City Council - Regular Meeting

Somebody's going to be. And our insurance guy said don't do that.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is now 530, and I will call this regular meeting of the Burnsville City Council to order. It is our tradition to stand for a moment of silence, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, and we invite you to join us. 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. It's always nice to see members of the public joining us in person, and so welcome. The public can also choose to watch us at burnsvillemin.gov slash meetings or Comcast channel 16 or 859. The public can also participate through Zoom by joining us at zoom.us slash join. For more information, please go to our meeting's webpage and in the council agenda packet. First item on the agenda this evening is our announcements and this all have to do with our upcoming meetings. I was scheduled upcoming meetings. Our regular council meetings are scheduled for Tuesday, July 7th at 5 30 PM and Tuesday, July 21st at 5 30 PM. We have a work session scheduled, um, on Tuesday, July 14th at 5 30 PM and a special work session for our quarterly round table. on Tuesday, July 21st at 6 p.m. And tonight, like every year, we are privileged to have Mr. Chad Lubbers from the Bernhaven Library to give us an update on what's going on at the library. Welcome, Mr. Lubber, and thank you so much for coming.

Mr. Mayor and council members, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. Again, my name is Chad Lubbers. I'm the manager of Dakota County's Burnsville Library. And as the mayor had indicated, every year I like to stop by just to give a brief annual report of what the library has been up to, talk a little bit about what direction we're heading in for the coming year. So summary statistics here from this past year. We had about a quarter million visits from residents in Burnsville last year. Just over half a million items were checked out. As much as I would love to go do a deep dive on these statistics. I love numbers. Um, I'm just happy to be able to say that on average, every resident in Burnsville visited the library three times last year. And on average, every resident in Burnsville checked out seven items from their local library. So well done Burnsville. Very good. The, um, Burnhaven library also has a large, um, demand for public meeting space right now. The library has two meeting rooms, one of them, which can accommodate 90 people and another room that can accommodate a dozen people. So just with those two rooms, we had almost 20,000 residents use our meeting space at the library. In fact, the success of our meeting room usage is one of the items that informed our renovation that we're going to talk about in just a moment here. But very pleased to see that our residents are making such good use of the public meeting space we provide. All right, so the big news for us this past year has been at the library is officially under renovation right now. So we are closed at our regular location at the intersection of 42 and Burnhaven Drive. We have a temporary site that has been set up inside the Burnhaven, or excuse me, the Burnsville Center Mall. We are on the top floor in between the former Macy's store and JCPenney. And I have that conversation with residents a very large number of times every day. Everyone has been really thrilled that we have a space to visit. And it's been a A very interesting experience so far. We closed in April, so we've been in the mall now for about two months, and everything appears to be moving on schedule for our renovation, which means that we will be reopening in our other library location in the spring of 2027. A few features that I wanted to point out while I have you here as an audience today. So the library is adding conference rooms. We're adding two six-person conference rooms to the floor plan that we had previously. This is specifically as a result of the feedback we got from residents who said, you know, we're glad that you have public meeting space, but we need a little bit more. So we were able to find a couple of areas where we could squeeze in extra conference rooms. And I anticipate there will be a lot of use in those spaces next year. So the Dakota County library in Burnsville is one of 10 libraries that the county operates in Dakota County. Last year, we were number two in terms of our conference room usage the year before we were the top library in the county. So keep in mind that Burnsville is not the largest population in Dakota County, but our library is seeing a huge amount of demand for public meeting space. Wow.

That is really terrific when we're not the largest. I think in Dakota County, we're the third largest city because Lakeville and Eagan are

Much larger in population than we are Yeah, so in this area our library is kind of fighting above our weight class a bit Who's who is number one now in Dakota County? Yeah in terms of the who knocked us out for meeting space Keep in mind when we closed all of our business went over to Egan and then the West st Paul library was also closed So all of their business also spilled over into Egan So their library picked up some extra traffic because of the renovations we're doing And Egan Library is going to be remodeled next, and I think that's happening in about three years. When that happens, I'm anticipating we'll see a traffic bump in our location here in Burnsville as well. So other features that we're adding to the newly remodeled library, we're expanding our children's area to give us a little bit of room to add some interactive and education play resources, so toys and activities for kids that we don't really have space to do right now. You know we are a public library So there is still an expectation from our visitors that when we come to library one with a quiet space where we can study and do the work that we need to do so we are enclosing a Corner of the library in our north east corner of the building. We're going to have an enclosed quiet study area So we'll have a glassed in area where hopefully we will have very very minimal noise one of the challenges of being a comparatively busy a Suburban library like we are is that there's almost always this constant little saucer us this background noise Usually have kids having a great time which it's hard to be critical of that But I do understand that there are residents too that have that expectation that their library is going to be a quiet space So this is us moving in the direction of trying to make sure we have at least something for those individuals who want their quiet library experience Last item we have here. We are investigating the possibility of installing an outdoor patio on the east side of the library this is to give us an An outdoor space where we could do things like outdoor story times for our children, for the youth to come through the library, but also just to have a public space where if a group wants to get together outside, we're going to have some tree plantings if we can to generate some shade to try to just create a small little secluded area where people have the possibility to enjoy the outdoors a little bit while they're over at the library too. And again, reopening spring of 2027. To the best of my knowledge, we are right on track. We are moving right along. All right. Other highlights from this past year. Um, so one of the challenges of moving into the Burnsville shopping center is that we were going from a 38,000 square foot building into a 3000 square foot storefront. So we don't have the room that we would really ideally have to be able to offer some of the services that we provide at the library throughout the year. Homework help, for example, we do all throughout the academic year. We didn't have space to do homework help and tutoring services, so we reached out to our friends over at the YMCA. So we finished up the academic year at the YMCA, and in September, we're going to pick up our homework help sessions there again. The photograph in the upper left-hand corner is one of our tutors named Hassan, who is helping out at the YMCA. The young lady there, I believe, is getting some help with either science or math. The usage numbers for the homework help have been very solid and it's a service that I'm really hoping we can continue to grow once we get the additional meeting space in the new library. District 191 over at the Diamond Head Center has been giving us some extra space to do some events over there as well. So we're hosting our weekly story times at the Diamond Head Center right now. We're also reaching out and we also completed our 2020 six tax clinic with AARP over there as well. So the library provides free tax services for seniors. And this past year we knew we were going to be hitting right at our closure point for the remodel. So we just shifted the entire program over to the senior center over at diamond head and the district was spectacular and giving us space to space to do that. Um, in addition to some of our older friends, we are also making new friends as part of this closure, the Fox den, board game cafe is hosting the library's book club and Fox den is doing what we have not been able to do with this particular book club They're actually growing membership in our book club So for the past two years our book club has been pretty static and a number of people who attended Telling you the owners over at Fox den moved over into their space and now we've got extra people joining into the book club Always need to see

When that business opened, I wasn't quite sure what it was all about and whether it would thrive, and it is.

Yeah, we're hearing spectacular things from the library staff that are over there. They're saying it's just a great time. One other local community partner here that I did not include, I just found out that we are hosting a yoga story time on a Saturday this month over at Buck Hill. So thanks to the folks at Buck Hill who are making space available for us to do yoga story time. Please don't ask me what that is. I have absolutely no idea. Um, what's nice is that you're open to innovation.

Absolutely. This is creating all kinds of new partnerships.

It is. And I, I've been trying to work with my team to say, you need, you need to not look at this as a loss of resources. You need to look at this as an opportunity to find new partnerships and new collaborations.

And I'm impressed that all the businesses are stepping up to help. This is wonderful.

Yeah, nice to see. Here we thought you were going to be in your little space, and I didn't know what was, but look at everything that you're doing during this time.

Excellent. It's been a great experience. The other thing I want to just acknowledge here, too, I know everybody here is already familiar with the harm reduction station that is over in the library. So Burnsville Public Safety, the fire department has been great about getting this relocated over to the mall when we moved over to the shopping center. Um, I don't know how many anecdotes you've heard about this. Um, all of the public libraries in Dakota County right now are Narcan distribution sites. So anybody can pick up Narcan at their public library in Dakota County. The drawback is that to get it, you have to walk up and you have to tell somebody, can I have some Narcan please? And based on the experiences that we had in Burnsville before this machine was installed, that is a particularly difficult thing to do because in a lot of cases we were seeing parents or sometimes the spouses of people who just have a loved one in their life and they're very tearfully saying things like, I just need to have, I need a safety net. I need a parachute. I hate having to do this. One of the advantages of having this harm reduction station in the library is that it gives people a little bit more dignity and spares them the pain of actually having to admit what they're living through right now in order to ask for help. So really happy that this is a resource that's available right now to our residents. All right. Image in the lower right hand corner. I'm going to ask your indulgence on this because I am a map geek. And when I told my staff I was going to bring this map to council, they all thought I was insane. So the answer to the question, what can you show me that demonstrates the generosity and the community focus and the goodwill of the Burnsville community. This is the map that I show you. All right. So what we're looking at here is a map of all of the different clinics and hospitals over the space of two years who have received blood donations that were made at the public library by residents in Burnsville.

Wow.

So the red cross, every time they do a blood drive, they send out an after, um, blood drive summary out to the site host that says, these are the number of units that were collected. These are the number of lives we estimate that this impacted. And these are the clinics that the blood was sent to. Well, I realized back in 2024 that there's a lot of movement happening here. So I talked with a representative from the red cross and they said that normally they keep blood supplies concentrated as closely as possible to the donation point just for concerns of spoilage or, you know, immediate need, but occasionally there are emergencies that crop up. So the red cross has gotten very good at moving blood around quickly to different communities around the state. And in this case also to South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Wow.

So what we're looking at here is a map with a shaded area that is roughly 21,000 square miles or the size of two Massachusetts. that the people of Burnsville have supplied blood to over the course of two years from a single blood donation spot over at the library. Now keep in mind there are Red Cross blood drives all over Burnsville. I expect that we would probably have most of the state covered if we were to look at a broader sweep of that. But, um, this is the map that I like to point to and say, this is how I know I work in a community that's very focused on supporting one another that cares and genuinely is invested in seeing that everybody is doing well. Um, Millbank, South Dakota, by the way, that's the clinic in South Dakota and the Eau Claire it's their Eau Claire hospital, I think is the location farthest east. But, uh, anyway, very proud of the Burnsville community for the work they've done with their blood donations here over the past couple of years. So in addition to, in addition, excuse me, to thanking the red cross. I also want to thank a few specific departments within the city here, this for their, their help and support this past year. Kara over at the Parks Department has been great. She's been scheduling the library all kinds of park space this summer so that we have a place to do some of our children's programming. So we're in parks all over Burnsville over the next couple of months. Both Laura and Ismael have been great over in communications and outreach and working with us as well. We're gonna be collaborating in a couple of different community events. I think we've got Juneteenth coming up this weekend. We're gonna be part of that with the city as well. And then also just again, a shout out to the Public Safety Division. know the library is a public place and we've had a few bizarre things that have cropped up over the course of this past year and the police department the fire department have had our back every step of the way and I can't say enough positive stuff so greatly appreciate all the support that they've been able to give us and that is everything I have for you today if you'd like to ask questions about a map I'd happily take

I don't have a question. I'm just impressed with all that you do, Mr. Luber. I always look forward to your updates because it informs me about what our community is doing and what this particular asset is enriching the lives of our people. And you're updating the building, but you're not adding more square footage. You're just updating and remodeling the whole inside.

Correct. So the, uh, the library was built back in, I think the ground was broken in 1972. So most of the mechanicals that are inside the library are original to that 1972 building. So we're getting all new plumbing. They're taking out all the electrical. Um, our HVAC is getting changed as well. And I just found out about a month ago that we're also getting a new roof. that we weren't sure we were going to be able to afford with this project. Um, library has about six and a half tons of crushed rock on our roof as a roofing material right now because it's flat because it's flat. And because of that, we have 21 support pillars inside the library, which makes it a little bit of a challenge sometimes to lay out for plans and whatnot. Um, but the good news is that we're getting a new roof, um, which we needed to get. Um, but unfortunately none of it allows us to expand our footprint outward right now, but it's all important. It's all necessary and we're going to have a great library when we reopen your outdoor space.

You said it's going to be in the, on the east side. So that's by your parking area. Yeah. It doesn't have as many trees as the west side of your building.

Yeah. We're going to be planting some trees. So in fact, keep in mind, this is all planning stage right now. The outdoor patio space is not guaranteed. In fact, I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it tonight, but I'm excited about it. One of the reasons I'm excited is they're going to put some apple trees on the property. So we're going to get some honey crisps apples planted out there too. Yeah.

Urban forest is always good. We have, you know, we have one across the street, but right now it's because of all of the construction around here, it's hard to see. What's blooming over there.

Yep. That's the intent.

Well, I'm pretty excited about this remodel you're doing and, uh, you have made it easier to go to the deputy registrar's office. I'll tell you that.

Yeah, that is true. Our, our, our colleagues over at the license center have been spectacular. Honestly, I should give them some, some recognition here tonight too. Um, very challenging job to work in under normal circumstances. they're now enduring, you know, 12 months of construction noises right through the other side of the wall in addition to the folks that are coming in to use their services. So very proud of the work that those folks are doing right now too.

Okay. Any other comments or thoughts? Thank you so much for coming and giving us an update. Absolutely. And the community also appreciates knowing about what's going on and so they know where to find you.

Excellent. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Have a good evening. Great update.

Okay, the next item is citizens comments. This is the opportunity for anyone in the audience and online to address the council on an item that is not on the printed agenda and not an application form that will be coming before us at a future date. Is there anyone who wishes to address the council? Anyone? Mrs. Collins, anyone?

No one has asked to speak, Madam Mayor.

Okay, thank you. Seeing none, we will move on. And the next item is additions to the final agenda. This is for emergency items only. City Manager Lindberg, any emergency items?

Nothing from the staff, Mayor.

Thank you. Members of the council. We'll move on. The next item is the consent agenda. The consent agenda is a group of items that's considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion. However, an item under consent agenda can be removed for a separate discussion and vote. Is there anyone in the audience who wishes an item to be removed for a separate discussion and vote? City Clerk Collins, anyone online who wishes an item to be removed?

I have that.

No requests. City Manager Lindberg, the staff want an item to be removed for a separate discussion. Not from staff members of the council.

May I have a motion to adopt? Oh, Ms. Shunk on the way in to you were here for something I think is on the consent agenda. Did you want to remove an item from the consent?

No.

Okay. I just wanted to, Okay, I just wanted to make sure in case you wanted to hear more about it.

Yeah, because I'm looking at her and she wasn't... Okay. Okay. No. Okay. So may I have a motion to adopt the consent agenda? Move to approve. Second. There's a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, say nay. And the motion carries. We're at the regular agenda. And the first item on the regular agenda is to review and accept the 2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Statement and Audit Report from our independent auditor. And presenting the item this evening is our finance director, Mrs. Alissa Ryan. And then you will be introducing our auditor. Yes. Thank you, Mrs. Ryan.

Madam Mayor and Council, this evening we will hear the results of our 2025 annual financial audit. This was our first year. Engaging Red Path and Company as the city's financial auditor, making it an important transition year for our team. And I do want to recognize we have a couple of our team members here in the audience tonight, so thank you for being here.

And thank you for the team. Great work.

I'm pleased to share that the city received a clean, unmodified audit opinion confirming that our 2025 financial statements fairly present the city's financial position. And here to present the audit results and some key highlights is Rebecca Peterson from Redpath and Company. And I'll now turn it over to Rebecca.

Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me here this evening.

As we get started, During the audit, we worked very closely with city staff, and I also want to acknowledge how great they were to work with. In a first year audit, it can be difficult as we get to know them, they get to know our audit process, and it really went as smoothly as it possibly could. I want to acknowledge the finance staff for the great work they did. And then also remind you that despite how closely we work with finance staff, we really do work for you as governance. So as I'm talking, if there's something you want me to expand on, you have a question, please feel free to stop me and interrupt me. I'm here for you. Before we start talking about 2025, I want to acknowledge that the city's 2024 financial statements were submitted to the GFOA, the Government Finance Officers Association, for an Award in Excellence in Financial Reporting, and you received the award, and it's the 30th year of receipt of that award, so very nice job, well done to the staff here. So for 2025, there were four reports that we issued in conjunction with the audit. I'll just go through a summary of the results of each one. The first report that we issue in conjunction with the audit is an opinion on the financial statements. And as Finance Director Ryan indicated, this is really the primary purpose of our audit is to opine on the financial statements, not saying that everything's exactly right to the dollar, just that it's a fair and reasonable presentation. The results this year were a clean, unmodified opinion. It's the highest or most positive result we're able to give and really the result you would want. The second report that we issue in conjunction with the audit is a report on internal controls over financial reporting. As part of our audit, we don't audit the city's internal controls, but we gain an understanding of the processes and procedures that are in place so that we can plan our audit to address higher risk areas. As part of gaining an understanding of those controls, if anything came to our attention, that we thought that there was a deficit in the design of controls or there were controls that weren't operating effectively as they should, we would identify it as a result in this letter. There are also some items that were obligated to report in this letter. And that's one item that we have this year. There's one finding for audit adjustments. Any time over the course of the audit, we find a change to the numbers that are presented in the financial statements from what the city originally prepared. We're obligated to call that an audit finding and internal control. It's an extremely common finding for cities to have. I mean, none of the adjustments that we identified this year as anything that would cause me concern. So something we're required to notify you about, but nothing really of concern there. The next report that we issue in conjunction with the audit is a report on Minnesota legal compliance. The office of the state auditor has a series of requirements that they ask us to look at in conjunction with our audit. And I was always like to caution that we're accountants, not attorneys. So we're looking at it from an accounting perspective. Um, but the results this year were that we did not identify any instances of noncompliance in the area we tested. So again, that's the results you would want. The final report that we issue in conjunction with the audit is a communication to those charged with governance. And it is a multi-page letter full of really templated language. And so I've called out some of the key points here where really these are the bits of the letter that I think that are probably important for you to know about. The first one is accounting policies used or changed. If there were any new accounting policies that the city implemented this year that had a significant impact on the financial statements, we would identify it in this letter. This year there were no such changes. But I do want to mention that next year there is a couple new standards coming into play. One that will be a little time intensive for the finance department to implement. So just know that that's coming next year. Next item is accounting estimates in the financial statements. Just a reminder that some amounts in the financials are finite known numbers and others are estimates. There's three estimates within the financial statements that we consider sensitive and we're required to communicate with you about any sensitive estimates. The first one that I have identified here is the estimate of uncollectible accounts related to EMS. As I'm sure you know, when you bill out an EMS service, it is very unlikely you're going to collect 100% of that. And so there is an allowance set up to acknowledge that full collection likely won't happen. And there really is a bit of judgment that goes into what that allowance should be. So that's why we have that one identified as a sensitive estimate. The other two items I have on here are both actuarially determined numbers. The first actuarially determined number is the OPEB liability and OPEB stands for other post-employment benefits. And that really is the impact of the city having retirees and costs associated with that. If the retiree or their family is staying on the city's health insurance, there's cost there, and that the future liability related to that is an actuarially determined number that is sensitive to actuarial assumptions. The final one that I have identified here is the net pension liability. City staff participate in the state parapension plan. The state plan gets an actuarial study on an annual basis that calculates a net pension liability for them. And then they take that net pension liability and allocate it up to all participating employers. And so Burnsville's share of the state pension plan liability for 2025 was $21 million. That is not something you're going to have to pay on or write a check for. you contribute to that with your regular payroll contributions. But I showed the history of what that liability was over the past couple years, because this liability is extremely sensitive to a couple of different factors. One, market conditions, what the investment market is doing, the assumptions that the actuary is using, and then also state contributions to the plan. The state has increased their contributions to the plan over the past few years, and you can see it's having an impact on the liability. So the liability has dropped substantially over the, recent years.

Thanks for explaining that because I was looking at that $66 million and going, what?

Yeah, it is interesting how heavily it can impact your financial statements. And the bond rating agencies are aware of this. They know what this number represents in your statements. It does change significantly over time. The next item I have identified on here is corrected and uncorrected misstatements. During the course of the audit, as I mentioned, anytime there's a corrected misstatement that's material, We're required to communicate that to you, and that was done in the internal control letter. And then also an acknowledgement that there may be uncorrected misstatements, just small amounts that don't impact our audit opinion, but just acknowledging that those may exist. Nothing that I think is significant enough to call your attention to. Performing the audit if we had any difficulties performing the audit or any Disagreements with management during the course of the audit if you hadn't already heard about it We'd be communicating it to you in this letter, but I'm pleased to report no such matters this year And finally there's a section in the letter for other matters if there was anything else that we thought warranted your attention that didn't fall into any of our other reporting buckets we would include it here, but no items included this year and Next, I have some summary financial information, but I'll stop for a minute to see if there were questions on the report summaries.

No. All right.

First up, I have some financial highlights for the year. The city's general fund unassigned reserves We're 50% of next year's budget, which is right in line with your policy. So that's a quality, strong place to be. I want to acknowledge the $68 million of bond proceeds this year that are going to fund infrastructure improvements. That was really a significant undertaking, as you're all aware of. But it was one of the larger bits of activity in the financial statements. And then finally, your property tax collection rate. Property tax collection rate for 2025 was at 98.7%, just under 99%, which is a healthy collection rate. Here I have a summary of the general fund budget to actual revenues for the year. So your first two columns are your budgeted amounts, then your actual amounts, and your variance with the final budget. The general fund this year overall actually budgeted a reduction in fund balance and experienced an increase. I'll call out for you some of the factors related to that. You can see I have boxed off for the fines and forfeitures number. Everything above there I would consider pretty routine. Everything below there, you have some significant impacts on your general fund budget. Primarily, if you look at that row that says net change in fair value of investments. What this reflects is that the city holds investments and the values of those fluctuate with market conditions, but you don't necessarily realize the impact of that fluctuation unless you were to sell the investment. So you're reporting $1.5 million of revenue of increase in your general fund fund balance that you haven't actually realized that's not spendable. So that's important to consider when you're looking at the change in fund balance for the general fund. The $1.5 million of that increase really is unrealized activity for the city. Next I have a general fund expenditure comparison. You can see across the board, the vast majority of your functions had expenditures under budget, and the most significant impact there is staffing. Positions that weren't filled had a positive impact on your fund balance at the end of the year. And then there's two unique items that relate to each other that I'll call your attention to because they're high dollar amounts. If you look at the capital outlay row, kind of halfway through the statement, you'll see an actual amount of $4.6 million. If you jump down a couple rows, you'll see technology subscriptions issued of $4.6 million, offsetting amounts. So it's an inflow and an outflow there. And really what this represents is if the city enters into a long-term agreement where you have committed to subscribe to a technology resource for a period of time, you're really entering into a debt agreement to access this resource. And so accounting standards changed recently where they said, okay, if you enter into this type of agreement, you have to acknowledge somewhat of debt proceeds for the present value of that agreement and the cost of the agreement. So two offsetting dollar amounts that are just large figures on your financial statements. The net impact of all that activity was an increase in fund balance of $1.5 million this year compared to the budgeted decrease. Here I have a history of general fund activity. That dark blue bar is expenditures of the general fund. The green line is revenues. And then the teal bar is fund balance. And you can see over time, your general fund revenues are covering your operating expenses, which is what you want unless you have a plan to spend down a fund balance. And also that fund balance block is keeping pace with your general fund expenditures. As I mentioned earlier, the city has a policy to maintain a fund balance level equal 40 to 50% of the subsequent year's budgeted expenditures. And you can see a history of that fund balance percentage here. For 2025, you are right at 50%, which, as I mentioned, is a healthy place to be. In times of rising costs, like we're experiencing right now, if you were to be at the lower end of that reserve policy, you would run into trouble in a year or two because you wouldn't be able to cover your reserves. So it's appropriate to be at the higher end of your policy right now. There's many reasons why that reserve is important. One of them, though, is cash flow. So what I have on this slide right here is just representatives so you can see the monthly cash balance of the general fund over the course of the year. As you know, one of the significant revenue sources for the city is property taxes. And those property tax payments come in primarily twice a year. And so when you get to the start of your calendar year, you need to have enough cash on hand to get to your first property tax payment. That generally happens somewhere around June. And you can see for 2025, the general fund cash balance dropped $17.6 million while you were waiting for that to come in. So reserves are important for unexpected expenses and emergencies, but also just to manage your cash flow over the course of the year. Next up, I have some financial highlights for the city's proprietary funds. And as a refresher here, your proprietary funds are those funds that are intended to be self-supporting. That doesn't always happen, but ideally these funds, their revenues will cover their expenditures and their capital needs over time. Here you can see the water and sewer fund. That bar is your operating expenses with the teal portion being depreciation. I've called out depreciation separately because it's not a cash expense, but it is an expense that gets incurred every year. What's not on here is fund balance, and my understanding is you have seen some graphs historically that have fund balance number on there, so I just wanted to acknowledge that that isn't here. But ideally in these water and sewer and utility funds, Your operating revenue, which is that green line, would be more than covering your operating expenses. Capital in water and sewer funds is extremely expensive. Infrastructure costs are high any time you need to change anything. And so for your operating revenue, it's generally preferable to see a gap between revenue and expenses so that you can save for future capital needs or cover debt if you end up needing to issue debt to cover capital. Um, my understanding is the city is working on a utility rate study that should hopefully address some of this, but I just want to call your attention to it. You can see over the past couple of years, your operating revenue hasn't covered the expenses and that will be important to address the future. Next up, I have the stormwater fund. Here you can see your operating revenue is covering your operating expenses, all but for this year. For 2025, there were some significant repairs and maintenance expenses. That was a one-time expense, but that's a great example of why those reserves are important is to cover those one-time expenses. Next I have the AIM Center. Here you can see your operating revenue is not covering your depreciation and it's also not covering your general operating expenses. All recreational facilities, whether it's something like the AIM Center or it's a golf course or whatever it might be, those are notoriously hard to cover operating expenses for governmental entities. They just simply are. But when you look here over time and you see that operating revenue is not covering operating expenses over time, that's a good sign that the fund will need external support, whether that's grant revenue or property tax revenue or transfers in from the general fund. As you look ahead to the coming years, be aware of that for the AEM Center, that it likely will need external support. Next, the ice arena. So I just gotta finish telling you that recreational facilities are very hard to support themselves and your ice arena over the past couple years has been covering your operating expenses and covering part of depreciation. And really for ice arenas, that is about the best you can hope for. Every once in a while, I'll see a ice arena that covers depreciation, but those are few and far between. So from my perspective, this is a healthy ice arena fund. Golf course the golf course post COVID. We are seeing across the metro area that really they are doing quite well and so here your operating revenue is covering your operating expenses and your depreciation exactly like you would want it to be. And then the street lighting fund here you're kind of running year over year depending on what the expenses were like for that year. They can fluctuate and what your depreciation is, but what I would expect for a street lighting fund. And that's all I have pre-prepared for you, but happy to answer questions if you have any.

Any questions? Great report.

Yeah.

Thank you so much. One of the things that I shared with our city manager and with our staff, our wonderful staff, is that this report is so much more informative, have a lot more information than we had received. from past auditors. So I want to thank you. One of the things that I discovered when I had my one-on-one with one of your colleagues was that you all understand municipal finance. Most of you came from municipalities, I understand. So thank you for that because when I looked at the report and read through all of it, it was very easy for me get to the items that I wanted more information because you had a note to where I can go to to the exact page to where I needed the information. So thank you for that. I also appreciate it because I was really interested in our stormwater and to see how that is because that takes a big hit every year with road construction. What people don't understand is that all of the stuff underneath the ground has a lot more mileage and a lot more work to be done. And it was good for me to see, and you reported on it tonight, that it's doing well. So thank you, but I want to thank our staff because you do this work each and every day to make sure that we take care of the people's money. And I'm so proud of what you guys have done because to have our auditors look at what we've done, what you've done. It says a great deal about your integrity. It says a great deal about the excellence of the work that you do for our community. So thank you so much to all of you. And thank you for your work. I really like this. And I read all 180 pages of your report.

That's really impressive. Thank you for the feedback. I really appreciate the opportunity to work with the city. I'm excited to work with you in the coming years.

Thank you. That was a great read.

I'm glad to hear it.

Thank you so much. So members of the council, the action tonight is to accept the Motion to accept. Second. I think that's what you wanted us to do, Ms. Ryan. Yeah. Yeah. I always want to make sure that we're accepting what you want us to do, to accept the auditor's report. So there is a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. And a motion carries. Thank you so much. Really appreciate the work that you've done for us, Ms. Peterson. you and your team. Thank you. And now I will recess the Burnsville City Council meeting so the Economic Development Authority meeting can proceed. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Good evening. I call the Economic Development Authority meeting to order. The clerk will note that all commissioners are present. Are there any additions to the final agenda? Seeing none, I will move on. Item two is the consent agenda, and that's the approval of minutes in the EDA budget amendment for Center Village AUAR update. Is there anyone who wishes an item to be removed from the consent agenda for a separate discussion? Vote. Seeing none, may I have a motion to adopt a consent agenda? Motion by Commissioner Keeley. Second. Second by Commissioner Coats. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Nay. And it passes. Number three is on to the regular agenda. There are no regular agenda items, so there is no other business. May I have a motion to adjourn? Motion by Commissioner Keeley, second by Commissioner Workman. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Nay. We are adjourned. Back to you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you so much. I will reconvene the Burnsville City Council meeting. And members of the council, there are no other items to come before the body this evening, and a motion to adjourn is in order. So moved. Second. There's a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. And the motion carries. Thank you and good evening. And thank you for being with us.