you hear it yeah this meeting is being recorded good morning everyone uh with this uh nice greeting this morning and see the great attendance this morning we're running a few minutes behind uh but all for good reasons uh we'll begin today on Tuesday February 6th the County board meeting uh with the pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all so today is one of those great days where we get to pause for a moment and honor the great staff here at the county that do wonderful work for the citizens and and thank them for their many years of services uh at this time I'm going to uh hand it over to you uh administrator Kelly to uh call those names in recognition board members want to come forward and help pass on and Shake Hands feel more than welcome all right thank you Mr chair I do get the honor as you mentioned this is always a fun uh as we recognize our years of service recognition for this would be quarter four of last year um so why don't we start right at the top with the 25 years of service our first recipient is Mr Doug Coda from the highway department [Laughter] awesome thank you next from finance and taxpayer service is Maria KZ next is Katherine Green from Finance and taxpayer services and last of our 25-year recipients is Jeff putam from Parks and Recreation congratulations again to our 25 years of service recognition recipients uh we do not have any 20 this time around but we do have 15 years of service first is Karen eer from Health and Human Services uh Stacy Reynolds from Health and Human Services Lori Davis from Health and Human Services Shannon Tucker from Health and Human [Applause] Services you next we have Lucas husum from the Sheriff's Office and also Nicholas Lee from the Sheriff's Office moving on to our 10-year of recognition recipients Amanda Garretts from Health and Human Services [Applause] thank you m William Kenyan from the Sheriff's Office uh Tim do from human resources and risk [Applause] management and Jason post from the Sheriff's Office all right that concludes our 10 years of service recognitions and we move to the five years of service with Rebecca wadell from Health and Human Services Nicholas Johnson from the Sheriff's Office Mark Voss from the Sheriff's Office and Zachariah Burch from Highway and next we have Pete Kyle from facilities all right thank you again to our employees and your years of service with the county appreciate the great turnout today and thank you all for the great work you do on behalf of our citizens uh I know they appreciate it sometimes we can be kind of the invisible and uh often unrecognized unthanked layer of government so please know that your great work does not go unnoticed so so thank you again for coming to the event today and look forward to seeing you at a future one in the next quarter so thank you again okay I'll give everyone just a moment here to step out and [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] than okay uh continuing on here uh first item on the agenda after the uh quarterly recognition would be the minutes we have minutes from January 16th uh from the committee of the whole and the County board meeting and then we have the minutes from the CIP committee meeting uh we can approve them individually or collectively I'll entertain motions or Corrections Mr chair I'll make a motion to approve all three minutes second we have a motion by commissioner catchmark second by commissioner Shane to approve uh all three minutes is there any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I post same sign all right motion passes unanimously all right uh next is the approval of today's agenda would anyone like to make any corrections or modifications through today's [Music] agenda Mr chair I'll make a motion to approve the agenda all right we have a motion by commissioner catchmark I'm going to just really quickly I want to add at the item uh a brief discussion on getting a letter of support or I should say maybe a letter of direction to the Pu regarding the transmission lines that are um proposed there's two routes one of them would be through right County I want to once again get another approval from the board to submit another letter to the Public Utilities Commission uh so that I would move if you're open to that Amendment Mr chair I'll approve the agenda with that one item added all right then I'm going to place that item on the items for consideration that would be uh item number D all right with that we have is there second second by commissioner Shane is there any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I oppose same sign the agenda is approved unanimously uh next is today's consent agenda would anyone like to remove anything from today's consent agenda for further discussion or I will entertain motions Mr chair yes one item to now remove move to the rest of the recommendations and that' be A1 instead of consent just so we can have a vote and add that to under C maybe number three you uh A1 C3 okay um with that um I want to make sure that I'm going to the performance review uh adem for item a under the consent agenda um I'm not quite sure about opening that from the consent agenda as it's not an item that can be for for any discussion um and it's really uh more of an informational piece but I just want to acknowledge the board that aspect so otherwise entertaining motions at this time Mr chair I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda with that one item removed so we have a motion to just or two items you have C3 too right did you see oh that that I was petitioning to move A1 to C3 oh okay you're moving okay I sorry I thought I took this okay to items for consideration C3 okay correct so just the one item removing um I'm going to at this point I would encourage enage the board to uh not open to pulling this off the consent agenda for a vote on it uh or a discussion on it so if there's interest in having any discussion with it I would direct the board to re uh move to a closed session there was a consensus within the uh uh Clos session on that which is being articulated here in this uh recommendation if there is sentiment other than that then I would recommend that we go back to a Clos session for further discussion yeah Mr chair I'm not interested in discussion just a vote okay uh so we have a motion by I suppose at this point I need a second so before I have any more further discussion uh do I have a second do I have a second do I have a second motion fails in lack of a second uh at this time I will once again entertain motions to uh approve today's consent agenda as presented or remove any items for further discussion I'll make the motion to approve the consent agenda second we have a motion by commissioner Dietrich second by commissioner Shane to approve today's consent agenda as presented is there any discussion hearing none all in favor say I I oose same sign I consent agenda is approved 41 all right now moving on to uh timed agenda items uh the 9:15 Mark mati Administration uh to set date and time and acknowledgement in the attendance of the County Commissioners at two events for soil and water yes good morning Mr chair members of the board um working with soan water and Luke Johnson uh we'd like to uh set time and dates for two events with the soil and water and post that as a quorum Wednesday March 20th joint meeting with uh the right County Board of Commissioners and the board of soil and water directors for board board of Soil and Water Conservation District uh about a 10:00 a.m. start couple hour meeting there to talk over projects and Partnerships uh did this last year it was a great meeting um and then also to uh put on the schedule rather than just a regular email invite from Soil and Water to put on your schedules uh June 5th uh project site tour with the uh Soil and Water Conservation District which we have done for for numerous years looking at different projects and Investments that they do so that's it it sounds great um with that uh assuming the administration will populate my calendar for it at least if they're yeah we'll do that uh so with that I'll entertain a motion to uh set those dates I'll make that motion all right motion by commissioner Shane second second by commissioner Dietrich any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I same sign all right meeting dates are set thanks for the invite everybody watch your outlet calendar they will populate it for us all right next we have uh attorney Lee Marty uh to terminate by resolution the 2018 joint Powers agreement with the Midwest forensic lab good morning uh chair and Commissioners yeah this is a request uh by resolution to terminate the 2018 uh joint Powers agreement and approve the new Midwest forensic laboratory joint Powers agreement uh this uh initial uh 2018 joint power agreement went to effect and was in effect fact for 5 years until uh December 31st 2022 it was subject to a 5-year automatic renewal uh based on no members um made filed the written request to terminate that jpa at the November advisory uh committee meeting there was a discussion to update uh and renew the jpa uh the current jpa does have a termination class to allow termin ation based on agreement by the by the members per resolution thus allowing us to enter into a new uh jpa uh Beyond some um updating some language the material change uh for the new uh jpa is um the Capital Equipment fund which is currently at 6,500 and 9,000 the pro proposed language would allow when that uh Capital funds reaches $1 million to have the excess of 1 million return to the county members um based upon the county members percentage payment uh this proposed change has been circulated uh to the other County attorneys and they approved it so okay is there any discussion on uh the item Mr chair um it just really is is cleaning up the language updating signatures even I mean it it just yeah it just some um and then having that uh with the CIP does just makes make some sense so yeah that was discussed and approved at the the last meeting so just simple updates primarily that's correct no but to me over the years the the relationship there has gotten better and better and stronger and stronger with the modifications to this jpa so uh I only have good things to say about it so that I'll entertain a motion I'll make that motion all right motion by commissioner Dietrich second by commissioner Holland any further discussion hearing none uh resolution uh commissioner catchmark I I I I hi resolution passes 5 thank you thank you now moving on to the 925 meeting item uh our official Highway engineer Chad Housman this is the first County board meeting with the official title thank you chairman vetch Commissioners we have three items today um first one is to approve a resolution of support for the city of out seagull's active Transportation Grant that's for the 3,000 foot sidewalk Gap along 42 um it's a important project and um the city thought we had a third meeting in January so technically the resolution should have been submitted last week but mad agreed to allow us to submit it do it today with our letter of support to to as a placeholder so I'd ask that we get signatures today if we can so we can get it off to M do so all right so with that I'll entertain any motions for this resolution I'll make that motion second motion by commissioner Holland second by commissioner Shane any further discussion I just want to say thank you for that uh that is the road called Parish Avenue if everybody's ever been on it it is a Old Road that didn't have a sidewalk connecting and uh it'll be really nice nice to be able to have that so that we can improve that road agreed yeah thank you Chad very well uh with that commissioner Shane I I I I hi resolution passes 5 thank you second item is just the up uh updating the um spring load rate restriction map basically we just look at last year's projects roads are improved we can to remove some of the uh posting designations on some of our roads so um it's just might be a week might be three weeks before postings go on it'll be earlier this year but we wanted to get that in front of you today all right is there any discussion on this so with that uh we'll entertain a motion for the uh spring load restriction posting resolution mov I'll second motion by commissioner diet second by commissioner Shane any further discussion hearing none I vote I I i i i resolution passes 5 thank you final item is uh final payment to Knife River Corporation the amount of $ 49,3 two32 for last year's um payment preservation contract all right at this time I'll entertain a motion to accept the contract number 2301 authorizing final payment for that $4 49,3 2.32 I'll make that motion all right motion by Commission Holland second second by commissioner Shane any further discussion hearing none all in favor or no this is resolution commissioner Holland i i i i i resolution passes unanimously yeah thank you for your time thanks thanks and now we are moving on to the Health and Human Services uh portion of the County board agenda and we're putting on our uh Health and Human Services hats at this time uh Jamie's making her way way to the podium uh we'll start off with uh looking for an approval of the Health and Human Services consent agenda uh there is four items on there um I will entertain a motion to approve the Health and Human Services consent agenda at this time I'll make a motion to approve that second motion by commissioner Holland second by commissioner Shane to approve the Health and Human Services consent agenda is there any discussion hearing none all in favor say I I oh same sign consent agenda approved unanimously uh kicking it over to you Jamie for the first agenda item adopting resolution 2402 proclaiming March as the 2024 social worker uh month thank you and with that I will turn it over to Jill perer Oh I thought you were doing it we would like the board to recognize that the great work that our social workers do here in R County um we have a great track record I believe we do a standup job by for the residents of right County um and I would look forward to you approve or um creating a resolution approving March as social worker month the Jill and her counterpart Michelle Miller have weekly events I think in the month of March to celebrate their staff very nice at this time I'll entertain a motion uh for that Proclamation I'll make that motion motion by commissioner Holland second by commissioner Shane proclaiming March as social worker month here in R County uh with that is there any discussion thank you for all the wonderful work that the social workers do in Ray County and their dedication to the uh citizens of Ray County uh with that uh resolution commissioner Dietrich I I I I I thank you very much um and just to um be clear one of the events is I'm going to say party on the patio but it will be within prescribed um break time so they are planning and meeting hopefully March will be as nice as February and and they will be meeting up on the patio for some festivities and you're welcome to join us which is going to be on March 27th again with the weather permitting very nice thank you thank you and moving on to the uh second item would be the approved the HHS recommendation for Minnesota family investment program the MIP and uh the divisionary work program uh requests for proposals thank you and with that I will turn it over to our HHS business manager Jim Odell um and he will walk you through what our request is from the board at this point Thank you thank you Mr chair and board uh as you know uh Health and Human Services is required to provide employment services for participants in the MIP and DWP programs uh that are administered at a state level and uh these Services assist those participants in the ability to obtain and maintain employment uh including the uh review of their education level prior employment transferable work skills uh review existing job markets resume uh development and many other services that go with the uh in the process of of job hunting um with the expiration of the current contract at the end of 2023 we decided in conjunction with the uh County Attorney's Office to go to RFP for uh these Services uh we did that and we had two respondents to our RFP um and then uh one did withdraw uh from the RFP process so our uh recommendation uh is that we move forward with uh a Vivo Employment Services uh who who responded to our RFP and we have uh good references for them from other surrounding counties as well thank you discussion I I have a just a couple quick questions and just just is because I don't have that knowledge base but um so this is a contract position is is there it's for 3.7 FTE is there is there obviously there's more to employment services so how long has it been contracted why don't we just hire 3.7 employees I just don't know that answer um that's been under discussion in the past um you know just it kind of comes up every once in a while these are services that could potentially be handled in-house I would say now with um I don't think for this coming year we're in no way prepared to do anything like that but for a future recommendation to the board we could certainly take that under advisement and bring a proposal you know down the road um I think be you know like a few years ago people were much more prominently at the Employment Services office and things like that now a lot of this work is done fairly remotely um a lot of the um work that's with clients is more I would consider it more like case management than um you know like um unemployment types of you know services or something like that I would say as far as I'm aware um Kim Johnson might know differently I would say probably 90% of counties do contract out these Services a few counties like Dakota does have an employment um service within their I think I've been at their County courthouse and they have it right there and they do um work with their you know work with their residents by the county um it's a different skill set so it's not a skill set we currently have um and I would say that I don't think as part of the RFP we were requesting a certain FTE equivalent I believe that um the two respondents came back and I think a question maybe has to do how would you resource this and excuse me this um AV evil came back with telling us 3.7 which is more than what we're currently getting so that's good I appreciate the feedback thank you thank you than so any discussion I think there'll be this is probably one that we'll look at deeper over the next year or two coming forward and looking at what our case load is for MIP cases and how many of them would actually because not all MIP cases need quite the same amount of work diversionary thank you commissioner to that point um legislature this past year has s cited the DWP program so for the many last more than 20 years um DWP is a state program that works alongside of mip and what it tries to do is to keep people from going on the federal MIP program by providing them early Services thinking they could kind of forestall people going on MIP which is maybe a more expensive program um but I think the state has recognized that it's not really achieving what their goals were so in 2025 I think about mid year we will be down to one program which is MIP so it will no long longer be dovetailed with DWP um I had another comment about all of this which I'm not recalling but yeah I think the other point that's really you know that would um and I don't know where I really sit right now with bringing it in house versus you know seeing what this new contractor can do for us um but the two you know it creates dependencies because the two entities HHS and the contractor need to work really closely together to meet these clients needs um and I think that's you know so it would potentially be easier have it all inous as far as we're talking to each other versus talking to someone else but as I said we don't currently have those skill levels or the program knowledge that um that these programs provide there's so many aspects because it Mo I mean I would almost venture to say 99% of the individuals that are on MIP are getting child care assistance are getting medical assistance they're they're touching very so many different aspects within probably 99.9% I I can't think of the might be one odd case that wouldn't but yeah um one of one other question was just their availability as I was reading through that um response was that they'll event they will have uh office space somewhere in Buffalo here is that I don't believe that was part of the RFP um and we have not reached out to either because we're still in this process until we get your goahead Okay um they have I think the RP did indicate that they would be available to our clients in our County yeah right what that looks like we they need to work out with them okay okay thank you so at this time we're asking to um be approved to enter into a contract with a Vivo Services how long is the contract it's a two-year contract okay I'll make that motion all right motion by commissioner Holland I'll second it second by commissioner Dietrich discussion um this a vo I say they are the uh provider for most of our partnering counties I believe uh in our area or I should say partnering adjoining counties in our area they're one of the largest providers in our region uh so I think at least in the short term because we haven't been able to do enough uh due diligence to be able to decide if pivoting in a different direction is in our favor or not yet there's a lot of numbers that we have to sort out and as well as we have to see what the future holds from a uh legislative perspective yeah from a legislative standpoint there's a lot of things up in the air on and any one of those things we could be throwing a lot of money at something that maybe we don't need to so I think taking this route is probably in our best favor at this time and we'll closely monitor our relationship and the work as it goes forward all right good so with that uh see this was a resol was NOP it was not a resolution so uh at this time I'll entertain uh we have a motion a second by commissioner diet and commissioner Holland all right all in favor say I I I post same sign contract approved unanimously thank you thank you thank you so much we'll get busy with uh avivo probably right after this meeting um and I would like to next um during the budget process there was some questions around our Genesis phone system and I'd like to invite Josh um qu to come up where are you Josh Quik um to come up and provide just a brief overview of some of the benefits that we see using our Genesis system good morning Mr chairman uh Commissioners I'm going try and connect the display [Music] here s all right um the Genesis Cloud contact center which you probably are somewhat familiar with is kind of an instrumental system inside of Health and Human Services that allows us to connect with um clients and uh Community Partners um and get those calls to the staff that can um help them best in 2023 uh we handled over 60,000 calls which was uh an almost 11% increase over the previous year um so far this year um we're on Pace to handle uh almost 18,000 calls in the first quarter um and actually since the time that I compiled this data together that has increased almost uh 19,000 um one thing you'll see is that the kind of spike in call volume that started about Midway uh last year and Carries through into the current year is uh mostly attributed to the healthc care renewals uh that are going uh on in our financial services [Music] division in the fourth quarter of 2023 we started a project to redesign the main menu phone system um with a few things in mind uh one of those meeting a requirement to offer non-english support right in the main menu options um we also uh took the time to analyze the data that we had in the Genesis contact center uh to streamline the menu options that we presented to callers um and um present them in the order that they're most fre quently chosen um as well as do some U maintenance in the system to U provide some more consistent options and and call routing inside of the inside of Genesis uh this is just a kind of a a a schematic of the old menu design uh it was uh it had a lot of options available for callar to choose uh one of the things that we uh started to notice a pattern with is um a lot of colar ended up choosing using option three um because it was the quickest way to connect directly to a person who would answer the phone um so that was a a key piece of data that we took into uh the redesign um here we just have some sample data coming out of uh Genesis and the calls that we handled um overwhelmingly the number of calls that we receive uh end up in the financial services division you can kind of see some of the breakdowns there uh followed by Social Services uh with child protection being the the highest one there um after the project this was the uh the updated menu design that we ended up with uh and kind of just a sample um breakout of the financial services menu options a few of the things that we did again we we provide non-english support right at the uh top of the main level um we tried to PR provide consistency um in um menu configuration um and making it easier again for callers to connect to the to the right person as quickly as possible um one of the great things about Genesis is it allows us to provide staff information about a call before they even um answer the call and the one example we have here is again for that non-english support a call comes in uh the staff responsible for answering the call they know before they answer the call that they're going to need language line assistance to uh connect with that caller that has limited uh English proficiency and we use this kind of throughout the system as well to provide a call call detail to staff for other reasons um and the last thing I just wanted to mention is that we um are already working on future enhancements uh which uh will help us comply with the DHS mandate to capture voice uh for that um Healthcare renewal process uh that uh requirement is uh in effect June 1st and we'll be able to achieve that um using the Genesis phone system so thank you thank you Josh it looks kind of easy and streamlined when it comes together in a nice little PowerPoint presentation however it's a very unwieldy you know lots of considerations lots of moving parts and Josh and his team have done a great job leading us through it we went into effect with the new with a new phone call system January well 2nd when we came back um and I think we're experiencing a pretty good outcome with that so um it's been a it's it's been helpful and I think you know our goal isn't to send people into a menu our goal is to get somebody to a person that can help them the best the quickest so that's what we're trying to achieve real quick Mr chair um how often would you re-evaluate it just annually or as you look at the data and things are working or not working how how often would you kind of look at that on especially starting out um sure did I was just going to say we we have a standing um every other month meeting to evaluate um how Genesis is working and and make updates to the system you know um the ability to capture signatures that that's just an example of something that came out of one of those meetings will Implement so at my desk I can you know pull up a dashboard and I can see like a Friday afternoon I can put in that week's call volumes and I can see by those menu options who is answering which groups were answering the phone at 90% of the time you know within a certain period of time you know where we so we can actually daily supervisors can see at at the given moment how many calls are waiting or if they have to get more people on the phone they can see instantaneously you know um calls that are waiting or you know what the what the variables are so it's been I think highly um you know helpful for us to meet the needs as they come especially as you saw with those higher increased phone call volumes I would say a lot of our um even more of our contacts now are being done by phone because the um State and the federal agencies have turned off some of the switches about people needing to come in and have iners meetings so we are doing a lot of work on the phone we can see the average phone call duration you know the the agents which would be our staff you know who's answering the phones at what you know um at what proportions so it's very it's very helpful in all kinds of ways thank you thank you thanks Josh Mr chair yes I had a couple questions too come back maybe Josh wants to offer Jamie up as a sacrifice that's my job do you have any info on something like the percentage of calls that are answered by a real person versus going to voicemail I would say the calls go through Genesis is our call contact center so they get when when you call our office the contact is Genesis and then it quickly routes you into which area you need to go to we aren't staffed to an to the degree that we would need to have people they we would have which we have had in the past before we even had this call volume calls are waiting to get answered because our people our receptionists are taking the calls as they come in and that's no longer a viable option for us so I would say 100% of the calls go through the Genesis option unless they have a direct direct dial so if I'm working directly with my social worker or working directly with somebody those calls can go directly through to their their phone so we could see that data um but that would be they're internally directed to the Genesis Center and then they can choose their person uh the only thing I would add is the vast majority of calls are answered by groups of Staff in in um things we call cu's so most calls go to a que of staff to answer uh client questions they're not going to a direct person or a voicemail box uh one of the things Genesis lets us do is um a client who maybe is experiencing a longer call volume due to the or a longer call weight due to the higher call volume um they can keep their place in line and leave us a voicemail call back message and then we can when they're the next person we're we're calling them right back um that same uh functionality also works if someone calls us after hours so it isn't a message that's left in a particular staff member's voicemail as an example it's going to a team of people and then the very next morning staff sign on to Genesis that voicemail is presented to a person and they're calling that uh individual back right away another question Mr chair so when we went from the old system to the new system was there any less staff needed any staff eliminated because this is so efficient or uh in a couple of situations and I can't recall exactly right now we have I would say over the past four or five years because this new systems been in place for a couple of years and before that we had we weren't on just the county system we had our own kind of um Grassroots hodg podged call center so we've had a call center for more than 10 years um but I'd say that because of that instead of asking for more staff we have reclassified some um office support staff to other positions like social workers or eligibility specialist when we saw that we could so in in essence we eliminated the need for asking for additional staff because we would have reclassified support staff that we didn't need because of updates not just for the phones but just technology in general I would say in General Health and Human Services were very technology embedded um and so because of that over the last 10 to 15 you know 15 to 10 years our staff are doing more of that technology piece themselves that in long time ago would have been like that support staff that you know would be answering all the calls or filing all the paperwork we're online now so actually our you know professional staff are doing a lot of that work themselves so having having um staff that we could reclassify into those positions has helped the county by not having us hire staff for those positions so we're trying to leverage the staff we have in the best way we can Mr chair do we own this system are we on a lease or contract have Genesis or it's software and it's licensed so we pay license ing fees so much a year yep okay it's a contract is so what is like there isn't any money figures on the presentation here but like a cost per call or anything like that or do you have a a flat rate that you could tell us that we're paying so what we try to do thank you so yes what we try to do is we look at our staff because with if we bought the full license for all of our staff it would be very cost prohibitive so we have dual licenses and we license some of our staff with a higher rated license um and other staff that don't have that do you know the cost of a license yep it's about $150 for the higher level license that allows uh staff to take calls in those cues uh just the general license that allows someone to have a direct number and voicemail boxes about $10 a month and these are also calls that you don't have to be in the office so our remote staff can access these calls exactly the same way as they would if they were in the office so that was really our push for this in initially and I believe some of the funding that we had through Co helped us get a start in getting some of the remote aspects of this put together it's been wonderful for our agency absolutely wonderful Mr chair so you determine by let's say you got 200 employees and you figure out so many should have the high level for 150 a year and so many should have the lower level for $10 a year is that how it's figured yes okay uh So currently there's also an evaluation of the countywide phone system that's underway and I'd like to see a cost benefit analysis for that we haven't seen this was decided before most of us were here but as long as that's in progress I think that this could be included in that so commissioner um because of the last time at the budget this is a costly software I believe commissioner Shane brought it up we were tasked with working with projects to take a high Lev look at whether This was um something that we would want to you know look at other op options for and at that time maybe Jim you could we worked with projects and administration and determined at that point that this was the best option y yeah that's that's correct so we did that work that the analysis work to see if there was a better option and uh and it came back that that we had we had a good product at a good price Mr chair I I would ask the S admin rator Wilford he's got well what I called phone gate but evaluation of the phones could you weigh in on what the result of that or did did that actually get included in the rest of the county phone system Elizabeth yeah I mean I I know that there was some conversation about it I don't know intimately the details offand but we can dig that up and send it to Commissioners and if you'd like to further review we can bring It Forward I would do we need a motion to get that information to review or can we'll just we'll try it I don't think we need a motion then we can evaluate and see if we want to look at it any further Mr shair just another quick question um public feedback with this system how do you GA that let me ask you are you getting phone calls from our clients saying they're not getting answered yep um well that are not just uh I would say case related but because people are not picking up the phone I don't get calls like that so I am okay Mr chair I'm assuming that this just went in fact January 2nd right so I mean maybe no we've been using but the new the newer I mean the new one the newer version of it or whatever so maybe we can I mean look at that to see hopefully so what we can what we can tell you and Josh could pull it up probably pretty easily even before the end of the meeting is of all the calls that come in all the calls that hit our system how many are answered you know like just answered at that first call you know and we have that that kind of data it's pretty good so what I'm going to say at this point if the board is interested in having a bigger discussion about this we could either refer to next week's Workshop or a future Workshop to have a little bit more of a robust discussion about it if there's if there's more questions to be had I right now I think we're going to be answering staff's going to be trying to answer way too many questions off the cuff and we're not going to be uh getting the best information so yeah I'm honestly a little bit surprised because we think this is a great tool and we've gone through many many tools and I used to hear from people saying boy I can't get a get my you know I can't find my worker now because of like Josh said the cues you don't need to find your worker if your you worker isn't there today it goes into the queue so any one of five people can answer your same question because all of the information is in one place it's been very beneficial for our clients to Jamie's point I just wanted to um mention what today's numbers look like so our Mets team is answering their calls within 19 seconds so those calls that are going through um our system are getting a live person on the phone if you're calling our Mets area within 19 seconds and that is the area that had that highest call volume on the slide that Josh presented sometimes 500 a day or more so we couldn't do that with without a system it's not and I just want to clarify it's not so much a phone system as a contact center this is really the Avenue for people to reach us and it's bigger than answering answering the phones thank you thank you all do you have some comments there uh clay I was just going to say Mr chair we did have some information that our projects team put together and I can put that send that out to the board if anybody desires to talk about it in the future we can maybe add it to a future meeting but I don't think we need to add it to the work session unless you have you and think there's any need to do so um so I can send that out and then board's discretion at a future meeting if you choose to add something we certainly can had to talk about it but this isn't like approving a contract or anything today so there's no sense of this was just information because it had been asked earlier yeah and Mr chair I just would like to address thank you for bringing some of that to light to us and I do look forward to seeing that I don't think we need to put it in a workshop it's just information and being that I was the one that kind of questioned that so I do appreci appreciate and would like to look at that so thank you thank you Jamie for bringing that information director's comments yes now of course I lost my spot here we go actually I think we've got some pretty good um information here I do have a couple of items first you'll just find in your um handouts our ship 2023 annual report ship is our Statewide Health Improvement partnership um it provides a overview and it's very specific to R County in 23 19 ship projects reached over 82,00 people in R County um 25 unique projects some of them you might recognize on the next page at see go wayfinding and then you'll see on the following page I work in 2023 which includes several of our um cities and townships across right County so you can kind of see the work that our ship Grant is providing to our residents and I believe on the last page you'll see our ship um staff and I think we might have some I'm here want to raise your hand if you're ship kind of over there um is our ship staff they do great work it's kind of the good side of Health and Human Services uh great proactive um engaging kinds of activities that isn't quite so client-based that sometimes gets mired into lots of issues so um we're very proud of the ship work that our staff do have any questions any questions or comments um along with that from public health you'll also see the um the family home visiting family feedback back survey I won't go through that but it gives you some nice personal testimonials about some of the family home visiting that um is being done in our County I would say um and I I'm just going to say it anecdotally but I've seen many studies where indicates that that intervention early in a child's life um from something like family home visiting where families that maybe are struggling in some aspects or don't have resources we know that our immediate families are further asru now and a lot of young parents don't have the support of their parents close by that this is an intervention that actually saves um County dollars throughout the life of that person that the child um because of less benefits that they need when they get a good start with some um good robust infrastructure when they um are young all right a couple of good um Grant announcements we received an additional about $130,000 um in our um 2024 foundational Public Health responsibilities Grant award we knew it was coming at the time of budget we didn't know the dollar amounts so this is a new dollar award that'll be included in our 2024 budget to do F foundational Public Health work I think the very same week we found out about FPS allocation and we were awarded an additional 116,000 almost 117,000 a year for the next four years on top of the current $176,800 that we receive annually for the um um Family Planning special projects funding so two good two I would say two amounts that we hadn't asked for which is always nice to get unsolicited funding um well actually we asked for it but we got the full amount so um then second to last item we're they call it the Nessa I know a couple of you sit on the Trailblazer board um this is Trailblazer as you remember last fall I came and said that they were going to provide our um clients that don't have other access to Transportation free rides on Trailblazer um that started they're going to continue it through the course of the year I believe one of their goals is to expand ridership across right across the county in the meantime we're just benefiting from not having to buy as manyer tokens to get people to where they need to go so we're kind of working um to determine who could benefit from this um and I believe it must be working on Trailblazers and since they agreed to continue it for the end of the year um then finally and I might want Jilla um want to make sure I can find it here um so as you know Wright County belongs to the Camy which is the community adult mental health initiative and Camy is pursuing a path Grant um through for a housing coordinator position for HHS so basically the four counties that make up our local adult mental health initiative is in the process of applying for a grant funding um focused on providing housing to Services Housing Services to adults with serious mental illness or co-occurring substance use disorders um this funding we are hoping to hire a housing coordinator who can then provide both direct Support Services to individuals in our County struggling with housing and stability as well as expand our efforts to engage landlords and community members to begin breaking down barriers to housing for these um so we as you know we did convene a right County um homelessness group homelessness workshop and a subcommittee of our hsac um that along with Salvation Army have signed letters of support for this Grant application if it's successful so the grant is not coming to us again it's going to Camy if they're successful in getting the grant for the four counties our grant for right County would be $158,000 um for that position then of course we would go through the regular process of going through Personnel committee um and bringing it back to board to ask for a position paid for through this grant um I just thought was a transparency piece because we're not asking for the grants so we don't have a fiduciary reason to bring it to you other than it's being asked for on our behalf and because we are pursuing this homelessness committee we thought it would be a great alignment of how we could make this work for right County and not not at a cost to the taxpayers Mr chair Jamie was it what counties are participating together Sherburn Wright Sterns and Benton we comprise 7w which is the I know it's every kind of group has a different you know composition of counties but 7w has been a longstanding for County collaboration thank you chair um Jamie uh would this a person then be the one that like coordinates the pit count then like that Sheran county has they would do things that we're currently doing so it'd be really nice to alleviate some of that those items from our from our staff so they would take over um I would say we would look at them maybe having kind of a a smaller case load of homeless clients but also doing that like our staff don't interact with landlords or do kind of that broader how do we build more home you know how do we build more um sustainable living areas for people in right County so our staff don't really deal with that this would be a coordinator that could then talk with landlords talk with cities talk with other entities that can work on this together with us it would be very beneficial and um we're kind of kind of a I think we're kind of struggling with where we're going with the whole housing situation so um but yes they would coordinate the pit count that's all I have and thank you Jamie for that information if you can send out to board members any kind of information around this that would be helpful just because I know that myself I've had some individuals that have had questions on on that aspect of homelessness uh on from a variety of perspectives and I want to be able to point them in the right direction as to where to get answers and if they want to get involved uh they've some of them have had questions about how they can be involved in the process of it so well when we also have the homelessness committee that I don't know if we're opening up for more people but they certainly could you know attend um as a participant interested in in homelessness so um yes we'll send you some more information it's a pretty fast turnaround octo or April 1st I believe is when the funding would take place if we received it so just and again awareness is might be something that we might want to fast forward if it what became available to us all right thank you thank you all right moving on in the agenda here today we have the 950 which is now the 10:00 item uh Lindsay's coming forward to accept the 2022 certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting once again heads off to your office go good morning Mr chair board members this is absolutely a moment of Pride for the office um this is I'm let me just read my prepared for a moment Wright County has been awarded the government Finance Officers Association certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting for its 2022 annual comprehensive financial report as prepared by our finance department Wright County has received this prestigious award each year that we have participated in the gfoa certificate program a consecutive eight years this is the highest form of recommendation Rec recognition in governmental accounting and financial reporting by the gfoa um the attainment represents a significant accomplishment by a government and its management to achieve the recognition of Excellence applicants must demonstrate competence in reporting and conformance with generally accepted accounting principles compliance with Finance related legal and contractual provisions and thoroughness in disclosure and sufficiency in detail the report must be published in an easy to read and efficiently organized Manner and embody the spirit of transparency and full disclosure this is not an award of financial presentation in a in a in a it is but it's not it's also the culmination of the efforts put in by the whole team to ensure that every transaction is properly recorded throughout the year I would like to acknowledge the efforts of assistant Finance director Heather Lemieux along with the leadership team in finance and every single Finance team member the team deserves this recognition for their diligence and continued to commitments to accuracy and integrity in their work so thank you thank [Applause] you heather Lindsay hats off to you both and all of uh the hard work by everyone in your department uh being able to continue to receive this certificate uh and doing it well under the constraints of implementing an Erp but this really adheres to how well you have work you've done to develop fiscal policies and procedures and continue to modify them to keep them in the utmost of standards and you're doing it all well taking on one of the biggest lifts the finance department could take on uh I I don't know that many other uh counties can maybe do what you guys just did in the last uh year or years like I said it is definitely a moment of Pride Mr chair can I just add two I mean it's and on top of Erp it was moving to a new building um the growth in the county just everything added together um new employees just great teamwork and good leadership thank you go well thank you thank you all uh moving on to the next item would be approv the resolution establishing absentee ballot board uh mail ballot absentee ballot board and the unava uh absentee ballot board this is a resolution the resolution is included in there uh that they will be uh bringing forward a list of uh these at a future date for approval by the board so we're not actually uh appointing the board itself at this point but just start there is a listing of a few of our um absentee ballot board members in the request for board action that one but not the other ones yeah yes I would to make sure I'm sure you get stated right all right uh any discussion on this item Mr chair just a couple quick questions how do people do get involved um to volunteer to be a part of part of this process and like what kind of training and what kind of commitment does that include uh so typically U commissioner dri typically we're using our temporary election clerks these are folks who are trained as election judges and they work with the county uh not fulltime but uh quite regularly during election Cycles to help us uh process absentee ballots um and do all the other works so clerking you know accepting ballots at the counter when folks are comeing in to vote absentee um so they're they're really are full service folks and so they are I would say they're experts in election clerking they have a lot more experience than your typical election judge and so we really rely on those temporary election clerks those election judges that come in and assist us and so they're they're a great asset to us and they do a good job administering that process um so we do have that position it is posted right now we're accepting applications um for this summer and fall for those elections so we'll be considering additional folks to join our team and participate in the process all right thank you very good is there any other discussion on this this is a resolution uh at this time we'll entertain a motion motion Mo all right motion by commissioner second by commissioner dri is there any further discussion hearing none resolution we're back to you Mike commissioner catch Mark I I I I I all right resolution passes unanimously thank you Tyler thank you Lindsay thank you moving on to the items for consideration we have a list of items from Administration for the workshop on February 13th next Tuesday uh is there any modifications or additions to that Workshop shop agenda otherwise I'll entertain a motion to uh Mr chair if I could add one item uh I think it would be good to review the discussion we had in November regarding the engagement survey and methodology uh staff have done some additional research thought it'd be good to Circle back on that with the board so in addition to the items that have been listed I would like to add that if there are any questions on the items please let me know Mr chair yes I may want us to consider um just some putting some feedback um for the proposed legislation at the state for Sanctuary cities is that something we can have a discussion at the workshop or we could handle that um internally I'm not sure but I just wanted to bring that up I think it needs to be uh discussed and addressed how how we would respond to that if that legislation moves forward sure and I think what we'll just put uh legislative items as just an agenda item in general at least for the next three months as we go through the legislative uh session so we can discuss a a variety of topics related to legis proposed legislation sounds good all right IDE all right with that I'll entertain a motion to set the board Workshop agenda so moved I'll second uh motion by commissioner Shane second by commissioner Holland with the items presented as well well as the addition of the review of the engagement survey and legislative matters um any other discussion hearing none all in favor say I I oh same sign motion passes unanimously all right the next item on the agenda was the uh approve the Construction contract for the Sheriff's Office conference room at this time uh there's a lot of information that's come forward at a later at a short notice um before we get into a deep discussion I'm going to ask that the board would entertain uh setting a committee of the whole to review this item and have a deeper discussion to walk through it uh especially as we're getting getting late in this meeting and there's a lot of items that are that need to be articulated um hoping that the board is open to moving this to a committee the whole within the next uh week or two to have a bigger discussion yeah chairman um yes I I agree with that um that that's a big scope and I think that's a good way to move forward on this all right is there uh if that's the case I'll entertain uh if the sheriff wants to come up here and help us discuss a date for to set that and then uh looking forward to do something at least within the next two weeks so that the uh the proposal that's out there can be weighed in on it in a timely fashion so looking sometime between now and February 19th um what does the the soonest we can meet with posting requirements would be this Friday uh what is the interest of the board I could rearrange anything outside of the 14th and 16th it's important enough I would arrange anything else but those two dates I'm already very booked so anything outside of those two dates I go after about the 12 what the 12th you go on Monday if you want or that's fine or do you want to go Tuesday at 1:00 or you want to go at the 12th I already got a 1:00 okay so you want to go like a 10:00 a.m. on the 12th or a 9:00 a.m. uh the 12th I would like to go like later like 10:30 10:30 is fine have I okay love to do afternoon if you could on the 10th but oh yeah whatever it's 10:30 10:30 10:30 on the 12th I'm getting a lot of nods all right so with that I'll entertain a motion I'll make that motion motion by commissioner Holland I'll second second by commissioner catchmark do schedule a committee the whole regarding the CIP request for the sheriff's department and proposals uh relating to that chairman could we make the location be over there so we can get a bird's eye look at what's you know so we'll do it in the uh the what's that community room over outside of the lobby religious tuab that's yeah yeah part of the reason for the discussion so yes great great idea and we could look at the space absolutely all right sounds good and with that there we have a motion we have a second any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I same sign awesome motion passes unanimously so February 12th at 10:30 a.m. over at the law enforcement center thank you all thank you and moving on to the other uh items would be committee recommendations sorry we have the sorry my agenda got the approval of recommendations from the January 16th Committee of the whole uh so that one the recommendation is the uh Law Enforcement Training Facility usage agreement that was the consensus to uh mail a letter I believe that letter has been drafted and is should be ready to be sent uh relatively soon all right I think we're just waiting for this final approval of this recommendation so with that I'll entertain a motion to approve this uh recommendation from the January 16th Committee of the whole I'll make that motion motion by commissioner catchmark oh second second by Commission Holland any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I oppose same sign all right the next recommendation was from the uh Finance CIP committee uh relating to uh the investment advisor Services proposal uh the finance department and administration uh had invited aers into present uh their services for fund management of of the County's fund balance uh they had showed us how that they could uh better utilize our funds and better management uh better manage it and better leverage it uh with far less staff time than we would have internally and would have a much more robust uh knowledge uh than we would have internally for staff so when looking at it from a dollar's perspective uh we couldn't hire uh an individual for the amount uh that they're doing this work for not to mention the fact that uh they should be able to uh recoup that cost for that contract just by the better management of the funds uh then we would have the ability to dedicate uh staff time to and the expertise so with that I would encourage the board to approve this contract with aers for the investment advisor Services um make that motion all right motion by commissioner Holland second by commissioner Shane any further discussion Mr chair what the length of the contract is it is it well it can be terminated at any time so it's it's it's a fluid contract I don't even know that it was a I think it was a Perpetual contract if I remember correctly probably I didn't see a number yeah yeah Mr chair commissioner dedri that is correct it is ongoing until either side decide to terminate we have to provide a 30-day notice okay sounds good thank you so there's very little risk to us from that perspective well Ellers is a great organization so with that uh will you we have a motion we have a second all in favor say I I oppose same sign motion passes unanimously he the last item here would be I am asking the board to once again uh allow me to work with uh staff to put together a letter for the Pu uh articul ulating our uh concerns regarding their route through re County for additional power lines this area already has uh seen its fair share of high power lines through it uh taking bigger swaths of land in this area is harmful to our tax base as well as the environment in this area and I would encourage the board to allow me to uh send a letter on behalf of the board uh to the Public Utilities Commission uh articulating these concerns I make that motion all right motion by commissioner Holland second second by commissioner Shane uh any discussion hearing none all in favor say I I oppose same sign motion passes unanimous all right at this time we've come to the end of the agenda is there anything else that needs to be attained to or uh entertained here before we adjourn if not here quick I might have said Sanctuary City I meant sanctuary State legislation just to clarify sorry about that well noted all right uh then with that there's no other business we will adjourn today at 10:18