance budget of $600,000. Discussions touched on the financial challenges of maintaining extensive roadways with less population and the long-term cost savings of preventative maintenance.
Notable Quotes (5)
Overall, you had budgeted for a slight decrease in your fund balance of about 43,000. Your actual increase was about 1.4 million.
This is several years in a row now where there's nothing being observed for a mistake, intentional or otherwise. And that I mean that is the first expectation when it comes to our finance. So I'm glad to see that happening again.
It was it's been recommended that we upsize the force man from an 8 in to a 16 in to accommodate the final ultimate discharge uh scenario. And as a result of that, we do need these three new pumps.
And so the whole point of this slide is just to show you that we're we have to pay to maintain these 97 miles of roadway and we have less people to pay for them.
I think this remains one of the one of the best things that's happened with this city the last couple years... this is such a long-term value gain to have this program to be able to show the numbers in objective way to know that the dollars are being used to save money in the long term...
Ordinances & Resolutions (7)
Resolution with a noted correction in previous meeting minutes.
The subject of the annual audit presentation and acceptance.
Official plan detailing street condition assessment and maintenance strategies.
Latest street condition data used to update the Pavement Management Plan.
Previous version of the pavement management plan, adopted in 2023.
10-year Capital Improvement Plan for streets, presented as part of the Pavement Management Plan.
Funding source mentioned in discussion related to city projects.