Planning Commission - workshop

Good evening, everyone. It is now 6.30 and I will call this budget work session of the Burnsville City Council to order. Members of the public, always welcome to attend in person and also may choose to watch the meeting on 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. More information is available on our meetings webpage and in the council agenda packet. This is a budget work session, and we go directly to our agenda. And the first item on the agenda is the capital improvement plan review, and Jenny Rohde, our deputy city manager and CFO, is presenting. Jenny, the floor is yours. Thank you.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and council members. Tonight, we will be reviewing the capital improvement plan during this budget work session. This is the proposed plan for 2027 through 2031. We'll start out with capital studies. In 2023, as we were preparing for the 2024 budget, we realized there was additional information that really we needed to help make short-term and long-term capital decisions, so we identified six studies at that time to really help in data-driven decision-making. And then we, over the course of the last two years, we've identified seven more, so for a total of 13. We've been working through those studies over the past couple of years and we anticipate completion of all of the studies in time for the 2028 budget. So certainly we have a majority of them completed at this time, but there will be a couple more coming at the year end. So all of those will be completed by the time we're preparing for 2028's budget. They also include ongoing updates, so as we are carrying these forward, we're updating those and managing that data in a way that we can keep them updated and keep utilizing them for future capital plans. The first group of six studies are on this slide. Those were finalized and discussed from 2024 through 2025, with the fleet study being the last one completed last December. The other seven that were identified, we're still working through with two that you saw earlier this evening, the city owned property study and the sidewalk trail study. And then the parks camera and lighting study is planned for October and the street light study is planned for December. OUR 2027 PLAN, THE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT PLAN IDENTIFIED A 7.69 YEAR OVER YEAR TAX INCREASE THAT DOES MATCH THE LAST AND FINAL YEAR OF THE NONBINDING RESOLUTION FROM THE 2023 BUDGET. WE ARE CURRENTLY BALANCING THE BUDGET TO THAT TARGET. CERTAINLY OVER THAT FIVE YEARS AND CONTINUE, WE STILL HAVE UNPREDICTABLE CONDITIONS RIGHT NOW THAT ARE CHALLENGING THAT BUDGET BUT WE FEEL WHAT WE'RE PRESENTING TONIGHT IS REALLY RESPONSIBLE TO SUPPORT OPERATIONS AND FUTURE PLANNING INCLUDING FOR THE CAPITAL FUNDS. In 2027, we are continuing to see inflationary pressures, although in some areas they've flattened out. We're definitely still seeing those, especially tonight in some of our capital funds, as well as operations. Increasing demand for services. and uncertainty around federal and state grants and funding. That continues. There is also a proposed OMB uniform guidance revision that really does govern federal grants and administration, and that is expected to be implemented later on this year, and that's expected to have some significant changes for local governments in the way federal grants are administered and used.

Jane, what kind of services are we starting to see increased demand for?

I think really across our public safety, but as well as even in our other areas, parks, public works, right? There just really is an increased overall demand, and that is definitely putting pressure on us in the capital areas as well as operations.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I also see in the city manager's weekly report that we're getting zero in LGA. Correct. In 27. Yep. So we're going to have to backfill on, I think, vehicles were part of that.

Yep, and we'll talk about that a little bit as we talk about that fund.

Because I'm looking at your realities and...

And this really, we feel like this plan prioritizes and continues to prioritize what we need for a sustainable future going forward. The overall capital plan for all capital purchases, this is a bar showing kind of the planned investments in each year. Total across all five years is about $217 million. That is about a 12% or $23 million increase over last year. Two of the funds that have the majority of increases are the water and sewer fund with about $9.5 million and the ITF fund with about $9.5 million in increased projects. And I'll talk a little bit more in depth about those plans when we get to those funds. But overall, an increase. This doesn't include any police city hall budget. That budget was in 2025, but it does include an estimate in 2028 for Fire Station 2. Just as a matter of reminder, we have seven levy-funded capital funds. They're Forestry Infrastructure Trust Fund, Improvement Construction, Street Maintenance, Parks Renovation, Equipment and Vehicle, and Information Technology. So those capital funds are primarily funded and supported by the property tax levy.

Madam Mayor, I have just one question. The difference between, can you delineate the difference between the infrastructure trust and street maintenance fund?

Yeah, so the infrastructure trust fund is really used for major street improvement projects where we're doing reconstruction, rehabilitation, those kinds of, you know, we're replacing the road in essence. The street maintenance is more for right-of-way maintenance and that kind of routine year-over-year type of projects.

Infrastructure goes for reconstruction, rehabilitation, and reclamation.

Like replacing assets where the maintenance is just... Kind of annual upkeep.

Yep. Then these funds are special revenue and enterprise funds, so these funds also have significant capital purchases within them, and they are funded really through other types of fees, whether that be charges for services, franchise fees, or utility fees. The first fund we'll talk about in depth is the Parks Renovation Fund. This fund is informed, and the investment in the CIP is informed by the parks plan. That was actually our first capital plan completed in 2024. We're really prioritizing the replacement of condition one and two items that were identified in that plan, with safety being a priority, as well as when there are non-relevant amenities that are end of life, we'll remove those. There's been additional studies and there will continue to be a couple of additional studies that will continue to inform future projects in parks. In terms of our progress on condition one and two assets, we do maintain a parks asset management dashboard. That's a live database that reflects the status of park assets, condition, description, CIP, year planned, those kinds of things. It's a live database, though, that reflects the status of park assets at a point in time. So as... It includes both operational and capital items. So while it includes those that are in this capital plan, it also includes assets that would be replaced as part of operational maintenance activities. The original plan in 2024 identified 293 condition one and two assets at about $7 million. And as assets continue to deteriorate or are improved, those condition scores are updated. So it is kind of a constantly changing database. Project years are updated after the CIP is approved. So once we have a CIP, if we've added any projects or switched or maybe we've shifted years, we make sure to update that once the CIP is approved. The major projects in the Parks Renovation Fund for 2027 are listed here. Ala Magnet East Parking Lot Replacement is a Condition 1 asset that is the largest individual project. That actually was, I believe, moved forward or shifted forward a year because of its condition. So that is... is a majority, or a big percentage of the increases, or the projects, I should say, in 2027. We have a few projects at Echo Park, a playground replacement, a tennis court replacement, a parking lot and trail. Those are both one and two condition assets. So that, I forgot to say, the number behind just indicates their condition score. So one and two assets are either poor or below average condition assets.

Jenny and Garrett, Lac Le Bon Picnic Shelters, are these the ones in the park or the ones up around the athletic?

Madam Mayor, these would be the ones that are more for the picnicking to the north, not by the athletic fields.

Yeah, so they're down in the park, not up at the athletic campus. Yep. Okay.

Madam Mayor, do we have the money in the fund for this now? Is it in the parks fund now? So this is money that we have set to go? This is in the capital improvement plan. That's what she's going through.

Madam Mayor.

The Alamagnet East parking lot. I think I know what it is. So the west would be the first smaller one as you come into the park. The east one is, are we talking about the entire park? length of where parking starts all the way to the north? Is that that entire area is considered the east parking lot?

By the dog park. Yeah. That parking is by the dog park.

Yeah, starting at the dog park going all the way to the north.

Gotcha.

Yeah, that's substantial. That's a big, yeah. That's a monster parking lot. Yeah. That's why it's 1.2 million.

It's in rough shape.

Thank you.

So as we put the financial plan, the five-year plan together for the budget, some key assumptions. There was a 3% increase in the property tax levy in 2027. For future years, as we developed the finance plan, we included a 6% levy rising to 10% by 2031. That isn't overall. Keep in mind that's not overall. That's just within this fund. If we looked at five-year average annual expenditures, they're about $3.3 million, but our five-year average annual revenues were about 3.1, and that does include this increased investment in the property tax levy. The average levy is about $1.3 million a year, so we have about a $2 million difference A majority of that currently is covered by landfill host community fees that are expected to be about $1.7 million in 2027. As we look at that fee, while that is covering a big portion of those parks' investments, we do know that host community agreement is estimated – We'll continue, sorry. We'll continue through landfill capacity and that was originally estimated to be approximately 10 years. So as we think about this fund going forward, we wanted to start making some small increases in the property tax levy so that when host fees do decline, we'll have revenue to make up that difference.

And that'll get to all of the one and twos that we need to get done?

We will be prioritizing those certainly more. We have a large number of category three assets, kind of those average assets.

Yeah, because that's coming up. Three and four are coming up, but I'm thinking about the one and twos.

Correct.

Okay.

You know, they will be one and twos, but we will continue that investment. So we wanted to make sure we were starting to think about, you know, the future levy once host fees do decline and that we're going to be in a place where we don't have a big shortfall.

Parks visioning.

We have done parks visioning in phase one for 26 community and neighborhood parks. That really is a guide for existing maintenance and any future improvements. Certainly as parks are identified for improvement, we would look to that as a guide and it includes base design concept as well as any visionary concepts like what new things could we add. Next steps in terms of the parks renovation fund, as you mentioned, Madam Mayor, prioritize condition one and two assets and continue to do that in the future. We reviewed the sidewalks and trails study tonight, and once we have a trail plan, that will help inform the future, as well as a parks building study and a vision study for remaining parks. So we are still planning to do a phase two vision study for the remaining parks in the system. This is just a graph of the finance picture here of the Parks Renovation Fund. As you can see, we do have some significant expenditures in the near term. As Council Member Gustafson mentioned, that parking lot in 2027 is quite large, but we do have the funds on hand to manage that. That blue line, kind of that blue line running across is our target fund balance. And the black line that you see kind of go down to the blue line and back up again is what we expect our ending fund balance to be. So with this plan, we do anticipate that we do remain within our fund balance targets.

We've got a lot of questions tonight. This is actually for Garrett, I think. We've talked about inclusive-type parks, like we have at Red Oak. Is this in these plans now for going forward? Because I know we talked about zoning or putting in different zones of the city. Is that part of this plan?

I would say from the parks renovation fund in general, the type of cost associated with the playground that you're talking about would not come out of a park renovation fund. That's more of a replacement as is kind of situation. We will need to be, once we get through all these studies and start to look at the future of our park system, we'll want to be looking into how do we start to accomplish some of those things like you just talked about. And as I've shared before, you can pretty much double the cost of a playground when you want to put in a port in place surface that makes it inclusive. In addition, if you really want to double down on an inclusive type playground, that equipment tends to be more expensive as well. there's a lot of factors that will go into it. So it's an add-on then right now? Yes, that would be more in the improvements area than it would be in the parks renovation area. Thank you.

Yeah, currently in the parks renovation fund, it is really just replacing those one and two assets, at least at this time. The Parks Investment Fund, this is basically funded with parks dedication fees. We do have a couple of small projects in this fund. These are for any new fiber and security, if those projects do come up in the current, in the next year, as well as any other improvements that might come up that are new. But those total 100,000 combined, or a little less than $100,000 combined.

How much do we have in the parks investment fund? I see. I just asked that ahead of you.

We'll get there. It's there. Currently right now, as we just mentioned, we're taking care of what we have first. We do have budget carried forward for a pickleball project. That was $1.1 million and was budgeted in 2025. We have carried that forward as we've gone through that process. And again, we'll be revisioning the remaining parks that we have. But the fund balance available for future projects is, I think this is the same, about the same as what we said last year, about $5.9 million in that fund currently.

So you better be real thoughtful about that, that all we have in the Parks Investment Fund is $5.9 million.

Yep. Yeah, there isn't a, oh, sorry.

Go ahead, finish it. Dan G? I can wait.

Kay.

Oh, Kay. I'm G. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm first. Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking at you and saying, gee.

You said it's almost exactly the same amount as a year ago.

Very similar.

Do we get investment results or do we apply our investment results by the fund where the source principle is sitting, right? So a year ago, this 5.9 might have been 5.5.

It's possible. There were some expenditures. I do think we had a trail project that got completed, so there were some expenditures from the fund. But generally speaking, yes, they have invested. Basically, this fund has parks dedication fees and then investment revenues annually based on the fund balance.

One of those, I suppose, maybe the largest of recent time would have been waste management's contribution as a result of the landfill agreement that they, was it $2.9 million? Yeah. I think. So about half, is that about right? Is that half that fund is from that?

Yeah, I think it was about $2 million. For me it was 1.9 something or other. Yeah, so about $2 million of that is definitely.

And it just gets into the investment fund because it covers all the parks. Investments, yeah.

Here is where you see that towel bar at the top. So you'll see that investment is slowly growing. We don't assume, we only assume about $100,000 annually for parks dedication. We know that in some years we won't get any. We did get some this year. I think we got about $600,000. And so we don't want to overestimate that because it's not really a sustainable source of revenue going into the future. and then that large bar, the gray bar is that anticipated L magnet or not L magnet, excuse me, anticipated pickleball project.

Those funds were there at? Yeah, they were there identified. They've been there for a long time.

For a pickleball project and we've carried those forward as we've gone through that process. The next fund is the equipment and vehicle fund. So as we look at 2027's major project, it really is the replacement of plow trucks, ambulances, squads, a front-end loader replacement. So that is about half of the capital budget for 2027 in this fund. When we have those vehicle funds,

And you're calculating, are you also putting in, in that line item, the upfitting of all those vehicles? Because, oh my God, the upfitting is more expensive than the vehicle.

That is correct, Mayor. When we budget for each of the vehicles, it's the total cost in. So not only is it actually the chassis and the upfit, but also if there's a tax title and license as well.

Okay.

Certainly in this fund, again, the demand for services does impact our vehicles, as well as we're seeing just shorter replacement schedules with the amount of use that certain vehicles get. Continued inflationary pressures that has leveled off somewhat in this fund, and I think that we've done a good job of planning for all those costs in the last couple of years and getting those budgets a little bit more right-sized. also continued long lead times so if you look and you'll see this when we look at the financial picture 2026 includes carry forwards of five million dollars in prior projects so that really means prior budgeted items, pieces of equipment, vehicles that in most cases have been ordered. We just haven't received them yet. So we're holding a bit of cash right now. And once we get all those vehicles, that cash is spoken for, right, in previous budgets. But that just kind of goes to speak to those long-lead times.

Because we have two fire trucks on order. Yes. But we don't have to pay for them. until they're delivered. Correct. So everything is on there.

So you'll see a larger cash balance.

And that's including the upfitting of all of the fire trucks also.

Yep, the full cost. Yep. And the capital improvement plans in this fund are informed by the fleet study as well. Key assumptions, there's a 3% property tax levy in 2027. This will be similar to the Parks Fund. We've included a 6% levy year over year, and this is just in this fund, not the overall city levy, really rising to 10% by 2031. We did see no local government aid for 2027, so we're assuming that is zero going forward. It has gone down from $426,000 in 2024 to $221,000 this year. So really over the past... Next year is zero.

Yeah.

So that does reduce kind of the revenues that we can anticipate in that fund. Really, if you're looking at a comparison from 2025, it's about $2 million.

It creates pressure on this particular fund.

The five-year average of annual expenditures is about $4.6 million, and the five-year annual average revenues is about 4.3. Again, we are slightly below the expenditures, so we are drawing a little bit down on fund balance. And the average levy is about $1.8 million, and that is with that increase to 10% over the five years. Currently, landfill host community fees are $1.8 And equipment certificates are filling the gap in this fund. So similar to the parks fund, that is a significant revenue for us right now at $1.7 million annually. But we also know that that will sunset once the landfill is at capacity. So we wanted to start planning for that and be in a place where you know, we're increasing those property tax revenues slowly over time so that that's not such a big jump we have to make. We were able to reduce equipment certificates. Last year, I think we had about a little over $7 million planned. We were able to reduce those to about $5 million, and we will continue to look for ways to reduce that debt because we IT JUST SAVES COST, SAVES INTEREST, AND THEN WE COULD, YOU KNOW, WE'D RATHER USE THAT TO BUY EQUIPMENT THAN PAY INTEREST ON EQUIPMENT CERTIFICATES. SO WE'LL CONTINUE TO LOOK AT THAT AS WE GO FORWARD IN FUTURE PLANS. BUT RIGHT NOW WE HAVE DEBT FINANCING PLANNED FOR 2026 AND 2029. 2026 WILL DEPEND ON WHEN WE RECEIVE THOSE VEHICLES. It may not happen before the end of the year, but we don't want to issue before we receive the vehicles. Debt will require debt levies in 2028 and beyond. One thing that helped is when we did reduce equipment certificates, we did have debt levy that wasn't needed in the debt fund, and we were able to apply it here. And so we'd like to continue doing that, and we'll continue to look for ways to do that going forward.

Jenny, can you talk just a little bit about future strategy on equipment-related debt and both how we've used it in the past and how we see appropriate use in the future for the fund?

Yeah. We've used it most recently to purchase a fire truck in 2022. And we have filled, you know, we have looked at financing some larger equipment like fire trucks or maybe larger, maybe ambulances and things like that, some larger vehicles with a useful life that's longer. Certainly we'd rather not issue, if you issue debt, you really want to issue debt kind of the length, at least have a useful life that's longer than the length of your debt. So we definitely look at that when we're looking at opportunities to finance some of these vehicles. And then just trying to reduce that burden. And so we kind of continue to make those adjustments year over year. And hopefully we'll get to a place where this plan can adjust those equipment certificates out of this.

Okay. Dan?

Since you brought up fire trucks, I want a question for Chief Jungman, who I want to compliment that the hair growth serum must apparently work. Are we anticipating the purchase of another fire truck of some sort, large apparatus truck in the next five years?

Ambulance is coming up. Ambulance would be the next one that's up. Fire engines and ladders will typically have their service life, I believe, I don't know off the top of my head, I think it's about 10 years. service life for engine, it's more for a ladder truck, but ambulances will be the lower of the group.

When's the next, because the fire trucks are well over a million now, when do you anticipate the next ladder and or full-size apparatus truck to be needing to be required? I suppose it might be in our long-term capital plan.

We have one program did for 2026, and it's on order. We're waiting for that one. And then a 2029. So about every three years we purchase a larger fire truck.

How many total large apparatus trucks do we have, non-ambulance?

That one I'm not going to know.

I'm going to have to look at that. Yeah, I believe I'd have to look at the fleet map, but I believe we have three engines right now, and I think we have two ladder trucks, but I'd have to double check the fleet map.

Five. Five of the big rigs. Thank you.

And we have six ambulances, and I think we're due for replacement of one.

Yeah. We have an ambulance planned in every year of the capital plan, basically. So an ambulance a year and then about every three years for the fire trucks.

Just one follow-up. Is there a need for more ambulance as we scale up the staff? Will we actually increase the fleet of, you know, the circulating fleet by a unit, or are we just in replacement mode for the near term?

I would have to bounce that off of Chief Junglin, but the data on how many calls we're running on is definitely going to dictate the amount of ambulances. Right, and as that's trending upwards. So will the equipment that we need.

Thank you. Madam Mayor, members of the council, we'll get you the specific answers on fire, not to put Nate on the spot. But also generally speaking, as we've talked about the fire standard of cover, and you look at our capital planning, we have planned for additional, specific to the question, we have planned for additional ambulances as the operation scales and is of a scope to address the demand for calls for service.

And I would assume that's all because we're good about comprehensive planning, right?

Yeah.

It's incorporated into the design for Ferris Station 2, for example, if that was going to take on another apparatus, another bay is needed or whatever.

And it's all on her capital improvement plan for equipment and vehicles.

MADAM MAYOR, MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL, THAT IS ONE OF THE HALLMARK AND IMPORTANT DESIGN FEATURES OF FIRE STATION 2, AS A MATTER OF FACT, ONE OF THE REASONS THAT THE CURRENT SITE JUST DOESN'T FIT THE PROGRAM NEEDS AS THEY'VE BEEN DEFINED BOTH BY THE FIRE STANDARD OF COVER AND THE OTHER STUDY THAT WE DO TO INFORM WHAT THOSE NEEDS MIGHT BE IS WE KNOW THAT We essentially need the same type of apparatus bay configuration as Fire Station 1 in Fire Station 2, which is what's currently contemplated in the site fit, which then requires us to look for a different site, which is where the Crosstown East parkland recommendation came from.

Here's the financial picture, financial plan for the equipment and vehicle fund. As you can see, certainly some larger expenditures in 2026. That really is the budget plus the carry-forwards. So we're at about $9 million. We're assuming we're spending all those carry-forwards once those vehicles come in. Most of them have been ordered. And then... The two larger blue bars are the areas where we have identified potential equipment certificates being issued. But during the five years of this plan, we are keeping our fund balance above our target and really maintaining that fund balance going forward. And again, as we go forward, this plan does include a slowly increasing property tax levy to prepare for a time when the HOFs fees are ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE TO US.

MADAM MAYOR, JUST A CLARIFICATION OF YOUR TERMINOLOGY. WHEN A CERTIFICATE IS ISSUED FOR A NEW PIECE OF EQUIPMENT, WE'RE BUYING ANOTHER ONE AND WE'RE GOING TO ISSUE DEBT TO PURCHASE IT. IS THAT WHAT THE CERTIFICATE REFERENCE IS?

YES. IT'S A BOND KIND OF QUOTATION MARKS BECAUSE IT'S EQUIPMENT. THEY CALL THEM EQUIPMENT CERTIFICATES, BUT IT BASICALLY IS A SHORTER-TERM DEBT INVESTMENT. The IT capital fund is next. Major projects include a $2.8 million ERP system that has been carried forward or has been rebudgeted from 2026 to 2027 with the focus on implementing a budget system in 2026. We did shift the ERP system to 2027. That really includes finance, HR, as well as a utility solution. And then we have some network equipment replacements as well as staff end-point device replacements and some camera replacements at the maintenance facility.

We've got to talk about the 2.8 because it's a big number. How old is the system that we're currently using? Have we long since depreciated that cost? And are we using an antiquated system and are overdue for a major update that's a big ticket. All of the above. So I think we need to explain to our viewing audience what it all really entails and why we're spending $2.8 million on it.

Certainly, Council Member Keeley. We are on a system that we implemented in 2006. So we've been on the system about 20 years.

Placing telephones.

Came in when I came in. Don't go wrong in 20 years, right?

Just a year after I came here, too. The software provider has notified us that they are no longer making improvements to the software, and while it currently works for us, certainly new software will provide features that we don't currently have, as well as just being a little more user-friendly. We certainly expect a lot of people are in our system every day. Departments are entering invoices and purchase orders and things like that, and so a new software will certainly... probably be a more modern and updated platform as well. So it just, you know, it's time and we definitely want to make that change before this platform doesn't work for us anymore.

Sounds like Windows. We're no longer supporting Windows 10.

You've got to get on 11. Madam Mayor, members of the council, this is a project that has moved several years out, so we've talked about this for a few years, as you recall. It is... reflective of one of the single most important projects that we will undertake over the course of this planning window. A very good example of a first step is this year we implemented, the finance team implemented a new budget system. Adam is our budget manager, has been helping the team through that. So everything you see tonight is completely informed by different technology. This project will expand that and help create the foundation by which, once we really have the basics down right, will give us the opportunity to look at new opportunities to connect with the community, increase transparency, improve connectedness across the community, look at how we make and shape priorities from a budgeting perspective. So it really gives us the foundation to move into the future at a faster, more EFFECTIVE PACE. SO IMPORTANT WORK, AND TO YOUR POINT, COUNCILMEMBER KEELY, A SIGNIFICANT INVESTMENT IN THE CURRENT IT CAPITAL FUND.

BUT I ALWAYS WANT TO TOUCH ON YOUR POINT ABOUT SORT OF GETTING UP TO MODERN. I MEAN, LEGACY SYSTEMS ARE GREAT BECAUSE THEY'VE BECOME VERY STABLE OVER TIME. IT'S ALSO A VERY EXPENSIVE PROCESS INTERNALLY FROM A TRAINING, YOU KNOW, THE CONVERSION PROCESS TO A SYSTEM THAT LARGE. has a price to pay with stress and time and training and a lot of other things. Is that all baked into that 2.8 or is that the software hardware acquisition cost?

We've planned for a consultant to help us with our selection process as well as we have plans for a consultant that could help us with implementation as well. So certainly we are thinking about those other costs and just the amount of work. Even as we plan for staffing resources, right? We're thinking about that as well in terms of making sure we have enough staff Staff are gonna have to continue to do the work that they're already doing as well as implement a new system. So we definitely are Trying to plan that out and make sure we're providing enough resources as we go through that I'm sure the there's there's a lot of new

Especially even now software is evolving at a very fast pace, but there's a lot of new tools So I think it'll be a great project and a process for the city staff to go through and and I'm really glad that City manager Lindberg hit on the benefits of this type of thing can go beyond this building right kind of how we connect and how we operate transparently to the public accessibility to things that's That'll take us light years ahead of where we've been.

It's the right time to do it, too, when we're doing the expansion of both City Hall and police and all of that.

A bigger, better, more transparent city.

Yeah. When you think about it in that totality...

Yeah. Yeah. This is a, that's not only a big price, that is a massive undertaking as a project. It is.

Yep. It will be, and we want to make sure we do it right the first time, right? And so we're being very thoughtful in planning that and one of the things with the budget system our ERP system served as our operating budget platform in the past and so we thought hey let's get our budget system up and working and make sure that's in place before we before we replace an ERP system because most likely most ERP systems these days don't have their own budgeting module. So we wanted to make sure really the biggest project that we have in a year is taken care of first.

Mayor and Council, I think that's another really great example of staff thinking about not just effectiveness, but efficiencies in our operation. The decision to approach the budget system first is going to set a foundation for us to make not just more effective decisions, but more efficient decisions down the road. when it comes to the technology that we're using and integrating at the core of our operations. So Jenny and Alyssa and Adam and the finance team, alongside the IT team, deserve a lot of credit for thinking differently. and not just going to market to spend $2.8 million on a system or a system project, but rather really thinking about what are the operational needs, how can we do it most effectively and most efficiently, not just for our operation, but for the community in terms of deliverables, outcomes, results, and how much it costs. Yeah.

And also reading in all of the information that you share with us, The updates to the website allows the budget to be in a way that is very efficiently put out and then very readable by the general public.

Yep, and we're looking to make additional advancements in that area as well, so certainly that's exciting.

And that addresses our transparency as well, so that's really great.

Some key assumptions. This fund has historically been a challenged fund in terms of overall fund balance. There was a 12% levy increase year over year in this fund. We increased the last four years 30%. Now that's 30% of what was going into the ITF fund, so that's about... you know, $150,000 to $250,000 a year. But really you'll see when we look at the finance plan that we did need to make an adjustment there. Our annual average expenditures are about $1.8 million and revenues are about $1.4 million. And our levy was about $1.1 million over the five years on average.

Is the telephone system that we're replacing, that's on a 26 budget, not on a 27? No.

Madam Mayor and Council Members, that's a project that's actually moving forward currently that was approved in the 2026 budget.

That's what I was thinking.

Yep, and it's a hosted platform, so it's the first phone platform that we'll be using that's cloud-based.

Yeah.

And we'll see a reduced amount of capital replacement costs going forward as a result of that.

Yeah, that's good, because I thought it was, we're looking at 27. That replacement was in the 26th budget.

And you'll notice a dramatic increase in features. Absolutely. It's a big jump.

Does that come with additional exposures to outside bad guys when we're going to a more cloud-based system?

The cloud-based platform that we're actually moving forward with is a government-only cloud-based platform. It's part of our Microsoft ecosystem through their government-only cloud services. So There's an added layer of protection as a result of that but we'll treat it like any new systems and we'll continue to apply our several multi-layered security to that platform too. A lot of new functions and features are available as a result and there may be some new risks as associated with that but we're taking that into consideration as we move that project forward and it'll just become another asset that we maintain like we do most of our IT assets today.

I was glad we weren't on Iran's hit list with the water treatment facilities. Even if we were, they wouldn't have gotten through.

And because I know that we have, I think it was 9-11, that we started hardening the water system plant. And you keep on top of that. And so we hardened the security of that water delivery system.

Well, members of the council, certainly one of the investments that we've asked the community and that you've asked the community to make through the ITF and other funds is a significant investment in cybersecurity. We take the protection of the public's data and our infrastructure seriously. Tom and his team have done quite a bit of work in this space over the course of the past couple of years, maybe just by way of education for the community and the council. Tom, can you talk a bit about what we've studied and what we've planned for in the current state of cybersecurity?

We went through a security assessment in early 2025 as a follow-up to previous assessments that we've done. over the last few years. This one really identified gaps which we anticipate with any assessment that we do and areas of focus that we want to bring forward that align with our capital improvements plan and our operating expenses and that really what we're doing today and what we're asking for in the budget going forward is a reflection of that most recent assessment from 2025. We're moving forward with additional managed services. We recognize that we don't have the staffing resources to stay on top of some of the newest risks and items out there that are malicious and are constantly attacking. And as a result of that, you'll also see going forward in our budget requests additional operating expense increases for additional security as a service services. primarily through LOGIS, but we're also using additional third parties. We don't put all of our eggs in one basket. We have, as I mentioned earlier, a multi-layered approach. That really is the essence of a good security plan, is making sure that you have several layers and resources available as incidents do occur and they will occur. Our goal is to minimize the risk and minimize the occurrence of those incidents that occur.

I remember the consultant coming in to present the study and the conclusions and what we need to do. So that was a good report.

We anticipate going through some more assessments in the future with third parties. We also have the ability to do self-assessments. We have tools in place today that we can ask ourselves how we're doing, score ourselves and create metrics that help us continue to improve our posture. It's probably one of the most increasing areas of time and effort from a labor standpoint in our group right now. And that will continue, but that's also why we're trying to address that through third party services that can help us stay on top of everything.

And I'm really grateful for the work that all of you do, especially with what happened to St. Paul and how quickly you made sure that ours was all hardened and secured.

I don't want to get too far off track here, but how does a city like Plymouth, I would imagine they have similar resources to us, find themselves in a situation like that?

There's a lot of variables, of course, between the different services that the cities provide. My understanding is they may not have the same involvement from their IT group in some of their services that they run. And it's just a different set of circumstances. I can't speak in detail of what occurred with Plymouth, but in general, it just depends on who is leading the effort to secure systems and platforms and how well that group may or may not be doing. We are involved in our water utility platform and have been since 2009 when we built out that fiber optic infrastructure.

Yeah.

And we continue to leverage that infrastructure along with the tools that we've been able to bring forward over the years to stay involved in the security of our water utilities specifically, but we're also very involved in a lot of the services across the organization that touch the city's network, essentially. And there may not be that same level of involvement in other organizations.

Well, it makes me feel better about spending almost $3 million on a system knowing that

I would much rather have security than being sorry with what happened in St. Paul and how many weeks that it took for them to even get back up to. And it was, I think it got two months. Jenny, back to you.

All right. Well, I think Tom took care of my last bullet point there. This is the fund. You do see that we do... This fund is more challenged than our other funds at the moment, but with that additional investment, we do get back to our targeted fund balance by 2031. Certainly, cash flow is going to depend. We have that entire large project in 2027. We anticipate that's probably not going to all happen in 2027. That's going to happen over a period of a year or two. maybe a little into 2029, so we may not see that fund balance dip as low as we're predicting, and we'll keep an eye on that.

And we do have a plan to meet that requirement. But we have a plan. Okay, good. Because I look at that.

And this fund, it really, you know, we've been ramping up those levies. We just added a little more in those last four years to really get us to that target by the end of the five-year plan. Okay.

So the challenge would be in 2017 where it's one-time spending?

Okay. One-time spending. And then we'll look at that. We'll want to make sure. What we'd like to do is match that levy to our, you know, match our levy to our average expenditures so that we're generally keeping pace with the costs. And historically in this fund, we haven't really gotten there yet. The next fund is the Infrastructure Trust Fund. Major projects really are quite simple here. The spending in this fund is really all going to street improvements of about $4 million planned for 2027. This fund overall, the five-year capital plan increased about 36% in this fund, or about $9.5 million. That really... is subsequent or following the infrastructure trust fund study and the investment in that five-year strategy to get our levy up to what we need to maintain our pavement conditions. Certainly the levy was funded or the levy was informed by the study. 2027 did not change. That includes a 3% increase year over year in that fund. And then an average of 15% increases from 2027 through 2032. Municipal state aid is also received in this project as there are some MSA funded projects. that run through the ITF. We've maintained that allocation assumption at a level amount of $2.8 million a year. That matches our 2026 allocation. MSA, though, is not received or recognized until we have projects that are MSA eligible. We also receive a small amount of transportation and advancement aid. We expect about 109,000 in 2027. That program started in 2024. We received 23,000, I think 72,000, and about 90,000 is expected this year. We don't have any plans for additional debt in this fund. And this capital planning here and the projects are informed by the pavement management plan, our traffic signal study, and our horizontal infrastructure study. Key assumptions here, that 2027 through 2031 capital improvement plan includes an annual average increase of $2 million in project expenditures, and that really aligns with the ITF study recommendations and funding strategy. So with those assumptions, we do have this finance plan. You can see we are a little bit below what our target fund balance is. The ITF study did recommend an increase in that kind of targeted fund balance or that reserve in that fund. This reserve is set at a certain percentage of annual expenditures, so right now we're recommending about $2.5 million in a target fund balance in this fund. And with this plan, we're a little bit below it, but you can see in 2031 we do get to the target. We did do an additional bit of work here on an option that does include land sale proceeds. Recently the city closed on a couple of land sales, surplus land sales, and there is $2.1 million available in surplus land sale revenue. in 2026. Staff is recommending depositing that in the infrastructure trust fund. That would help alleviate the increase in the property tax levy over the five years of this plan. So 3% remains the same in 2027. with 12% increases in actually that should say 28 through 31 instead of 15% increases. So it does reduce the property tax burden a little bit over the five-year window, about 0.25% on the total levy. It also would ensure reserves stay above the targeted fund balance. So certainly would like the council's feedback on that and direction, but with that, this is what the difference in the two levies look like. It is a little bit different amount in each year, but again, that's about .25% on the total levy across the five years of the plan. And that finance plan would look a little bit different with that ending fund balance being a little bit higher, and then revenues are a little bit lower. We don't have to raise revenues quite as quickly over that five-year window. So that is an option, and I wanted to show it both ways so you had that perspective.

Madam Mayor? Yeah. When we reviewed that shift of land sale funds, I thought that was also driven by a need for increasing the miles of road to be repaired so it was going to get spent, which would still leave the fund back down, per se, unless we were layering it on top of the existing spend. I like the plan. I'm just wondering, is it Is it about getting the balance up, or is it about funding it greater so we can get more roads repaired?

Well, the way it's structured right now, and it could be structured differently. You could do it on top of if we wanted to do more roads sooner. It really was to ease that property tax burden of that kind of having to really amp up that levy.

So was the plan with the levy pre that decision? Mm-hmm. ACCOMMODATING MORE ROAD REPAIRS.

THEY'RE ACCOMMODATING THE SAME AMOUNT.

THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT. WHEN WE LOOKED AT THAT PAVEMENT INDEX AND THE ROAD CONDITION AND ALL THAT, IT SEEMED LIKE IT NEEDED A SHOT IN THE ARM TO ACTUALLY INCREASE HOW MANY, CALL IT MILES OF ROAD EACH YEAR WE WERE REPAIRING

Councilmember Keeley, it really is the two options are the same amount of roads. It really is just helping to get those reserves up earlier and easing that levy increase a little bit in that four to five-year plan.

And it directly benefits our taxpayers.

It does, which, I mean, there's a lot of great benefit there. I WAS JUST TRYING TO GET BACK, YOU KNOW, TO THE SOURCE, YOU KNOW, HOW MUCH MARK NEEDS TO KEEP UP WITH THE DETERIORATION OF THE ROADS, WHICH MEANS IT WOULD INDICATE A NET INCREASE IN ROADS, MILES REPAIRED OR FEET, HOWEVER YOU MEASURE IT, EACH YEAR, RIGHT, TO START TO CATCH UP WITH THE LEVEL OF EROSION OF OUR ROADS CONDITIONS, RIGHT, ROAD CONDITIONS.

The first version of the plan was based on direction after the May ITF study. So it did give them that recommended bump up. And then in this version, it just allows us to do the same thing, but just not. So there is a net bump built into it?

Correct. Madam Mayor, members of the Council, really, the staff recommendation here is reflective of the Council's May 2026 direction, Council Member Keeley, that you were referencing, which is all about investing further resources into maintaining our streets, maintaining that core critical infrastructure. So the study itself found that We currently, or at the time, had invested around $3.1 million annually compared to an estimated $6 million need so that the May direction helped to fill that gap then that otherwise without increased investment that happened in May would have resulted in about 11 additional miles if memory serves. today would have gone to 40 miles in 10 years?

Yeah, I think that was.

In that neighborhood?

Yeah, that's what I remember.

So that May direction does address more streets. The options, more street reconstruction and caring for more street miles and maintaining that pavement condition index that we identified through the pavement management plan. The options in front of you today, both the first and the second option, that second option really really does two things. It reduces the cost to taxpayers by about an annual average impact of a quarter of a percent on the total levy a year and repositions the fund balance to meet the policy that the council adopted in May without levying additional to get there.

And the same amount of streets.

Yeah, so it has that bump of increase that we made decision. This just helps buffer the cost of it.

Yeah, it just buffers that impact in those initial years.

And based on Travis's presentation at our previous meeting, maybe there's some opportunity to buffer it even further if we can identify some properties.

Yeah. DG?

More properties.

I do like this plan, but I'm struck by the fact this has spread out over five years at a 2.52% decrease in the levy, which does save our taxpayers some money. But just going through this presentation tonight and listening to our equipment fund or possibly some things in the parks, our technology that we have to do, which is a big one-time spend for us next year, which would give us an immediate impact of the overall. I mean, I think every one of them has a need, and I'm trying to weigh out what's going to get us the best impact for it. Over a five-year period of time, I'm not sure we save the taxpayers that much money per year. as we would if we were to take something like this and go into our technology and suddenly we got 2.1 million to go in there to make some of that stuff happen. So we're not levying for that whole thing in one year as opposed to over a five-year period of time. And I look at the same thing with our equipment funding as well, is we're doing it in one year instead of over a five-year period of time again. And so we get an immediate impact for, and I'm trying to keep my mind in one-time spending mode, which is, What's going to impact us most for a one-time spend as opposed to just piecemealing over a five-year period of time?

Council Member Goff-Sipson? As we look at this, we were thinking about it kind of with that one-time funding lens and really trying to figure out what makes sense, where could it make a difference. And part of the spreading in over five years is to really avoid any large dips and large increases, right? So we could certainly use it all in one year, but that also has an impact of then the increase in the levy has to be larger in the next year. So really trying to smooth it out over a year, over a number of years. And as we looked at parks and equipment and vehicle, that was also why instead of maybe taking one big increase since we have some time and a little bit of runway in terms of, you know, when we're going to have more challenges with our funding. We wanted to start that now and maybe build it rather than having just kind of rise and fall, rise and fall, right? Okay.

So that's kind of what we kept in mind. Just so you know, I'm good with every one of them, including the infrastructure, but I just want to make sure that when we make this decision to spend this kind of money, what's going to give us our best impact immediately? And quite frankly, I have very, very much big concerns about what's happening at the county right now because I don't know how that's going to impact us. From everything I've been reading and hearing about, things may get rolled down to us where we're going to start picking up a lot more of the tab for things that happen in this city that the county's been part of for us for the time. We got to be prepared for that.

And I understand what you're concerned about, but one of the things that I have great confidence in is how we do capital improvement planning and the things that our staff have done and the information that we have because ultimately, What we're doing here is following through with the things that we said that we would do and how the capital improvement plan and the financial management plan has guided us to get us to where we are. So I have great confidence and trust in the work that we're doing. You know, we have no, yeah, but it's good for us to understand what's happening at the county, but we have no control over it.

We don't, but we can at least prepare ourselves for if the worst case happens.

And I think we understand that and that we'll get there, but I want to make sure that we stay on track with the plans that we have done and directed staff to do, and I have great confidence in the work that has been done.

I have confidence in our staff.

Yeah, yeah.

Good. And the next budget work session, we'll talk more about those overall levy impacts, right? So we'll kind of roll everything together.

I think I'd like to hear more on that.

Yep, so we'll talk. All of these changes will be rolled up, and then as well as operating funds, and we'll see that total impact to the levy. But this also allows us to have some some fund balance to respond if there are streets or changes that need to be made. So this also keeps a little bit more of a reserve in this ITF fund over the five years. Okay. The next fund is improvement construction. This fund is related to the ITF fund, but really this is our centralized street construction fund. It really is a zero balance fund. All those street improvement projects run through there and then are funded through either the ITF or various utility funds. So there is generally a zero balance in this fund. What does stay in here or the activity that does kind of live in this fund are the special assessment components of the revenue and expenditures, as well as any state and federal grants for street projects. Currently, we do not have grants planned or built into the CIP, but if there are any identified, those will be added to future CIPs if that happens. So this is a little bit, this isn't very exciting, but basically revenue in equals expenditures out in this fund. Street maintenance fund this fund is really for kind of routine maintenance preventative roadway maintenance and so the mate and pavement markings and right-of-way maintenance so Expenditures in this fund are about nine hundred thousand dollars or actually seven hundred seven eight hundred thousand dollars annually and Key assumptions here, the funding for this work is accomplished through transfers from the general fund as well as transfers from the water and sewer storm water funds for it to help fund that street and their components of the street. This fund is generally in a pretty stable situation. Revenues and expenditures are generally balanced in this fund. Certainly we do have about $1.4 million in fund balance. It is well over the required reserve, but generally we are budgeting this in a way that is generally not building up a large fund balance over time, but just maintaining what we have. the facilities fund. So in this fund we have major facility projects ongoing. Police City Hall is one of those. The May 25th, May 2025 groundbreaking happened with plan completion in 2028. The bid day cost budget of that, this facility is $98 million. Capital improvement bonds of $68.6 million were issued in May of 2025. We anticipate the second tranche of bonds being issued before the end of the year. So remaining bonds, we could issue up to $31.4 million, but we're working with our financial advisor on kind of narrowing down what that issue amount might be, as well as kind of what the status of the project is. Fire Station 2, that is also a large project that is included in the budget in this fund. Architect and engineering design service contracts were approved in July. Those total about $1.5 million. The CIP estimate of $35 million was included for 2028. Schematic design estimates are expected by early 2027, so we'll have some updated cost numbers. At that time, we'll come back to the council to discuss any additional financing and franchise fee implications, and those will be planned early, probably early next year. In addition to large facility projects, we have repair and maintenance across all facilities included in this fund. A little over $3 million was proposed for 2027. Those investments are largely informed by the municipal facilities inventory. One project that isn't included yet, but we're working on, we do have a public safety memorial project that hasn't yet been included in the proposed CIP. We don't really have good cost numbers, but once schematic design is completed, we'll incorporate that into the CIP as well. And that would be something on this site, kind of in conjunction with the facilities, the police and city hall project.

Madam Mayor, members of the council, you'll recall that throughout responding to the tragedy of February 18th, we've prioritized taking care of our fallen families, taking care of our police and fire departments. This is a project that very much is reflective of that commitment. So we're making some progress on a permanent public memorial, and we also recognize that it's very important to take our time to get it right. So rather than suggest in this fund a placeholder for the project, we didn't find that to be appropriate. Rather, we'll come back to you and discuss the cost of the project. We do expect this to be a 2027 project. We also do expect there to be some efficiencies and some effectiveness found in constructing it as part of the Police City Hall project with the siting decision. So more to come this year.

Okay. And this is separate from the bridge memorial?

Correct.

And we don't have those numbers?

members of the council, there is included in the CIP planned numbers for a bridge lighting project. The Burnsville Parkway Bridge over 35W was recognized by the state as the Heroes Memorial Bridge for Paul, Matt, and Adam. This is a separate project from that. There is a city-funded lighting project that we plan to bring back to you even as early as the next couple of weeks to talk more about the anticipated cost and funding strategy for that project. But there is currently capital funds that are planned for that project. Okay.

I just want people to understand these are two different projects. There's a memorial bridge. And then the Heroes Bridge, and then this is one that's going to be here on campus.

Correct. This item is a permanent public safety memorial that will be on this site or planned tentatively to be on this site that we would bring back to you both from a funding and a project perspective sometime later this year.

Okay. But we'll see the bridge lighting project with what that's going to look like. Coming in about, what, two months, do you think?

Madam Mayor, members of the council, I have a meeting with our team tomorrow morning to talk more about the bridge lighting project, and I'll have more information then, and we'll share more with you again. We absolutely are taking our time on these projects. We want to make sure that we get it right. We want to make sure that we're caring for our fallen families and putting those commitments and priorities first. So that's been the approach. But yes, I expect that to come back, or I expect, excuse me, the Heroes Memorial Bridge lighting project to come back FOR CITY COUNCIL DISCUSSION AND DIRECTION LIKELY BEFORE WE TALK ABOUT THE PERMANENT PUBLIC SAFETY MEMORIAL PROJECT THAT JENNY HAS ON SLIDE HERE.

OKAY.

MAJOR 2027 PROJECTS, OUTSIDE OF THOSE MAJOR FACILITY PROJECTS, WE DO HAVE AIM CENTER THEATER SEATING SCHEDULED. AIM Center upper and lower lobby ceilings, so about $1.4 million for those projects. HOC ramp traffic membrane, so that's about $475,000, as well as ICE Center main electrical switchboard and transformer. So some pretty large projects across a number of facilities. Some key assumptions here, utility franchise fees fund the majority of expenditures in this fund in 2027. We estimate those at about $11.3 million. Included in the activity in this fund are also annual facilities debt service, which is currently about $7.5 million of that $11.3 million. And again, this does address facility needs across the city, really throughout all city facilities. The only exceptions to that would be the utility sites, and those are funded through the respective utility funds. Here is the plan for the facilities fund. We do have that $100 million project really does impact the perspective of this, but we are maintaining a fund balance that's above our targeted reserve out into the future, and accumulating some fund balance. So this fund is right now functioning as intended, and we're in a good place here. The Water and Sewer Utility Fund. So we are scheduled, or we are planning to actually separate these two funds. Currently right now they are reported together or commingled as one fund and we are in the process of making that that'll really help ease and help make future rate studies and other things much more simpler with these two funds. But right now they're currently together, but we did start with budgeting them separately. So the major 2027 water projects are about a million eight in street improvements that did increase. And that increase was really due to the funding strategy in the ITF fund. We talked about there will be some additional shifts into the water and sewer fund. There's a $3 million Highway 13 frontage roads water portion. That's about $3 million. That really is the work on Highway 13 from Savage to, I think it's Vincent. WELL REHAB OF $890,000, AS WELL AS THE ROOF FOR THE NICHOLAS RESERVOIR. MAJOR SANITARY SEWER PROJECTS INCLUDE LIFT STATION REHAB FOR WASH BURN LIFT STATION AT 1,000,005. THE SEWER COMPONENT OF THOSE FRONTAGE ROAD IMPROVEMENTS ALONG HIGHWAY 13, AS WELL AS LINING OF THE VITRIFIED CLAY PIPE THAT WE HAVE IN THE SYSTEM AT $870,000. Key assumptions here, really addressing those high-criticality items that were in the five-year capital plan. Informed by the studies that we've done, the CIP is informed for water and sewers, informed by a number of studies, including the water treatment plan assessment, horizontal infrastructure study, as well as the fleet study, and the ITF study, even, and pavement management plan. Again, this year we have engaged elders to update the utility rate study. Last year's study indicated water rates would increase about 7% annually in the future, or in the five-year plan, and sewer would increase 9.5% in 2027 and 4% annually thereafter. So that's kind of where we were last year at this time. We do expect some additional rate increases for implementation of that integrated utility funding strategy for street improvement. So we did allocate additional street improvement cost related to the utility funds to the utility funds. So we do expect those increases to be higher this year as we go through that study. But we'll talk about that in September. and we'll present financial information for the fund at that September fee meeting. Stormwater Utility Fund, major projects there, again, street improvements, and some ravine restoration and slope stabilization at $550,000. Replacement projects of storm sewer main, as well as pond clean out and outfall improvement programs. Some routine projects, typical projects. We've also engaged Ehlers to update the study, utility rate study here. The 2026 study indicated rate increases about four and a quarter percent going forward. We do anticipate an increase here as well based on the ITF study and implementing the integrated utility funding strategy for street improvement. So really exciting. putting some of those stormwater, more of those stormwater related expenditures in the stormwater fund. Again, we'll come back with financial information at the September fee meeting as well as present the utility rate study at that time. AIM Center Fund, this fund also has individual capital purchases. $560,000 is proposed in this fund for theatrical lighting with an LED conversion. Financial information for this fund will also be presented at the September fee meeting. Usually all the enterprise funds are presented at that time. And with that, this is just a little reminder of the budget calendar and the meetings ahead. Our next, we'll have department budget presentations next with the proposed budget and tax study discussion on September 8th, the remaining department presentations as well. And then on September 15th, we'll discuss the proposed fees as well as the rate study and the remainder of the funds. September 22nd, the proposed city and EDA property tax levy is scheduled to be adopted. We do have a discussion on the proposed budget scheduled for November 24th, if needed, and final city and EDA property tax levy and budget adoption on December 8th. And with that, I'm complete. That was a long presentation, I know, tonight. But if there are any questions, I'm here for any questions.

You ran me out of questions.

Any questions? Thank you, Jenny. It's always good to see what we're looking forward to, especially with what we remember from 26 and what we did back then. So... Yeah, so thank you very much. Okay, with that, we're going to department budgets.

I'll hand it over to Chief Smith and he can talk about the police department budget. Police first.

Madam Mayor, members of the council, yeah, they got the new guy going first, so we'll see how this goes.

We'll start with our department overview here.

The Burnsville Police Department is dedicated to strengthening our culture and delivering the highest level of public safety service. grounded in our mission and core values to ensure procedural justice and protect the dignity and sanctity of human life. So our investment, kind of our impacts that we're looking at, really is to procure adequate resources to maintain the high level of service that we have for the community, leverage new technology and strategies regarding violent crime reduction, and ensure adequate staffing to meet the community's needs. So these are kind of the three bullet points that drive a big part of what our budget proposal is. Achievements, I should hit the button for this one. Achievements and challenges, we had about 49,000, just shy of 50,000 calls for service in 2025. We collaborated with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions Violent Crime Reduction Unit That investigator actually just started on Monday and is really excited to be there. So thank you for your investment in that We've acquired specialized equipment for officer and community safety that includes two armored rescue vehicles one of which we received a Few months ago and the other one we're actually going to inspect next week and we hope to be here with by the end of the month so that's really exciting as well as some other just protective equipment and

And your command vehicle comes when?

That will be about two years. That just got ordered, I think, two weeks ago.

Yeah, because we just approved that. Correct. And the nice thing about that, there was no match.

I would defer to Chief Jungman on that, but yes, correct?

Yes, there was no match.

Excellent.

Now, the upfitting of that was all included.

Madam Mayor, members of the council, good question. Yes, similar to what you saw in the fleet portion of the capital presentation tonight, that is the cost the council has seen and has planned in the CAP is the total cost.

Okay, good. Because I wasn't quite sure when we got that grant whether that also included the upfitting.

Okay. Yeah, I think the whole thing was budgeted for and then the grant was just going to be offset.

When we applied for the grant?

Correct.

Okay.

Moving on to this page, other achievements and kind of challenges at the same time is adapting to the rapidly evolving technology to assist in maintaining public safety. I think we're just seeing that a lot of these technology costs are increasing quickly. Some of the achievements in that area, we have our Peregrine contract, and we were able to purchase two camera trailers this year that we've had out. A challenge that I know Chief Schwartz brought up, I believe, during this presentation last year is in some of our staffing and specifically the span of control at the command level. We have some captains, one captain in particular, supervising more than what would be recommended. So you'll see as we move through the slides here, one of our requests for 2027 is an additional captain position.

Okay. Okay.

And then, again, looking for innovative ways to address violent crime, that BCA violent crime unit was one that we've been able to start and we continue to look for ways to utilize technology and other strategies to get after the violent crime. I kind of mentioned it just a minute ago, but one of the cost drivers is just the cost of the technology. More technology, we are more technology driven. And that's an area where costs are just ever increasing. We need to ensure that our critical equipment is replaced on schedule according to the expected life cycle. We have some changes you'll see as we move in here. They were items that had been in the IT budget that we've moved from the IT budget to the PD budget. So there's an increase in the PD budget, but citywide it's a wash. And then again, I believe it's on the next slide we'll talk about, the additional staffing requests that we are requesting in the 2027 budget. Council Member Gustafson is back just in time for his first one. We have had county social workers, a social worker working out of here. paid for by the county. The county did recently ask us if we would want to do a 50-50 split for 2027. It's our feeling that we would get more out of having this social work be funded 100% by the city. One thing we found is that She and she would apply for the job But they count the county social worker we have right now is pulled in a lot of different directions Because they're a county employee and they're working out of here. So we just feel like if we could Staff that full-time and pay for it, but the city we would get get more out of that. Yeah The second one this was identified in the organizational analysis from several years ago would be a patrol officer position and then again Captain position which I think we've talked about over the last several years trying to Even out a little bit of that we we are very thankful for the support this council and the mayor have given us With adding staff and we just need to kind of right size what administration looks like to oversee that staff that we've added Yes, okay, how many captains do we have today I We have three captains today.

And you're requesting going to four?

Go to four. I know our neighboring agencies, Eagan is up to five. They are lieutenants there, but they're equivalent in the, there's five, and Lakeville has recently gone to five also.

Have they also increased their boots on the ground patrol and sworn officers as well?

I don't know that answer. I just know that they did add the fifth position recently.

We've been running very lean, and we need to make sure. And Chief Schwartz had talked to us about this two years ago, and they didn't pull the switch on it, but now we need to do it.

Chief, can you explain the leadership structure of the three current captains and the deputy chief and what this does more specifically or what the addition of another patrol captain would do to alleviate some of the stress and well-being concerns that we have?

Good question. Madam Mayor, members of the council, currently our structure, we have the chief and, of course, the deputy chief who assists with the day-to-day operations. Our captains, we have one captain, and this has been this way for a while, for several years, that oversees professional standards. So that's all the policy, hiring, sort of the personnel side of things. We have another captain that oversees behavioral health, investigations, community engagement. And so that position, I think, has four or five sergeants reporting to them. And typically five is about the recommended amount of people that would report to you. The third captain has patrol. We currently have nine patrol sergeants. That person is also supervising the administrative sergeant because there's such a nexus with patrol. So we have one captain overseeing 10 patrol sergeants, which in and of itself is just too many. And I think when you add in the 24 hour coverage, it just becomes very hard to get touch points with those sergeants that work all these different shifts. And so when you talk about trying to make sure that the sergeants get the support so that they can give proper support to the officers so the officers can serve the community, that is a point where we think having another captain would allow those 10 sergeants to be split between the two of them and they would get much better support.

And where does investigation fall under?

That is under the with behavioral health and community engagement.

Boy, that captain then has a full load also.

He does. At least numbers-wise, it's a little more appropriate how the span of control lands there.

Yeah, but the number of cases you guys work on, both now in behavioral health and also in investigation, it's a lot. And on behavioral health, it gets more and more because of the mental health issues that you guys are attending to.

Madam Mayor, members of the council, you are correct, there's a lot. I do think sometimes when we add

to, say, a patrol captain here, that doesn't mean they're only helping with patrol.

Sometimes they're going to help. That's going to help just inadvertently what else is going on in the department and vice versa. So I think as a team effort, it would allow the ability to spread the span of control more evenly.

Okay. Okay.

This next slide are capital improvements for 2027. We really don't have a long list of them. We have our regularly scheduled vehicle replacements. We are coming due to have our handguns replaced. It's been 10 years since we did that, so that would include the handguns, new sights, and they would need to have new holsters because they're a different generation of handguns and sights. And then we put up here drone program enhancement. We're looking to add one more drone to the fleet.

Was there a time that we also could apply for grants to cover some of our handguns and long guns?

I don't recall, Madam Mayor, I don't recall applying for grants for handguns. We can certainly look into something like that.

I WAS JUST WONDERING AT BURN JAG IF WE DID THAT WITH THE BURN JAG GRANTS, BUT THEN, YOU KNOW, IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I THOUGHT ABOUT THAT.

MADAM MAYOR, MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL, CERTAINLY WE LOOK AT GRANT FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES AND ALTERNATIVE SOURCES OF REVENUE FOR THIS AND MANY OTHER OPERATIONAL NEEDS. The police department does an excellent job at maximizing state and federal grant opportunities, so certainly something we'll keep our eye on into the future. I'm not, off the top of my head, I don't recall the specifics of previous grant funding.

And I haven't seen any in a long time, so I was just wondering, since we're looking at replacement. And I saw in Jenny's report, she had a zero in grant funding, federal grant funding. that we were going on for.

Madam Mayor, that was for streets.

That was for streets.

Madam Mayor, I also don't recall if, yeah, I just looked it up. The Byrne J grant that we got, that we most recently got, was for $20,000-ish, and I think that's what we shared with Apple Valley. Not much. And we have used that. We've earmarked that for some use as well.

Yeah, okay, but not much.

Here are our major changes on the operations side. Axiom is a forensics, it's a computer forensics program. The Axel Group, we've entered into our budget to refresh the staffing study that we did about four years ago now. A lot has changed in those four years. Some really great time off benefits, but that is also, you know, having an effect on our schedule. So we just want to refresh what our staffing looks like. Ballistic shields we have up there. There's the burn jag funding we were talking about. That's just a placeholder for the things that we've identified we're going to purchase. The captain we just mentioned. Sea gin partner fees, which are now combined with the old records management system. Those went up. a little bit. DCC operating budget, you can see that went up about $76,000. LETS is a collaborative incident response that allows negotiators to work with members of the SWAT team and others on scenes of critical incidents. We have some night vision goggles, the officer we talked about. Our radios, we pay a fee per radio per month to have access to the actual radio. radial system that fee went up. And so you see that there in the 2027 amount, and then the social worker that we discussed from the county, our revenues, uh, actually you see it went up about $307,000. A big portion of that is from adding in the reimbursement from the state for the BCA is violent crime. officer that we put there, and then there was a little bit of a change in the insurance premium tax from the state. And my final slide, this is just broken down by division, the changes. I'll point out one thing. You'll see patrol went down minus 2%. That was really because of some workers' compensation numbers that mitigated the increase. we ended up with about, what is that, $347,000 decrease. Madam Mayor and members of the council, do you have any questions?

Yeah, DK.

Thank you, Chief. I appreciate that level of detail, too. Question on the cost of the captain. Is that a captain's salary, or is that the net effect of promoting a sergeant and then promoting a patrolman to sergeant and then bringing on another patrolman to kind of replace.

Council Member Keeley, that was a captain's salary, so it would be an additional full-time position.

So the net add, though, is promoting from within, from a sergeant to go up, and then a patrol officer to a sergeant, and then a new patrol officer. Does that essentially equate to the same thing, the cost of a new patrol officer, and then those two incremental increases in existing salaries ends up being about the same as what that captain's total salary is?

Yeah, Council Member Keeley, I think. There's different ways to look at it, but essentially the FTE we would be adding would be the captains, but yes, you'd be shifting as they moved up.

And then in addition, one more patrol officer, and that was just strictly boots on the ground, another patrol officer on top of what we had added over the last four years, I guess, or whatever it was? Yes. Okay.

MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL, JUST FOR CLARITY'S SAKE, THE ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS FOR 2027 CALLED FOR BOTH THAT PATROL OFFICER POSITION AND THE POLICE CAPTAIN POSITION. YOU ALSO MIGHT RECALL AND FOR THE COMMUNITY'S BENEFIT FOR THOSE WHO ARE WATCHING, WE'VE TAKEN A NEW APPROACH NOW WITH THE 2027 BUDGET AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS GETTING THROUGH KIND OF THAT the four-year plan of the original organizational analysis where we're dealing with staffing requests based on the studies and operational plans that we do internally, and then using the budget process to determine whether or not those identified needs would be funded in the coming operating budgets, kind of taking that year-over-year evaluation approach over time. So both of those positions were identified. as staffing needs in the 2027 organizational analysis. The one in the police department that wasn't is the question on bringing the social worker position into the organization.

Can we dig into that a little deeper? What is the hourly demand based on the history of that social worker? Like the weekly average, monthly average? you know, based on the cases that they are involved in or the circumstances that they're involved in.

Council Member Keeley, that's a good question. I don't have the breakdown here. What I'm told is that we're probably getting less than a quarter of an FTE actually going out, taking calls because of the requirements at the county level that she's being pulled into and asked to do and various administrative tasks that come from the county.

Sure. which that was part of the thing up front, right? It was a partnership. We're going to give you this person. They weren't giving us a full-time person. They were sharing a person with us.

Only when she's available.

Yeah, so I agree with your suggestion that we bring the person in-house, but I'm trying to get at what's the hourly demand for that person that's driving that decision.

Council Member McKeeley, we will look into some of that. DO BELIEVE THEY GAVE ME SOME ITEMS. I JUST DON'T HAVE IT RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.

CAN I ASK A FOLLOW-UP ON WHAT YOU'RE ASKING, DAN? YEAH. I GUESS I'M MORE INTERESTED IN WHAT, HOW OFTEN DO WE LOSE THAT PERSON'S SERVICES BECAUSE THE COUNTY PULLED THEM AWAY AND WE ACTUALLY COULD HAVE USED THAT PERSON IS PROBABLY MORE IMPORTANT IN MY MIND.

COUNCIL MEMBER GUSTIVAN, I THINK THAT'S WHERE And don't quote me on the number, but what I was told was about 25% of the time we have her here. And so about 75% of the time she's out doing other tasks, not for the county somewhere else. Right. Okay.

Well, she has a caseload at the county as well.

I get that, but I'm just saying we're losing those services for that period of time and that we could use that person.

Yeah, that's really the genesis of why I'm asking is that 75% jump. Yeah. is the whole 75% driven by demand, or is it twice what we have her, which is that would make it a half-time person, right? What would we have her do in the other half of that time if the call volume were the same going forward?

Yeah. Matt?

Madam Mayor, members of the council, I think there would be work. Sadly, there would be work for her for the full time. I mean, anecdotally listening to the radio, there's no shortage of mental health calls. Go ahead.

Madam Mayor, members of the council, I think that's probably the most important point of trying to quantify this is we believe that, to the Chief's point, it's about 25% of the individual's time that is being spent on Burnsville-specific casework addressing mental health needs and supporting the department from a crisis and community well-being perspective. And really, when you just do the simple math from our perspective, although we very much appreciate the partnership of the county, the county has funded this program for years, That's been an important collaborative effort with the county's request for the city to fund 50% of that position. You start getting to very small numbers in terms of the outcome or result that the city is getting for that investment, and if we're going to invest 50%, we believe that really the full investment in bringing that in-house, much like the council and staff talked in our most recent off-site annual retreat, has an exponentially more significant benefit to the mental health needs of the community and of the department moving forward. As a matter of fact, we probably could quantify additional need beyond that when it comes to our mental health, well-being, behavioral health unit needs.

Can I follow up? Yeah. So we're getting into just high level at this point, but sort of usage and demand. I agree 100%, no reason not to agree that there are mental health calls coming in all the time. How would this person cover THOSE CALLS SEVEN DAYS A WEEK AS A FULL-TIME EMPLOYEE, MAYBE THAT'S TO GREG'S POINT, THERE'S REALLY A NEED FOR MORE THAN ONE, BUT, YOU KNOW, MENTAL HEALTH CALLS AREN'T NINE TO FIVE, RIGHT? THEY'RE EVENINGS, SOMETIMES OVERNIGHT, EARLY MORNINGS, WEEKENDS. WOULD THIS PERSON HAVE THAT SORT OF FLEXIBILITY IN THAT SCHEDULE AS IF THEY WERE BROUGHT ON AS A FULL-TIME EMPLOYEE?

COUNCIL MEMBER KEELEY, THAT'S A GOOD QUESTION, AND WITH OUR BEHAVIORAL HEALTH UNIT, EVEN AMONGST THEM, THEY WORK SOME MORE FLEXIBLE HOURS, BUT YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. We can't cover with what we have, 24 hours a day. It does allow her to be here for follow-ups, which is helpful. As luck would have it, the very last document I looked had the information you were asking for. So this was from May. But last year, the current social worker was responsible for 468 of our 826 cases assigned for follow-up. So those would be cases the next day that she could help with in 2026 as of that date may 20th this year it was 173 out of 357 calls to date and then it was as i thought they're saying that we receive about 25 of the social workers overall work time due to county-wide obligations and staffing shortages and they're able to cover about half the caseload it sounds like which yeah from a quarter of the time so well you know i certainly am in support of

of the concept i think there's a lot to be discussed as far as coverage so that when a call comes in they're available because that's why we would want to have the full time is just always be there when that type of serious call comes in and we would rely on her or his at some point maybe services uh to help the pd yes and i think it's important to note madam mayor members

We still have access to the county's crisis line. We still utilize dispatch takes in calls and triages them. And there's a lot of calls that do get sent just off to Dakota's social services. So there are still.

There's like additional depth of resources.

Yeah, there are people available if she were not to be there.

Great. I just want to close out by saying thanks on air. TO THE DAKOTA COUNTY. I MEAN, WHEN WE CAME UP WITH THIS SOME YEARS AGO, IT'S REALLY NICE FOR THEM TO STEP UP AND SAY, BECAUSE THEY HAVE THOSE SPECIALTY RESOURCES IN THEIR STAFF WHERE WE DON'T. AND IT'S BEEN REALLY A GREAT PARTNERSHIP TO HAVE THAT. IT'S WHAT GOT IT OFF THE GROUND. IT'S WHAT GOT US TO WHERE WE ARE TODAY. it's probably time for us to take it in-house. Go ahead.

I like the fact that we're going to be well-rounded because we have a paramedic embedded as well, so that helps with the medication aspect of when we get those calls. And now we have a backup with a social worker that can follow up ON THOSE KINDS OF CALLS AS WELL. BECAUSE PSYCHOLOGICALLY IT'S NOT WHEN YOU ADDRESS THE ISSUE, WHEN IT HAPPENS, YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE FOLLOW-UP.

CORRECT. MADAM MAYOR, MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL, AND COUNCIL MEMBER KEELEY, I'M GLAD YOU MENTIONED THAT. simply an opportunity that has presented itself for us to bring a person, a position in house. It is, we are very thankful for the county's partnership and this is in no way sort of a negative thing. It's just an opportunity that's presented itself.

It's basically like a federal grant gets us three years with an officer or a firefighter and then we're on our own. They gave us that grant to get us the program going. So I think we've grown big enough that we can take it from here and appreciate their help.

Because I know in the behavioral health unit, they're always following up on these cases until they can hand it off to a psychologist or a psychiatrist for meds and follow-up counseling. Because I know they're always busy. So I think it's in the right direction. Makes us well-rounded.

Madam Mayor, members of the council, thank you.

Madam Mayor, members of the council, just for for clarity's sake, from a policy direction, is the City Council supportive or comfortable of moving forward with the concept of including embedded social work funding in the city's budget, or do you like additional information or additional conversation?

Are you in?

I think it's imperative that we have that. Okay.

100%.

Unanimous. Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay.

Madam Mayor, members of the Council, thank you.

Okay.

All right, I'm going to hand it over. Are you next? We'll see.

Okay, it's Garrett's turn.

As we make the transition, Mayor and Council, again, the city obviously is grateful for the county's partnership and support and the social work program, and I'll make sure that the county manager knows our direction, and we'll keep working through the budget process. You'll hear more about this in the operating budget presentation that will happen in September as well.

Okay, Garrett. The floor is yours.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council. So the Parks, Recreation, and Facilities Department includes recreation facilities management, which is a combination of both caring for our infrastructure, but it also includes the daily cleaning and the room setups and different things like that. The Burns Hole Ice Center, Burnwood Golf Course, and our team exists to provide great spaces, places, and activities for the community. So some of the things going on in 2027, we have some staff reallocation, which I'll talk about later on, and an overall budget reduction in the recreation budget. In addition to the in-house work that our team does, Constantly looking to collaborate with outside groups to help offer programming out into the community and have a lot of engagement both with our own activities and also You know if there's different projects or programs going on in our department or other departments helping with that process as well We were very close to wrapping up our recreation services review and we'll be looking to implement the results of that in 2027 And then just a normal part of our process, we use the community feedback to help inform our programs and facility improvements that we're doing. As we look at Burnham Wood, continue to see sustained growth in rounds and youth participation. The only thing that seems to be looking to challenge that would be weather, but we've just had some really great years of weather during the summer and so our rounds in increasing continue to show that as well as it's really become a the high schools and in different youth groups look to Burnham Wood to help run their programs and things like that. We continue to transition to electric and autonomous equipment which has been a great help for the different types of mowing and things like that going on out of the course, whether it's the rough or the fairways, we're now able to use that equipment, which helps to reduce the staff time needs for that. And then the Burnham Wood is part of our facility assessment study that we completed in 2024. So just continuing to work on the course to implement those recommendations. Over at the ice center, we, a couple months ago, brought on T.J. Wieland, and he is our new ice center manager. One of the things that we just started doing, this is the second year of doing it, is the state of the ice center where we bring in all of our legacy groups and talk to them about the changes coming up at the ice center, both within the facility but also in the rental uses and whatnot. So, really gives us a chance to understand what their needs are early on, which helps us to understand what the openings are in ice time so that we can work with other groups that are not part of the legacy groups to help fill those hours as quickly and efficiently as possible. And then one of the things T.J. has been asked to do in his position is obviously come in, learn Burnsville, understand what we're doing and what we're doing well but also start to look at potential non-ICE and just events on Civic Center property and whatnot that can help attract additional people to the facility and to the area. As we look at facilities, The Police City Hall phase one care, we are still on time to open this facility towards the end of September. And we are actually going to be having someone start on August 17th that'll be working during the day for the first time to help clean the facility and do room setups and things like that. So that is a new addition starting here later this month. which will be extremely important as we open up that new facility and take care of it on a daily basis. Obviously, the phase two phasing and planning is a major part of this team as we look to transition our police department out of their existing space into new temporary spaces as we start to renovate the police area during phase two of the construction project. Our team is also now meeting about two to three times a month to do the fire station two planning. There is just the general facility care of the 58 different facilities that we have throughout the city, both from an infrastructure and a daily maintenance need. And then we have a city hall events manager and a facility superintendent that we will be looking to add in 2027, which I'll talk about when we get to the staffing spot. From an achievements and challenges standpoint, Achievement Recreation Services is almost wrapped up. The Parks Wayfinding was delivered late last month and we are on schedule and moving along well for getting the Arts Commission kicked off for a January 1st meeting for them of 2027. Continue to see a strong facility demand at the golf course and ice center. We have a phase one. All the work that went into relocating city hall staff during phase one and to deal with just the construction on the property to make sure that our services to the community weren't impacted was a major accomplishment for the facilities team to help pull that off. We were preparing for the phase one opening and all the phase two staff relocations for police that we talked about coming up. Challenges and achievements as the pickleball project as we now have a place for that and we'll be doing the engagement for that I want to say later this week on the 14th at Cliff End. And then the onboarding of an events manager and a facility superintendent. So, um, will be something that we will need to look at that process in 2027 trends and cost drivers. Uh, so no different than what you'll hear for most departments is the cost of goods and services and inflation, um, obviously is a pressure each year as we're going through the budget. Over at the ice center, for the last two years, we've benefited quite nicely from the fact that a couple of our neighbors to the north have had major renovations to their ice center facilities, and those are both complete now. So we will most likely see a drop in revenue, just like we saw an increase when they were going through the process. And as they return back, we will most likely lose them as a customer. And then the elevated care standards and service needs related to Police City Hall, whether it's just elevator contracts or our staff work on the things that they'll need to do on a daily basis, the equipment, the materials, what you think about the windows and the need to have contracts related to cleaning those windows, most likely a couple times a year and things like that. So this takes us to the staffing. As I mentioned earlier, we had a recreation administrative assistant who recently retired. And I'm 100% convinced that the most important thing that we could have done with that position in our department was create another facility technician position who will pretty much be responsible about four hours a day during the day to help clean the facility and go through it, which you'll see at other facilities that you go into. And then they'll also be able to help with infrastructure needs when they're not doing that process. I also know that the initial recreation administrative assistant helped out our rec staff quite a bit, and they are without that position anymore. Obviously, they're under more pressure than ever to do their programming and do the things that they do. But nonetheless, absolutely the right decision to reclassify that. The events coordinator position in 2027, what that is is we are going to be opening up a new community space in February of 2028. We anticipate we'll have corporate meetings in there, weddings, a variety of different activities, and This position would help to basically manage all of those types of rentals and preparing for that, those types of events in the city hall spaces.

And then the third... Because our city hall is going to be functioning a little closer to a community center than a city hall.

I anticipate we will have a very wide variety of activities for people looking to rent out those three spaces either separately or when they can be opened up and hosting over 300 people in them. So it's going to be quite different than the type of services and activities we have here right now. And we're going to need somebody who can dedicate their time and expertise to that type of activity.

It's going to be very different from any other city hall because of our engagement with the people. Correct. It is their house.

Mayor and Council.

Oh.

I would. add to councilmember Schultz's comment and the mayor's that when we When I'm in Egan for instance at an event at their City Hall. It's really a community center And I'm glad that we finally have a City Hall facility that meets the community's needs the way other cities around us do and AND I FEEL LIKE WE'RE CATCHING UP IN A WAY BECAUSE WE SORT OF STAYED IN THIS BUILDING A LITTLE LONGER THAN MAYBE WE SHOULD HAVE, BUT WITHOUT DOING AN UPDATE.

WELL, EGAN, WHEN YOU'RE AT THEIR CITY HALL, IT'S A CITY HALL BECAUSE THEY HAVE A COMMUNITY CENTER.

YES, KIND OF RIGHT THERE, RIGHT? IT'S WHERE A LOT OF THEIR FUNCTIONS HAPPEN, AND IT'S A CITY FACILITY. IT'S NOT A PRIVATELY OWNED DEAL.

ACTUALLY, THEY HAVE TWO.

YES, THEY HAVE TWO. I JUST WANTED TO SAY TO THE POLICE, APOLOGY FOR THE SECOND TIME IN 10 YEARS. displacing your entire department for a remote. That was rough the last time. Was it 10 years ago? Nine years ago?

2016.

Yeah. And now you've got to do it all over again. I'm sure there's something like, well, we've got practice. We did it before. We can do it again.

It'll be all right.

Okay, Garrett.

Then the third position up there is a facility superintendent. That would be a new position. I would liken that to we have 76 parks and we have a park superintendent. We have all of our recreation programs. We have a recreation superintendent. This particular position would really be responsible for helping with the infrastructure management of our 58 facilities that we have. leading projects, writing backgrounds, doing all those things to help manage it, and obviously work collaboratively with the different departments that are in those facilities, but really helping to coordinate all of that, manage the CIP, all those kinds of things.

So it's two different roles from the park superintendent to the facilities superintendent because we have a lot of facilities. in our portfolio. So this person is going to be overseeing all of the facilities. Correct.

Yep.

And reporting to you.

Correct. From a capital improvement standpoint, similar to the parks inventory and assessment, we did a facilities inventory and assessment. That has been a great help and a guide for us as we Now understand what our condition one and two items are. We've assigned values to those. And as we work through the CIP each year, we kind of label the different items that we're considering into these four different categories. So if it's a condition one and two, we're still going to, if it's a life safety issue, that is the single most important thing. We need to make sure that's taken care of. Just slightly below that is the critical infrastructure piece. You know, that would be things like your generators, your transfer switches where if they were to fail on you, you could lose service to the facility which would not be good for anyone. So then we start to move down to a three which would be the damage prevention infrastructure. So that's your building envelope protection type things where if you're not taking care of them, that may lead to additional damage and cost to a facility. So still pretty important. And then a four and things that we tend to bump at times and evaluate, hey, can we get another year or two out of this, would be things like operational efficiency and just that it's indicated that it is at the end of life, but it's still in good working order and we could get another additional amount of time out of it. So those were hidden. Right? Is that it? So that wraps up my presentation. I will stand for any questions or comments. I asked mine earlier.

Thank you. Next one is Mark. Mark, you're on deck.

Actually, no, that one got snuck in there. So there are a couple more fun ones here. So, all right.

Yeah, you forgot your budget.

Well, that's hard. Hey, I want to get it over to Mark. No. Talked a little bit about the recreation revenues and whatnot. As you look on this, not a lot of change across the board. The ice center number that you see there is really just a conservative reflection of the fact that we anticipate we may be losing some of the ice rentals from the fact that our neighbors to the north, they're back up and running completely. So that is what that number is for there. We're projecting increases in our Recreation fund and continue at the golf course just based on trends that those continue to go higher From an operating expense standpoint again most of the numbers are Pretty low there are two big numbers that you'll see in there one is a negative one hundred seventy nine thousand nine hundred and fourteen dollars from recreation that is a result of In 2026 we had the Arts Commission study So that is not part of the budget anymore because that is complete. And then it is also the rec admin position is moving out of recreation into facilities. So that takes us to the large number in the facilities maintenance position, which is moving that rec admin position into facility maintenance. And then it is also the addition of the facility superintendent. And our next slide just takes a look at general fund and the 4% increase in operating expenses. Again, a lot of that is just related to the different things, you know, the different cost increases going on across the board for those different facilities. So pretty nominal at 4%. No. No.

Question. Yes. Here at City Manager Lindberg, what's the tentative plans looking out beyond the remodel of Police and City Hall for the old youth garage space, or prior youth garage space? Do we have conversations with anybody looking out, I guess, 28 forward, possibly?

I guess I have a couple thoughts. The first is thank you for everyone's patience. That particular facility has been instrumental in helping us manage the transition of the phases. Police is going to be taking over a large portion of that as we go into phase two. But one of the next things we'll be doing in a few years is Mark is going to be helping us to better understand what The maintenance facility needs and are with the programming there and the potential How we manage all the different buildings that we're in and whatnot so that may have an influence on it as far as programming and whatnot we are ready and open to Considering different groups coming in there once we feel comfortable that we've done all the study that we need to do and it wouldn't it would be okay to bring them in and then have them be able to be in there for a period of time without saying, oh, guess what? Sorry, this isn't gonna work right now. So.

So one last question. Since the police department's gonna move in there, have you put together the police department band to play on stage?

Council Member Keeley, I believe it's the vehicles are moving over there.

They pulled the sound system out. Yeah. Yeah, right. I heard their name was the Blazing Sirens.

The Blazing Sirens.

Yeah. It's late. Okay.

All right.

Well, I've peeked out clearly. All right. Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. Here we go. The most fun budget that you will see tonight.

Does he?

Our team, so this is really what I consider your stage crew, right? This is the crew that works behind the scenes every day to make sure normal happens here in the city of Burnsville, whether it be the transportation system, safe and reliable drinking water, conveyance of wastewater, natural resources, parks, and the engineering. One of the things that Chief Smith brought up that I think is really important to just be aware of is when you look down our fleet, sewer, and park superintendents, they oversee 13. So our park main superintendent and our streets actually have 13 direct reports, which I think is just interesting. As you look at the structure, it doesn't quite do justice to just how impressive the job is in trying to coordinate the chaos that is day-to-day here. As I said, fundamentally we operate and maintain infrastructure. We're looking at doing sustainable development enhancements. And when I say sustainable development, that's not just like environmentally, that's financially sustainable. Are we building with maintenance in mind? Are we thinking about long-term cost implications of everything that we're doing? And then really, again, continue to emphasize just enhancing the culture within the Public Works Department because at the end of the day, our people are who take care of the community. So what are we doing for them to best serve the community? As we look at the group, again, we're making normal happen here in the city. In putting together this budget, we prioritized really those current services and maintenance of what we have. You're going to see a lot of investments in technology and infrastructure. And the important thing is, especially as we talk about the water treatment plant, is those projects have to be sequenced in order to be done. And so just a ton of thought went into what is the order to be smart in how we're making the investments to not undo anything that was previously in the way, but also deliver the critical services that we have to do that. That said, our approach will continue to mature as we continue to leverage data. So a lot of the capital studies you've seen, we've operationalized that data. We're using that to gather more data. And so as staff gets better at leveraging the information we're gathering, that'll just continue to inform future actions. As we talk about our achievement and challenges, we have completed a lot of capital studies which have been time consuming. We are leveraging technology to gather more useful information as I touched on. We are expanding the use of electronic processes, both internal and customer facing for external. Our team, I think, is definitely starting to hit their momentum going through the different budget softwares over the last few years. Jeff, next to me, the deputy, is basically our budget guru and who knows this pretty much forwards, backwards, and inside out. We've made significant gains with just improving the services of the public, but we also acknowledge the fact the public wants more. And there's a cost for that, and trying to strike that balance will be a never-ending challenge. Then obviously, as you well know, when it comes to infrastructure, the cheapest thing we can do is talk about it. When we actually start doing it, it's expensive, and those costs are rising. So again, I touched on, we have inflation. Tariffs have hit us on some of the products we use. Obviously, just the normal costs are increasing separate from inflation of just more stuff breaking as it gets older. Our team is definitely engaged, and they have some really good ideas, and some of those ideas do come with a cost. So as we look at that team as a whole, we have 76 full-time staff authorized. We currently have 74 slots filled. I want to do note we have three trainee positions that are year-round. Those are full. And also of interest, we actually at our peak have 65 seasonal staff that work for us at the peak of the summer, which is basically an 82% increase in the staffing during that peak time in the middle of summer. And so just, again, kind of out of sight, out of mind, but We have a lot of people out there every day serving the community.

Yeah, I see them.

Yeah. That's good. Here's just a summary of all the capital plans and studies that have been completed over the last two, two and a half years. So now we're going to jump into the budget numbers. Budget guru Jeff will definitely answer any detailed questions you have. I don't know how much you may go through this line by line. or field any questions, I can kind of just go through it quick. And if you have more questions, let me know. So increase the contract and landscaping. We have a number of areas that are maintained in the city. Those costs are going up. So this is informed by literally quotes we've gotten from our vendors. Some material costs are going up because they have to get shipped in irrigation systems, rebuilds and replacement. Basically they have a shelf life they're breaking. The temporary and seasonal wages, that increase is to match our pay structure. So it's not a proposed increase in pay. It's just making sure the alignment of budget and the expenses. The contract service is actually just a range of things in support of normal park operations. The additional three traffic signal painting is following out of the traffic signal study. Just trying to get caught up on some of the... that are looking a little painful out there. And then the bottom ones, the pavement management service, basically this is a pavement software that would help us dynamically plan and budget for road construction. So right now it's a time consuming process. This would very much streamline the way we gather data, process data, and run different modeling scenarios. It also includes actually rating of the pavement on a regular basis. So there would be an offset in cost elsewhere.

Mark, you know, I see a lot of seasonal workers, and you said there's 65.

That's correct.

And you only have 40,000 budgeted for them?

So, Mayor, this line-up is just to address the delta between the cost that we have and making sure it's in alignment with what we budgeted for expense.

Okay, it's not your actual cost. It's not the full thing.

It's just we've looked at the historical trends, and we just want to make sure that they're reflecting actions.

Okay, because I was thinking... 65 employees, 40,000 didn't make the math work for me.

Just the increase, Mayor.

Yeah, because I can look at Mike and say, how much do we pay our seasonal workers? And he'll say, X.

Any questions on this one?

VK.

Do we have any? budget for replacing street signs where the sun has faded them out, where they're hard to read now?

MR. That would just be covered under the general street budget line item for just the one-offs.

MR. Gotcha. MR. Mark, can you – actually, it's a great story. We have a member of the Public Works team who is uniquely signed – assigned to street signs. Maybe talk a little bit about that. And if there are specific requests from the community, certainly we're ALL EARS TO TAKE THOSE AND ADDRESS THOSE ISSUES IF WE'VE MISSED SOMETHING.

SOMETIMES I DRIVE AROUND TO SEE, LIKE I REMEMBER THIS ONE, IT'S ALMOST UNREADABLE NOW. IT'S BLEACHED OUT SO BAD. I WONDER HOW LONG THAT SIGN HAS BEEN FACING SOUTH. MAYBE 30 YEARS OR 40 YEARS.

Yeah, it comes from Achille. It very much depends on the direction, right? North-facing signs will last longer. We do have a staff member who generally is assigned to sign maintenance work, so I would say just let us know where it is. Caveat on that is we're only responsible for signs in the city right away, so if it's a stop sign facing public property, that would be that property owner's responsibility to maintain it.

The street, not the street sign, like the name of the street, just stop sign.

Like if there's a stop sign if you're coming out of a grocery store?

Yeah.

Under state statute, if you're entering a road from a driveway, you have to yield the right-of-way, so the stop sign's additional. So it'd be the private business's responsibility.

Yeah, I think there's some of those outside of Cup Foods.

Any other questions on this slide? It's gonna be hard to go back, so okay. Actually, Jeff, you're the resident expert with this whole tab, so.

Water supply plan implementation, that's a one-time expense to get that into the comprehensive plan, be included in the comprehensive plan. And then we have water treatment plant condition assessment. We're going to change out our water meters. We're going to go from mechanical water meters to digital water meters. That has a small cost increase for us. Quarry sampling's on the one-time expense. It's used for water quality in the quarry. Water treatment chemicals are going up significantly. as we're looking to hopefully being able to feed another water treatment chemical for radium reduction in the next year. And then, yeah, just technology for the water treatment plant. There's still some, manual processes in there where they go and do rounds, take notes, and then go back and enter the notes. This would be a technology solution to get rid of that manual process.

So that's just another great example of an idea coming from staff of, hey, instead of writing this number down on post-it notes and giving it to this other person to go enter it in, can we just take a tablet, enter the number the first time, then it's in the system and we don't need the multiple chances. I think going back to the meter change, another important thing too, and Jeff, when I say this wrong, feel free to correct me, is right now it's a mechanical read that wears out. And so the new meters are a little bit different than that with how they measure the flow. So we're hoping to get not only quieter, but also a longer life.

And Mark, that's city meters.

In every property, yes. City-owned meter in each property. For the quarry sampling, that is how that information is used to inform how we treat the water coming from the surface intake. So that's kind of the link there to the water people see in the homes. Any questions on the water stuff? Otherwise, we have the sewer. All right. So sewer, this is just more televising. Sorry, back to you.

Yep. This is just really it's actually a shift from – we break up the city into nine sections. So we get televising on all the city once every nine years. So that's just a shift to put that in place. Then Washburn Avenue, railroad,

The railroad showed up this year and said, hey, this railroad is not doing good. We need you to replace the crossing. Here's your cost. And I said, well, that's not quite how that's going to work. We're going to need to budget it in the future. And so we were able to convince them to push it off a year. So basically the city has to pay everything related to the road crossing of the railroad track.

How is it that they can come to us and say, hey, this is what it costs when we try to get them to make changes?

Because they have a sign in their office that says, first there was God, and then there was the railroad. I've heard that's true. I don't know if it actually is, but that's the way to think about it.

I tell you, we have tried for years, and they just ignore us, and they don't care. Well, they're consistent, Mayor. They say their railroad crossing isn't working and it needs repair, and they are saying we're going to pay $325,000.

Their argument is we're the ones that need the road, not them. Yeah, they passed the law in the 1800s, and it's been that way ever since.

I know. I get frustrated with it, but it is what it is.

You are among friends, Mayor. Any other questions on this slide? No. From a revenue standpoint, I'm going to lead off with some really good news. While we were sitting here crunching numbers, we realized we missed some revenue in the engineering line, so that number will not be negative anymore.

Yay.

It'll be positive. Adam's already made that change.

Oh, yay, Adam, sitting there doing that work.

Other than that, you can see it's pretty consistent with where things are at. Through there the infrastructure total that's a direct connection on what we do for stated up state aid eligible projects Links back to what the revenue is we get from the state so we do Fewer state projects and there's a less draw from our state aid account Operating expenses, I'm just gonna draw your attention to the bottom which is a 2% increase and Like I said, we focus on maintaining what we have and really trying not to change services. So that's really what you see reflected here in the overall account.

There's that street maintenance account.

That's actually back here.

Different from ITF?

Correct. So that's this one with the 4% increase. All right.

Thank you.

Yeah. Nice work, Mark.

Is the sewer televising channel on Comcast? Or is that something that we can? Is that like the Eagle Cam? Use special license for the dirty TV. Sanitary sewer cam.

NO, BUT ACTUALLY, IN ALL SERIOUSNESS... I DON'T KNOW. SPEAKING OF... SPEAKING OF LEVERAGE TECHNOLOGY...

I HAVEN'T HEARD OF SENATOR TREASURE TELEVISING. IT'S LIKE, WHO ARE WE TELEVISING IT TO?

We have part of a program called Sewer AI where we upload all of our data and all of our video into the system, and that helps do the condition rating of it. It also allows our access later, so if we have a question about a location on a pipe, we can go into the program, go back, and actually pull the video of that location, whether it be a question about a connection or an issue. If there's a sewer backup, for example, we can go back and look at the history of that section of pipe.

It's a recording.

Yep.

Okay. Any questions for Mark and Jeff?

We need to finish on a humorous note, don't you?

Okay. And Jeff is not here for community development, and so is there anything else? City Manager?

I don't believe so, Madam Mayor. We will have the Community Development Department present in September with the rest of the departments.

Okay. If there is nothing else to come before the body this evening, we stand adjourned. Before 9.