Good morning everyone. It is Tuesday, June 3rd. We'll call the Ray County Board of Commissioners to order. We'll begin 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. Getting lots of water out there for our crops so we'll have high yields this year. Uh first item here uh we have is the minutes from uh 520. Do I have any Mr. I'd like to approve the minutes of 520 with the addition to um just stating the recommendations at the end for the committee workshops to include um the ditch recommendation to bring forward for the board approval for staff to contact land owners regarding feasibility empowerment or wetland banking acquisition and proceed with the outlet engineering in collaboration with Houston engineering. And then the work workshop recommendations were upon completion of the FY2023 fairboard audit the presensation and presentation to the county finance department the FY2025 funds will be released. And then uh next one was to adopt the budget amendment policy to allow for administration approval and monitor its implementation for possible modification at a later date. And the last one is to go forward with the request for proposal process for HHS employment service contract. So just to have those recommendations stated because they're not really anywhere in there. Um that's all I'm I'm adding. All right. We have a motion by Commissioner Dietrich uh to approve the minutes from the 520 with the addition of the uh subsequent MIDI uh committee recommendations. Added second by Commissioner Moina. Any further discussion? Do we have Can I ask a question? We have those uh recommendations listed in the packet online. They are in So this is the minutes from when they were approved. They would have been they Yeah, this is the minutes. So the recommendations would have been in the subsequent when they were approved into it. So she's just asking to duplicate them again in there, which is fine, which is probably good because it adds some clarity to it. So yep, if you're reading through it, it it makes it more seamless. So that's fair. I I think that is something we're working with the administration to get that. Yeah, Mr. Chair, I apologize to the board for that oversight. Yeah. So, all right. Any other discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. All right. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Uh, real quick here before we go into the agenda, I just wanted to make some clarification. So last week some uh confusing and misinformation was posted by the Department of Homeland Security uh naming many counties in the state of Minnesota including Wright County as sanctuary counties. Uh at this time I want to thank represent representative Emmer and his team for their uh efforts in getting this post removed. Uh it was leading to a lot of uh angst and a lot of misinformation being spread out there. Uh so at this time that original post which was picked up by many media outlets and uh put out there for uh general consumption but the original post itself by the department of homeland security has been taken down and is working at hopefully at a future date to have some corrected information. Uh so just wanted to make sure that there was some clarification made out there to the public. uh Ray County and the sheriff's office is a good partner with our federal government and it is a good partner with uh all agencies including the ICE agency within the federal government and we are not uh have not taken and don't have any intentions to taking any actions uh in terms of naming right county as a sanctuary county. All right with that thank you Mr. Chair wanted to make that clarification. Thank you. And with that moving on to the agenda for today. Is there any additions or corrections to today's agenda? Nothing from administration. All right. With that, I'll stand for a motion to approve today's agenda as presented. I'll make that motion. Second. Motion by Commissioner Hall and second by Commissioner Shane. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Oppos. Same sign. All right. Motion passes unanimous. Next, today's consent agenda. Would anyone like to remove anything from today's consent agenda for further discussion? I'll make a motion we approve uh the consent agenda as presented. Second motion by Commissioner Holland, second by Commissioner Shane to approve today's consent agenda as presented. All right. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Post same sign. All right. Uh consent agenda approved unanimous. Now we are on to our first timed agenda item. We're just about right on time. We have uh Karen Johnson and the extension educators here. uh as we get to do the wonderful proclaiming the farm family of the year in Wright County. Well, good morning everyone. Uh so honored to get the chance to be with you here today. Um and it's a very special occasion because we get to highlight one of the great farms that we have here in uh Wright County as our 2025 Wright County Farm family of the year. Uh before we get into that uh great introduction, my name is Karen Johnson. I am the livestock educator for Wright County but also for Mloud and Miker County as well. My co-orker Taylor Herbert covers our crop area. Um we also have another colleague by the name of Emily Lindenfeler who is our horiculture educator and of course we have our regional director here as well Lorie Vichy uh who helps keep the ship moving. So with that uh it is a great honor that I get to present the University of Minnesota farm family year recognition program. This pro program uh is throughout the entire state of Minnesota and it really works to acknowledge a farm's contribution not only to the agricultural industry but how they connect to their local community and we have a great representative of that here today. The program honors um farm families since 1979 and is coordinated with the University of Minnesota extension, the college of food, agriculture, and natural resource sciences as well as the college of veterary medicine. It is with great honor I get to announce our modern family farm being selected as the 2025 farm family of the year. Um, as you know, we call for open nominations earlier in in the year and then we have a subcommittee from the extension committee that selects that final recipient. Um, and of course taking in great uh ideas and nominations from the community as well. Um, so since Joseph M cleared the land first in 1856, this 7th generation Mer farm has worked this land on the outskirts of Delano, Minnesota. What began as a simple dairy farm now raises beef cattle as well as growing row crops. And probably what they're most well known for is their commercial maple syrup production. Um the family is really proud to be able to continue that legacy of running all of those acres as well as the various entities that they have on their farm. Uh Dan, who is not here today, but uh I'm sure that he will um be a part of our recognition later on down the road. He starts his day out in the barn. He's milking the cows and feeding the calves. He also manages the spring planting and the fall harvest of the crops on their land. Uh Paul here is our main uh kind of runner of the dairy. He oversees the milking schedule, maintaining the parlor, as well as tackling any of the tractor or combine repairs that come up. In addition, we have the two boys here. We have Ben and Alex who are kind of the fill in with all the miscellaneous stuff that happens on the farm because we all know there's miscellaneous stuff that happens on the farm. Um, anything from calf care to just learning the routine by picking up wherever is needed. And then meanwhile, Amarie handles um a lot of the beyond the farm gate discussion. Uh she coordinated coordinates spring tours as well as production timing for Paul as they're managing their maple syrup business. Um throughout the year, she does all the promotion and marketing strategies uh for not only the maple syrup, but they also do farm direct beef. Um and then of course always welcoming uh people to their farm to really understand and explore what kind of behind the scenes of a farm really looks like. Uh so with that um after more than 160 years the Modern Family continues that family affair of the strong roots that Joseph began on this farm and is continuing to carry that forward for generations to come. So with that, I do want to take a moment. Uh we plan in addition to the recognition today, we plan to recognize them at county fair uh during the blue ribbon auction on Saturday and then they'll also be recognized at the statewide recognition program uh down at Farmfest as well. So with that uh please help me in honoring the Modern [Applause] family. Um, at this time I'd ask if you would um I believe the resolution was included in your packet. Yes. Um, so I will leave that to you guys as to your next steps there. All right. So, at this time we have a resolution 2535 proclaiming the Mer family as the 2025 farm family of the year. Do I have a motion? Some moved. Motion by Commissioner Dietrich. Second by Commissioner Holland. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Uh, roll call vote. Commissioner Mo. I I I I I All right. Resolution passes unanimous. Well, congratulations. It is great to have a family and a farm family that has such a legacy in the county. We are so blessed to have you and I wish you the best in the future and thank you for everything that you do. Awesome. Can we take a picture? Yes. Picture. Um if you guys want to just walk up in front of the We can just stand right here. Do you guys want to stay up there and then we'll just come in front. All right. Sounds good. Do we need to move over that way more then? Yeah, we slide in here. There we go. Yeah, there you go. Can I have you in the front? Just scoot a little bit that way. There you go. Perfect. All right, I'll just fire off a bunch of them here and then I'll switch phones so don't go anywhere. All right, perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you Karen and to the MOT family. All right, moving forward on our agenda, we have our 9:15. We have uh Carl Dubanks from the Initiative Foundation here. Welcome, Carl. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Morning, commissioners. Thanks for giving me a few minutes of your time this morning. Just going to provide a quick update on the foundation's impacts and activities here in Wright County. Be happy to take any questions as well. I think in your packet you have our uh county impact sheet for Wright County. Uh and always like to point out at the u beginning of this you can see that picture of Minnesota and our little slice there in the middle are 14 counties. The region we serve Wright County just one of those 14 and it's a diverse region. There's a big difference between that upper northwest corner of Cass Lake and the southeast corner of Wright County and Sherburn County and Cambridge down there as well. It's a vastly different region, different needs, different communities, different cultures, even different languages. And so we really work hard to serve those communities well. We don't believe we have all the answers from our headquarters in Little Falls. We see ourselves as conveners of local stakeholders to help communities identify their own challenges, form their own solutions, and then we want to help when we can find financial resources to help those locally identified community solutions find their next steps. And that's how we engage in in most of our work across the region. Um, you can see at the bottom right hand corner of that first page of that impact sheet where it says in economic impact. These are numbers since 1986 that the foundation has delivered here in Wright County. You can see 555 grants for $4.7 million. Four scholarships for $2,900 I should say there. Most of our scholarships are practice grants to school districts now because of IRS changes and how we report. So those scholarships are still ongoing. We just have this kind of lasting number there for what was practice scholarships back in the day. Uh we are a lending uh organization. We have a revolving loan fund. We'll talk more about that in a minute, but partnered on 81 loans for 4 5.6 million in lending. Those loans have created or retained 1,241 jobs and leveraged about 46 million in outside capital for those projects. Additionally, we are we do also function as a community foundation. We host 130 plus charitable funds, donor advised funds, designated funds, community funds, education funds. We have six of those active here in Wright County as well. Um so those are numbers since 1986. You can see back up to the middle um in total donations from Wright County to the initiative foundation about 881,000. Total return investment from the foundation back into Wright County during that same time period about 11.3 million. Meaning in Wright County, for every dollar we've collected, we've actually multiplied that and turned it into $12.86 for every dollar that we've collected. I could move on and give you some more recent numbers um just since that's since those are from 1986. In the last two years in Wright County, the initiative foundation and our charitable funds that we host have awarded 48 grants in Wright County for a total of $215,000. Additionally, our revolving loan fund has been fairly active here in the area. I always like to add a quick note for the revolving loan fund. We generally function as a gap financer, right? We do some direct lending, but typically we don't want to compete with our local banks, financial institutions. So, generally those folks come to us and say, "We have this really great project. We need a capital stack or we're not really comfortable covering the whole project. Would the foundation take on the riskier part of this project?" and then so we can see this project move forward, see this happen in these communities. Um so we generally deploy our dollars as GAAP financing here in partnership with banks, seven loans in the last two years, u 1.3 million in lending from us, 14.5 million in leverage dollars, retaining 24 jobs and creating 12 jobs by those projects. Um, I'd also like to just give a quick update on a few other items. Uh, we do have a new grant round opening. Uh, cities and nonprofits are available to apply. It's related to, uh, advancing energy infrastructure, renewal, and community resilience projects. And these grants will support resiliency planning, pre-engineering, feasibility studies and labor costs associated with preparing for energy efficiency, storage, andor renewable energy upgrades. Uh the grant round the applications are open. Uh it closes I want to say August 1st. Uh so we're excited to have this partnership with the Mcnite Foundation and providing providing grants for to help renewable energy projects kind of get their feet and see whether what's feasible, what's doable. Uh, additionally, we continue to work uh to help communities find solutions for affordable child care. Uh, it's a complex issue. Some communities have found solutions, others have struggled. Uh, but again, access to affordable child care can be a real barrier to retaining a workforce and, you know, in recruiting a workforce. So, we continue to work hard to convene local stakeholders and help them identify what solutions they want to advance in their communities and then see if we can find resources to help move those solutions forward. It's work we continue to do. Like I say, it's complicated. Every community is unique. Uh but we have seen some communities identify some really neat solutions and move those forward. Uh also, we continue to help cities with disaster preparation. uh we with a grant for the with the center for disaster philanthropy and the funders network are holding uh one-day workshops for rural city administrators to get together and review their emergency operations plan. We do this in coordination with the county emergency managers and folks come in and just talk about what what are we missing, what do we need, do we have all the right resources, do we have all the right phone numbers, etc. Friends from the Red Cross and other groups come in. They're really neat workshop days. We are planning one for Sherburn and Wright County later in the fall, but we do have one in Malaca on July 8th that any small rural city administrators would be welcome to attend if they wanted to join. At the end of those, we're going to have a grant round and award grants for folks to do some implementation projects on things they've identified from participating in those workshops. Uh last but not least, we're also working with local partners to try and launch a Buffalo Area Community Foundation. uh we noticed that there isn't a community foundation serving this area. We know our data tells us that communities that have a local functioning community foundation uh generally see more non better nonprofit fundraising, more grants, more resources flowing in to the region. Uh so we're working with some some local partners to see if we can get a community foundation launched and established right here in Wright County. Um I would leave it at that unless anybody has questions for me. We're very grateful for your support. Wright County is one of the all 14 counties make contributions to us. And I always like to say we leverage our list of donors and city counties support. When we go to the federal government, the state government, some of our larger foundation funders in the region, uh Wells Fargo, US Bank, Target, they'll always ask, "Can you show that you have really broad regional support for the work you do before we award you this grant?" We always send them that list and say we get support from 14 counties, 100 cities, about 85 businesses, lots of individual donors. We feel like that demonstrates good support and I think that's been a reason why we've been able to capture some of the outside funding and bring it and put it to work here in the region and in Wright County specifically. So, thank you for that. Thank you, Carl. Uh board members have any questions? Chair, I I just want to say thank you. Um I'm the chair of the joint powers uh board for uh CMJTS and we used the funding part of the funding for a really good uh retreat and some staff development and it's really came in handy and that of course is 11 counties that benefit from that. So yeah, thank you for that. Awesome. Thank you. Happy to do it. Mr. Chair, I'd like to say thank you Carl. And the proof is in the numbers, right? as presented. So, thank you very much for what you bring to our area. Happy to. Well, we appreciate your time. Uh we've always seen uh great u leverage out of uh the organization. So, thank you. Yeah, for sure. And feel free to communicate with us. Our biggest struggle is our geography. Anytime there are needs, things we could do, ways we could help, ways we should be involved, please communicate with us. We we need to know and we need to hear from everyone. So, thank you for your time. Thank you. And we're moving along quite well here. We're just slightly ahead, but uh we'll move forward with our 9:30 timed agenda item. Uh Chad is making his way to the podium here for contract number 254. Morning. Morning, commissioners. Uh today in front of you, we just have one item. It's just a wording the contract for the Casai Bridge replacement this summer. Pretty good bid prices uh funded with sales tax or not sales tax, sorry. have it uh with uh state gas tax funds. So, state aid funds, no lost funds on this one. When does that project start? Um we're hoping for after the 4th of July, but they actually want to start earlier. So, we're depends on when contracts are signed, but they want they'd like to start within the next two weeks, but Okay, great. Earlier is always better. So, yeah. With that, I'll stand for a motion to approve contract number 254. So moved. Motion by Commissioner Shane, second by Commissioner Holland. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. I. Oppos. Same sign. All right. Contract 254 approved unanimous. Thank you. Thanks, Chad. Chad, can I ask one question? Yes, ma'am. Everybody in Albertville and Sego is wondering when the bids are going to go out for CASA 37 because they think it should be we should be working on that road already because that's a great question. I wish dirt. Well, Costco is going to have to have to wait. Okay. No. Um we'd love to be starting too. Um we have an agreement with Mandot for a million dollars of their funds for um the interchange work. So right now it's in their hands and we also in order to redo the bridge to allow pedestrians to cross. We're adding weight to it. So the bridge office is re it's taking way longer than we would like but the goal is still Julyish. So that's our goal. So but yes we the goal we will get started this summer but it'll be all next summer too. So when you're seeing folks they let them know what I told them. Yeah. It's going to be a busy summer. So all right. Okay. Thank you. You bet. All right. Uh we're since we're almost 15 or a little over 15 minutes ahead of schedule, I'm going to move down for items for consideration. Uh A1 would be to set the agenda for the June 10th county board workshop which was included in the packet. Uh at this time, I will entertain a motion unless there's some corrections or additions to the workshop agenda for uh next Tuesday. I'll make a motion to go forward with the recommendations for the workshop. All right, we have a motion by Commissioner Holling. Second. Second by Commissioner Shane. Any further discussion? Uh, hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. All right. The agenda for the June 10th workshop is approved unanimous. Next, we'll move on to item A2, approving the revisions to the regular county board meeting schedule. Uh, at this time is was included in there. Looking for any discussion, otherwise I'll entertain motions. Do you want to just highlight what those changes are quickly? Absolutely. Just didn't print that one. Sure, I can do it if you want to. Sure, if you want. I just didn't have it pulled up in front of me. Can help out. So, proposed um cancellation of meetings are June 17th, July 1, and August 5th. and proposing to schedule in light of those cancellations a regular board meeting on June 24th, which is a Tuesday, to start at 9:00 a.m. and a regular county board meeting on Tuesday, July 29th at 9:00 a.m. I'll make a motion to accept those. Second. All right. Motion by Commissioner Holland, second by Commissioner Shane to approve the uh August and July uh county board schedule. Any other discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. All right. The updated uh schedule has been approved unanimous. Appreciate that. That's kind of just working around those holidays and other conflicts that we have within the organization. All right. Next, we have the schedule of the public hearing on Tuesday, June 24th, 2025 at 9:30 a.m. for the local option sales tax. At this time, I'll make a motion to approve that. I'll second motion by Commissioner Moina, second by Commissioner Holland. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Oppos. Same sign. All right, the public hearing is set for June 24th at 9:30 a.m. and we are still almost 15 minutes ahead here. Uh we are moving along really, really well here. We'll move forward with the approval of the budget committee. The whole minutes from the 520 uh which is included in here. Um looks largely the minutes and the recommendations are justformational only. Uh so at this time we just need I don't even necessarily know that we even have to take action on it since it's uhformational only. I I think the board can just acknowledge them, accept them, and um just so anyone listening online knows, we did our last uh review of kind of a budget summary or highlights from our last division in HHS. So um very nice job done by HHS throughout the last couple months as we did that and all the division managers did a great job presenting all their budgets and breaking it down so um we could know what we're going into with the budgeting session. And also I think it was extremely helpful and timely this year to have those presentations when we had to go down the legislature giving the the funding shifts that are going on there. So we knew exactly how it was going to hit us cuz we had an update literally the week before we met with people. Yeah. So with that uh moving on back to our health and human services portion of the agenda. Did you want to approve these minutes? Uh no we use theformational only. There's no it's all uh we don't the minutes themselves are approved in the minutes so there's no recommendation so it's purelyformational only. Okay. Yep. So no actions necessary. All right. Well but now we'll put our health and human services hat on. And uh first item on our health and human services portion of the agenda would be the approval of the consent agenda. Uh there's a variety of different items in there. I'll stand for a motion to approve the consent agenda for health and human services. So moved. Motion by Commissioner Dietrich, second by Commissioner Holland to approve the Health and Human Services uh consent agenda. Any further discussion hearing? None. All in favor say I. I. Oppos same sign. All right. The consent agenda for Health and Human Services is approved unanimous. And Jamie, director's comments. Um yes, thank you. Actually, I was going to tack an extra one on there from what you probably have in your um packet. Um, and as uh um, administrator Kryer just mentioned about the cost shifts, I was going to give you just a the moment we're in right now as far as because I know last time at the HHS board meeting, we've talked quite a bit about what's um, the budget was looking like, what was going on with the legislature and quite of um, few of those kind of pertinent issues. So, I did want to share with you again there's no special session called yet um the things that we're anticipating based on different organizations um, that we belong with. um Micah, AMC, Maxa, those you know those um those organizations. I was wondering if you would like to have a little bit of an update, assuming you would. Okay. Um so on the legislation and funding um cannabis and substance use prevention grants, at this point, both the House and Senate bills included uh a shift of um MDH funds, so Department of Health funds to restore 2.5 million um a year of the 3.6 six that was removed last year. So that's if that goes through that's a win. Two of our public health grants, RSG and SRHS may be red may be reduced. Um and at this point we just don't know what that what that formula looks like yet. So you know what how that gets distributed out amongst the counties. We're not sure yet. So more to come on that. I think in the area where most concern has been been voiced um to give you an update where we're at with that. the cost shifts and funding cuts that currently are not included in what we understand to be the um proposal going forward. That waiver rate exception, county cost share, which I think was probably the biggest dollar amount should that have been enacted um has been removed. So that's no longer in the budget as we understand it right now. So that's a win for the counties and the status quo is maintained. um the waiver for res residential services, the county cost share, that was at 5% and then maybe 2%. You know, kind of going back and forth and that was the number we were having a really get having a hard time getting a handle on what our share even would be. Um so with that, the bill the bill as proposed creates a work group charged with finding um human services cost savings. If they're not able to achieve the goal savings, then a new contingent cost sure um to the counties would be um potentially legislated down the road. So, as far as we can see this year, the status quo is maintained. The counties would not have a cost share. And I think there's a timetable for that work group to get together and start looking at costs. I mean, it's just me. I'm fairly confident they can find ways to reach that goal. I think it's like 178 million or something like that. So, um so that's another kind of um big obstacle averted at this point. The behavioral health behavioral health cost share increase. Um this would have increased the county levy amount. So, that's also not included in there. So, this is a win for the county. Again, when I say win, it's like it's only a win in that we didn't have it before and we still don't have it. So, you know, we're not getting hit with it, I guess, at this point. So, when I say a win, it's kind of disingenuous because we didn't have it before. The Minnesota Sex Offenders Program cost of care increase. And this is kind of that one of those ones that could really have gone I mean, those are can be very sky-high costs or we can kind of get by. Depends on who in the county would be using it. But, this was also not included. Um and this would have increased our MSOP costs by close to doubling them. Withdrawal management, the um new county of financial responsibility obligation was also part of the um original proposals and this was not included. Counties will not be statutoily obligated for withdrawal management services. So, that's something that um that we worked with uh actually uh Clay and Greg and some other counties around us because we were seeing that we were being build by some health centers for these costs and that this now puts it in legislation if it's enacted that counties are not responsible for withdrawal management costs. The behavioral co health cost allocation elimination. Um so these are things that are included. So this is there would be a elimination of an allocation that we currently get that's about $50,000 right now. Um this actually is not a hugely significant amount of money and some work would follow that. So we would potentially lose a little bit of um administrative work that we currently do and the state would take it on for all the counties. The end of the direct care treatment that DNMC we talk about that quite a bit here in this forum. The county cost share waiver. The cost of the county will depend on the number of right county recipients. Um it will not meet the medical standard. So um that is still included in there or the end of it is and competency attainment cost shift. This is probably some this is also included. This is something we'll probably need to talk with administration. Counties are kind of all over the board whether it sits with human service health and human services or if it sits with court services or somewhere else. Um but this is included and this I don't really have a number yet but it could be significant in what it would cost the county to have the county start taking on this work that kind of has been in limbo I guess for a number of years. And then that flat reimbursement long-term care assessment instead of time study for for men choices. So this is instead of paying counties the reim um the reimbursement way that we do right now um they would switch to a flat rate. Um that I think what they're predicting at the state level it would be a reduction of $18 million over the course of two years. So if you just divided that out by 9 million a year and kind of saw where Wright County sat in on one hand we do a lot of men choice assessments. We're a growing county with a higher disproportionate high number of men choices assessments. So, we'll probably have to dig into that a little bit further down the line to see where that leaves us budget-wise should that be enacted. Um, the other thing I wanted to point out was in financial assistance. The current proposed legislation should not impact our financial assistance financial services area significantly. However, we're keeping an eye on the federal budget and if they legislate new rules around SNAP and medical assistance such as more frequent reporting and work requirement work requirement administration, it could significantly increase the number of staff we would need in these areas to handle those higher administrative burden for our um cases for both food support and medical assistance. So, that's my kind of update of where things are at. Um, you know, disclaimer, it can change overnight as we all know. Um, I would say it's not as bleak looking as it was before. Um, and when I say that again, it doesn't mean we're getting more. We're just not having that shift or things coming, you know, that would hit the levy quite significantly. So, for that, we are pleased. Can I say I think pleased is okay. I'm not sure I'm going to use the word pleased until I see the vote on the legislative floor and the governor sign it. I I think we can feel hopeful on this point, but I think, you know, it what could be traded out at the last minute. This stuff is all still pretty fluid, but at least it is gives us a little bit more of an optimistic uh perspective than than we had even two weeks ago. So, I think we we cannot we can um you know celebrate that we have some agreement from the parties that be um I do hope to wake up one morning and see a headline that says everything's you know kind of been written into the budget the way that we're seeing it but again time will tell. Um and so the other person that was just up here on the um the the gentleman he was talking about affordable um child care. I wanted to just kind of give you a good news piece. So, Ray County is currently allocated $2,562,52 um for a child care assistance program for 2025. This is state funded at 48% and federally funded at 52%. Um we pay a small direct match of about $40,000. Um but this amount has steadily increased. As recently as 2023, we were only getting like $900,000 for this program and we're now at over 2.5 million. Um, so this is I would say it's one of the um programs that they kind of redistribute funds that are not spent by counties. But again, because we're a young county, we have implemented weight lists in the past because we haven't had enough money to see us through. Um, which is difficult for our families that are looking for help with child care. Um, and this year we're looking at likely not having a wait list. This money can go very quickly, so we keep a eye on it. Kim Johnson's in charge of um, keeping an eye on it monthly to see where we're sitting. It gives us uh you know what our target range is if we continue spending at the rate we are. But I think the good news for Wright County is that these are primarily lowincome families that also pay a part you know a portion of their child care but need it subsidized so they can stay in their jobs and can keep their kids in childare. Um and 2.5 million goes a long ways for that. Yeah, Mr. Chair, it's a great program. I did um licensed family child care and it really was a benefit to the family. So that's good to hear. Mr. Chair, I'd like to say something. So Jamie, thank you for answering that question because I was wondering where that cost was. So that's really great with that increase and it's not going to affect us very much. Um, also I just want to make the comment because I think it's been a moving target this entire year to your staff because you're constantly running. And then I want to appreciate our state legislators who have been working with us and um, Abler and Hoffman who suggested that workg group. Um, I think that has a lot of potential in the future as far as the cost savings. So, just wanted to kind of acknowledge both areas there. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. And we have a presentation for you. So, I'd invite Joel to come up and he has G and Sarah um and they have guests um partners here in Wright County that they would like to share with you our community health plan and they will and you will need to I think adopt it. Correct. Oh, okay. Thank you. Good morning. Oh, that's pretty. Okay. Did you want to say anything, sir? If you just want to introduce our guest, I turn it over to you. Good morning, Mr. Chair, commissioners. Uh thank you for the time today. Uh we have some guests from Mona Balden with Buffalo Hospital part of Alina Health is here and also Melissa Privile Monaceel. We are here today to um give you a brief update on our most recent community health improvement plan and at the end just ask for your approval. We uh give you some background and kind of also quickly go over what we found as the results and also have be more than happy to try to answer any questions that you might have. We as a health board, local public health of Minnesota are required by Minnesota state statute to do a complete a community health assessment and then develop a plan every 5 years. We then submit that to the state. In addition to that, nonprofit hospitals, which we have two hospitals that serve our county, are required by uh the federal level through IRS to sub to do essentially the same thing every three years. So back in 2017, we made the decision together to do this process in partnership along with Ray County Community Action. Um, so just also want to acknowledge Amy Cortisus who's part of this team. We meet sometimes every other week, sometimes monthly. We're ongoing. We've been working together for now, it's hard hard to believe, but eight years. This is our third cycle that we've completed together. Uh and so the hospitals um will take have take the I'm sorry they will take this information to their board as well as we are doing here today. Melissa brought this forward to Centria on May 15th and they approved the plan. We uh I just want to uh wanted to acknowledge our partnerships and again it's so important that we do this together and so thankful for your support. We also have an internal team of public health staff that meet an ongoing basis to keep us surprised as far as the work that they're doing and how that impacts um some of these the issues that are identified in the plan. We um also started a community health collaborative advisory council uh in January of 2024. That was kind of an offshoot of what Moan had been working on for years through the hospital. So, uh, we're really thankful to have the community support as well and at the table and helping helping us make decisions when we're identifying priority health issues facing Right County. We collect and and use a variety of data. Uh, and thank you for the opportunity back in February. Uh, we were able to share some of the survey data with you and have a conversation. This is really the next step in that. But we use that survey data to inform our assessment. And as you see here, just a variety of other data sources that uh we use from that. We developed roughly a list of over 30 different possible priority health issues initially back in December. We met several times. We narrowed it down to 10. We brought that forward to our uh we we had two meetings in January and we talked about what we identified. We got feedback. We had people vote and from that then internally as a collaborative team we chose three. And so you see access to care, economic stability and social connectedness as far as what we chose to be our priorities for the next three years for 2026 to 2028. And technically um because of just the different timing uh we're really thinking about probably July 1, 2025 or even now uh it could depending upon the the timing um will be our priorities. Our last plan was 2023 to 2025 and this um sorry it's just dates but it's a the priorities we've identified we for each of the big priorities we identified just some sub kind of sub priorities uh I won't necessarily go into that into detail but just some of the data we we did a we sifted through a lot of data and talked and shared the data in a variety of ways through our community partners And this one just sticks out with access to care. The ratio of one primary care physician for every 2540 people here in R County. That's about twice the state average. That was one of the reasons why it just elevated that in particular as far as what's happening locally. We have had some conversations with community me like well roughly four different conversations with community members over the last year and that's why you see some quotes. Economic stability. The county health rankings latest data shows that workers need an hourly wage of $50.34 to cover basic household expenses for one adult and two children. That's an average for Wright County. Uh and that also stuck out to us and looking through all the data. And social connectedness um I really like this quote. I think it gives us hope. I think that's another it's a reminder for me in this work is that it's really easy to focus on the or see the the issues because there's many of them but I think there's also a lot of opportunities we're trying I think we've done a really good job at taking an assetbased approach in identifying these priorities there's love there's compassion there's good it's here it might be few and far between but that little bit can get you a long way and people um there's a lot of opportunities that we can I think help and support a lot of our residents as it comes to just connecting with each other and how important that For reference, the state recently uh approved their statewide health improvement framework. It aligns fairly closely to what we've identified, the three priorities, belonging, well-being, and substance use prevention, health and housing, equitable access, and care. And then our neighbors, Benton, Sherburn, and Sterns along with centric care essentially u identified the exact same priorities as us. We did unique processes looked at we gathered our own data locally had our own conversations to come up with essentially the three same things. It's astounding uh but I think it speaks to the importance. They identified community connections, community stability and community access. So what's next? Uh once this is approved, we will submit the documentation to MDH. We have to upload information. We'll also then post documents to a web page and Centare has already done that. Maybe it's as easy as just linking to that website. The making it public is part of the process so the public knows it's there. And we're going to continue to meet. We'll continue internally, externally with Monsa and Amy along with our advisory council. This is a cyclical process. It doesn't really end as far and that might be hard to wrap our head around, but that it's just it's ongoing. It's it's just part of public health. Uh, and really this is where the work begins as far as how we can um continue to learn more about these areas, but then also how to best help our residents, people living in Right County. And also, we plan on sharing our survey data in these priority health areas with local cities later this fall. Whether it's going into each city council, we don't know yet, but we are looking into figuring out how to get this information out and share this with our cities uh later this fall. With that, uh, I welcome any questions you might have and or, um, would just simply also just ask for your support in approving the plan. Thank you for the time. All right, members, any comments or questions? Betch. I just want to say thank you. I know, you know, this the two years I've been uh on the public health uh advisory committee. Uh, I know how much work this has been and I know especially Mona and Melissa how much work you do for the county. You're at a lot of meetings and I appreciate that and it really bodess well for our community uh and and the county. So, I just want to thank everybody for all the hard work in this. Thanks. other board members. I will say from my tenure, just interesting in seeing how much those kind of three items, how much they've changed from like distracted driving from a decade ago to vaping to now we're dealing with the loneliness. It's a lot of it is all kind of the technology bases and how it affects us socially and cognitively and and trying to fend off the negative effects of the technology. Mr. Chair, I also would like to say something. So, our biggest job here as commissioners is the health and safety of our community and without you, you know, with your with all your stats, we wouldn't know which direction to go and what our what our citizens need. So, again, just thank you very much for your time and commitment and Genie has told me the hours that you guys spend. So, thank you. Well, once again, Amy, Joel, Melissa, fantastic work. Appreciate it. Uh, great information. Thank you. Thank you. I'll make a motion to approve the community health assessment. Community health assessment. Second. Second. All right. We have a motion by Commissioner Holland, second by Commissioner Moa to approve the community health assessment for 20 would be 2025. All right. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Oppos. Same sign. All right. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. All right. And now as we uh come to the end of our agenda, if there's any last parting comments, if Yes, sir. Bet. Um I would just like to say uh congratulate the city of Adiggo. They had groundbreaking last week. Uh it's a big step in this process that they've been going through the last three years and it's quite an exciting time for Adiggo. So, congratulations to them and it should be open by next spring. Very good. And I'll just add to that, Mr. Chair, if I could. Um, Genie, you've you stayed the course and I'm very proud of you because again, kind of going back to the health and safety of our community. So, you held strong and made that follow through. And great pictures out there. It was a muchneeded investment into the community of Adiga with that fire department. All right. Well, then it being 9:48 and no other business on today's agenda, we will adjourn.