Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Good morning. Good morning. I'm going to ask the staff to go ahead and roll the tape.

Oh, that's right.

Let's do it. It's just we're at tables, I know.

That's right.

Here it goes. I'm going to hear it this time. Well, good morning, everyone, and I guess it's afternoon now. Welcome to the Administration's Operations and Budget Committee of Monday, September 29th, 2025. We start the agenda with discussion of the 2026 proposed budget presentation. You would have gotten your books and everything ahead of time. I have to make a special thank you to OBF. You gave us several of these at a time. That's so helpful. The way up front gave us a lot of time. So just welcome to the first budget hearing of the year. The county administrator submitted her budget to the county board on September 16th. The proposed budget totals $3.09 billion and was based upon property tax levy increase of 7.79%. The board adopted a maximum property levy increase of 7.79% on September 25th. This afternoon, we are hearing on the proposed 2026 budget with presentations from the disparity elimination line of business. The hearings are intended to allow board members to understand what's included in the proposed budget. Additionally, these hearings provide a forum to gather public input on the proposed budget. A line of business budget proposal, the complete 2026 proposed budget, and the schedule for these hearings are available on the county's internet website at www.hennepin.us forward slash budget. At the end of today's hearing, we'll provide a call-in number and other specifics on how members of the public will be able to comment on the budget hearing. So I would now like to introduce County Administrator Wetland, who will be introducing today's budget. But let's go around the room just quickly and say everybody's name. Debbie Gotel, Hennepin County District 5. Irene Fernando, District 2.

Angela Conley, District 4. Heather Adelson, District 6. Sam Fredericks, Communications.

Joe Matthews, Chief Financial Officer.

Jody Wetland, County Administrator.

Kareem Murphy, Deputy County Administrator.

Alexander Iverson, Budget and Finance Manager for Disparity Elimination.

Jeff Lundy, D, District 1.

And then the back.

Wait, Kevin.

Oh, were you here? I'm sorry.

I know, I blended. Kevin Anderson, District 7.

Sherry Thompson, Deputy Clerk, District 7. Dishnetta Rowan, District 1. Vincent Heite, District 4. Mimi Farrar, District 3. Claire Severson, District 7. Kate Nelson, District 5.

Welcome, and I'll hand it back over to you, Ms. Rubble.

Thank you, Chair Patel. Commissioners, thank you for joining us today for our first line of business budget hearing on disparity elimination. Through each of the budget hearings, you will hear more about how the proposed budget supports our continued commitment to eliminating disparities. This is the foundation of our work. And through the seven disparity domains of connectivity, education, employment, health, housing, income, and justice, we have adopted a proactive approach focused on building an equitable and thriving community for all our residents. In these times of increased challenges and uncertainties, it is imperative that we boldly advance our efforts to not merely reduce, but aspire to eliminate the disparities that persist. Today's focus will be on the budget line for the disparity elimination line of business. But the work of disparity elimination is present in all lines of business throughout our organization. Our approach to the budget hearings is provide a budget overview, review priorities, and allow time for questions and discussion. I'd like to ask Kareem Murphy, Deputy County Administrator, to get us started with the presentation for the disparity elimination line of business. Mr. Murphy.

Thank you very much, Administrator Wentz. Good afternoon, Chair Gattell and Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to present the Disparity Elimination Line of Business 2026 proposed budget. For today's budget presentation, we'll share about how we're serving residents, Disparity Elimination's 2026 proposed budget, our line of business priorities, and we will end with discussion. All of the leaders on this slide can help you address your specific questions following the presentation. I want to quickly thank all of them for their collaboration and critical thinking through this year's budget process. I also want to acknowledge another leader in our line of business, Kay Adam, who joined disparity elimination mid-year to help lead the county's anti-displacement work on the blue line extension project, as well as Lolita Uola, the director of system design, who are both here to help answer questions following the presentation as well. The disparity elimination line of business continues to serve Hennepin County residents in equitable and innovative ways. For example, 70,540 square feet of surplus county property has been converted into urban agriculture in 2025. Over 900 people planted, harvested, received food from, or engaged with our growing community's urban agriculture projects led by climate and resiliency. The Department of Workforce Development has served 10,490 residents across all workforce programs. Residents received employment coaching, one-on-one mentoring, internships, resources, supportive services, training, and educational workshops. Broadband and Digital Inclusion is collaborating with the Department of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation to design a specialized digital support program for residents reentering the community. This initiative focuses on building digital skills that promote employment, housing stability, and successful reintegration. You might hear those names and those words as we discuss the various disparity elimination domains. An estimated 1,930 adult clients will be served through this program in 2026. And now I will hand it over to Ms. Iverson for the budget overview.

Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Good afternoon, Chair Gattell and commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to present disparity elimination proposed 2026 budget. The 2026 proposed operating budget for the disparity elimination line of business is 40.3 million, a decrease of 10.5 million or 21% under the 2025 adjusted budget. This reduction is overwhelmingly due to a change in accounting for the Minnesota property assessed clean energy or min pace program. as well as a reduction in federal and state workforce funding. Approximately 80% of the overall decrease is from a change in the accounting method for the MnPACE program, which is administered by the Climate and Resiliency Department. This change has no impact on funding for disparity elimination initiatives. To better reflect the full flow of funds, MnPACE is now being housed in the county's fiduciary fund. This fund is used to account for assets that are held by the county on behalf of outside entities, such as property taxes collected on behalf of other governments. In the case of MnPACE, the county collects and distributes property assessments used to repay loans that are administered by the St. Paul Port Authority. Fiduciary fund activities are not budgeted, resulting in a decrease of $8 million in revenue and expenditures from the 2025 adjusted climate and resiliency budget. This accounting change has no impact on MnPAY services, which continue to be supported by climate and resiliency. It also does not reflect reduced investment in our climate and resiliency initiatives. It is strictly an accounting correction. The other significant decrease from the 2025 adjusted budget is in the Department of Workforce Development. The 2026 proposed operating budget for workforce development is 9.1 million, a decrease of 2.3 million or 20% under the 2025 adjusted budget. This reduction is the result of lower federal and state workforce grant funding. Disparity elimination is requesting $26.3 million in property tax support in 2026, an increase of .3 million or 1.1% over the 2025 adjusted budget. The main reason for the property tax increase is higher salary and health insurance costs for existing staff. These increased costs are being offset by strategic reductions, such as eliminating vacant positions. Disparity eliminations proposed property tax requirement reflects a budget that manages the pressures of increased staffing costs while maintaining the county's commitment to eliminating disparities. The proposed operating budget for broadband and digital inclusion, or BDI, provides a good example of this budgeting approach. BDI is requesting $2.7 million in property tax support in 2026, a decrease of $.2 million or 6% from the 2025 adjusted budget. BDI has partnered with PCs for People to provide certified refurbished personal computers or PCs for residents. Refurbished PCs are less expensive than brand new devices, but are still high quality. BDI plans to meet increasing digital training needs in 2026 by leveraging digital navigations relationship with trusted community organizations. The disparity elimination administration department includes the budget for anti displacement. The proposed 2026 budget includes $500,000 to be used for anti displacement program investments to prevent displacement along the blue line extension corridor. The 2026 disparity elimination budget also contains $725,000 in revenue from housing and redevelopment authority and public works funds. These transfers support disparity elimination activities that are aligned with these areas and offset the need for additional property tax funding. Disparity eliminations full-time equivalents or FTEs are proposed to decrease by 5.3 to 124.5 in 2026. The reduction is mainly due to the elimination of four vacant FTEs in outreach and community supports and two vacant FTEs in broadband and digital inclusion. These FTE adjustments align these departments with current and historical staffing levels. Overall, FTE reduction for the line of business is partially offset by the addition of one FTE in the Department of Workforce Development as part of the department's leadership restructuring at the end of 2024. This FTE is an existing filled position. Adding this FTE to Workforce Development's 2026 budget codifies restructuring decisions made at the end of last year. As noted earlier, the Department of Workforce Development's budget will be significantly lower in 2026 due to less federal and state workforce grant funding. The department's federal and state grant revenue is budgeted to be 3.1 million in 2026, a decrease of 2.3 million or 43% from the 2025 adjusted budget. This reduction includes the following. a decrease in Hennepin Carver workforce funding by 1.9 million, or 40% from the 2025 adjusted budget. This includes reductions in state and federal funding for dislocated worker, adult, and youth programs. These funding reductions will strain services available for individuals who are or who become unemployed. There is also a reduction in revenue for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Employment and Training, or SNAP, ENT, in 2026. Specifically, the SNAP ENT 100% program received a funding reduction of 69% despite an expansion of the eligible population per state and federal regulations. The SNAP 50% program budget is also projected to decrease by 55% based on actual spending. Despite these reductions, the Department of Workforce Development's proposed 2026 property tax requirement is only 2% over the 2025 adjusted budget. The department's 2026 budget proposal continues to support key programmatic workforce strategies. Now I will return the presentation to Mr. Murphy.

Thank you very much, Ms. Iverson. Disparity elimination remains committed to its mission, which is to co-create equitable and innovative solutions through community and workplace partnerships to eliminate disparities across Hennepin County. The recent name change of our line of business from disparity reduction to disparity elimination represents us doubling down on our commitment to advance equitable outcomes for all residents, as this is the foundation of our line of business and organization. This line of business is committed to being iterative, creative, and innovative in our approaches, and that is reflected in our budget decisions and priorities. The priorities we'll highlight today are community engagement, climate action, and education. One of disparity elimination's priorities in 2026 is community engagement. Outreach and community supports will focus on deepening internal and external alignment, advancing cross-departmental collaboration, culturally specific outreach, and strengthening relationships with community members and partners. The department will continue to share essential county information and resources with community related to opioids, climate action, and more. And we envision expanding our capacity to listen to community and receive their wisdom as we decide, make programming decisions. OCS will continue to build relationships with indigenous communities through our work, continued work related to the land and water acknowledgement. Through collaboration with the Hennepin University Partnership, the team conducted a community needs assessment this summer, gathering input directly from American Indian residents regarding their access to, experience with, and treatment when receiving Hennepin County services, as well as identifying barriers and gaps in those services. Over 50 community members were engaged in this process. Climate action is another priority for 2026. The Climate and Resiliency Department plans to expand their response to strengthen food sovereignty through community-based solutions, deploy a countywide effort to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy adoption in energy burden communities, and launch a plan to cool neighborhoods and reduce the urban heat island effect. This will all be done while driving down overall emissions through smarter, more sustainable practices. The department is training and educating 27,440 residents on clean energy and energy efficiency adoption, education and outreach on the effects of climate change, emergency preparedness, and extreme heat preparation. The team is also supporting the adoption of 760 kilowatts of rooftop solar in community sites and promoting adoption of residential solar energy in partnership with Sun. 1,072 residents are installing solar in their homes, while over 5,800 have registered to receive solar panels. Education continues to be a priority for the disparity elimination line of business. In 2026, education support services will keep providing holistic multi-generational services to advance equity and eliminate educational disparities. ESS has served over 2,100 students since the program began and over 87% of students identify as people of color. In addition, ESS will work to align education resources across the county to increase efficiencies and will develop and lead a countywide education governance structure to support and operationalize the new Grow, Learn, Thrive framework that was the subject of a previous board briefing. We are not without our challenges and we hope that our opportunities remain abundant. The development of the 2026 budget has provided both opportunities and challenges. As noted earlier, workforce development received drastic cuts to its federal and state programs. To maximize existing resources, staff are identifying and streamlining service delivery across departments by consolidating overlapping programs and reducing administrative overhead. They're prioritizing high impact models like apprenticeships and in-demand skills training, both of which have proven positive outcomes. Staff are using data to inform resource investments where they will yield the greatest impacts for Hennepin residents, especially underserved populations. Lastly, staff are strengthening community collaborations through alignment of services to braid funding and expand wraparound support services while advocating for more flexibility to meet residents where they're located. Broadband and digital inclusion also faces challenges from federal funding cuts. with federal grants canceled from the Digital Equity Act programs, as well as ongoing gaps in affordable broadband infrastructure. To address these challenges and make effective use of resources and relationships, BDI recently expanded a community partnership that provides laptops to residents. This initiative supports workforce development and recycling efforts. The certified refurbished devices now come equipped with new AI capabilities and Microsoft productivity tools, which are features frequently used by residents. Another example not shown on the slide but worth mentioning is anti-displacement, which faces unique budgeting challenges and opportunities for 2026. While ensuring the budget matches the needs expressed by community is a challenge, there is a parallel opportunity that we can partner with community in new ways to deliver services, hopefully creating new models of program design and implementation. This budget invests new methods to further trust between the community and the county, reversing decades of disinvestment, improving the quality of life, and eliminating a host of disparities. The first anti-displacement prosperity program funding awards will be distributed by the end of 2025 and into 2026 following the direction of the community-led board. These examples show the thought and creativity that went into the development of the budget proposal that I've presented to you today. Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to answering any questions you may have, and I will happily turn it back over to County Administrator Wendland for discussion.

Chair Patel, Commissioners, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to present the disparity elimination line of business. As Deputy County Administrator Murphy identified, a lot of work has gone into this budget. The team is here and can answer questions. I just want to express my appreciation for the hard work that the team has done in bringing forward this budget. Thank you.

Thank you, great presentation, great work. And I appreciate, I know you have to be first, and it's always the nerve-wracking to be first, so thank you for being the ones who are first. And I know you'll call up people if they're needed at the table as we go through questions, so I'm gonna start that process with Commissioner Mundy.

Commissioner Green. Thank you, madam chair, and just want to thank staff for the briefing and the brevity just want to acknowledge that because I do I find that the part I want to understand is what that discussion part and so I appreciate having that time. So, for me. Education is everything. If we really want to eliminate disparities, if we're having kids who are reading at a lesser rate and doing math at a lower rate, we will never eliminate disparities. And I realize that's out of our ballpark, but I don't think it is. Because when kids are not able to read, when they're not able to do math, They become adults who can't read, can't do math. And every data point shows that people who don't have education opportunities, the outcomes in their life, it's just, it's a different outcome. I would like to double the education support services budget. And I say that, I could find the money easily to pull through because I don't think we're going to eliminate disparities. Emma from my team did research on all our schools inside District 1. And guess what? I don't give a damn about graduation rates. They mean nothing when our reading and math rates are going down. And it's not just my district, it's everywhere. Minnesota as a whole is not recovered from COVID. Other states have. We are actually heading in the worst direction. And so I believe that is a strategic imperative for this county. If we look at the future 10 years, 20 years out, It will determine what we do in the next 10 years from the budget. I won't be here, but 10 years now, they're going to talk about disparity reduction. And we will the whole game is education and so I, I don't know where we start with that, but I think acknowledging that that. If we're not in that game space at a much higher rate, all this stuff doesn't matter. Climate change doesn't matter. BDI doesn't matter. All those things that I've seen, if kids are not reading, they will end up with less opportunities in the future. And that makes them more likely to become clients with the county, whether it's family support services, whether it's rent support services, whether it's people who get connected to our corrections justice system. Everything, I think, sprouts from there. And so I appreciate the work. I know everybody's doing their best. I just don't see how we actually, we're gonna talk about reduction to elimination. Elimination is all about education, 110%. I would like to have a briefing with MDE. I'd like to know what we all collectively can do differently and together because if we're not unified if we're not working with schools it's not just schools it's not just cities it's not just the state it's not just the county we are all in this together I would like to know how we're going to tackle that because again everybody can talk about graduation rates doesn't matter graduation is an escalator they move people out and the fact that people are moving out with lower reading and math skills is I don't understand how that's even possible and so for me that's where I start and yes I am serious I'm not it's not a I do think our work and education needs to double it will pay off later in so many ways. We can spend a ton of money on waiting until people get in the justice system. They can spend a crap load of money when people are connected to our DOCCR and all the other justice system. We can spend a lot less money up front. So I'll stop there. But I am serious about the briefing MD. I do think it is absolutely imperative for this county to understand how we can work. Notice I'm not blaming them. How can we work together with schools and the state Because as long as people can't, you can't read a lease and you can't do a budget and you don't know what you're paying. And that requires literacy and math at a higher level. Good luck. So I'll stop there.

Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Green, I didn't see you come in. Welcome. I'm going to let you go next.

Terrific. I have very brief remarks. First of all, just wanted to thank you and thank the team for pulling this together. This budget, to me, is one of the hardest ones to evaluate because it's so matrixed within the organization. But I wanted to say, first of all, just because this is our first briefing, I really like the format of today's presentation and then the book as well. Starting with budget numbers, the highlights are so summarized, which feels brutal, but it does give more time for us to talk, which I do think is sort of the richest territory. And also the way the sort of matrix nature of the content was approached in the book was really great. have no comments other than thank you for the degree of continuity that's represented here. And that's about it. Thank you.

Oh, okay. Commissioner Anderson.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Echo the thanks that my other colleagues have already expressed. I think we'll probably hear that a number of times. One thing that I would like to dig into a little bit, this line of business in particular is so much rooted in our philosophy of prevention, and like an ounce of prevention pays dividends in so many of the other lines of business you know commissioner green you just mentioned how integrated this is to all of our other work that we do um i also very much agree that our education component of this, making sure that we are taking care of our next generation so that we are not finding ourselves perpetuating problems that we could potentially be addressing now. I would love to see where we can pull in. I don't necessarily know if the education bucket is the right bucket to put it in, or if it's human services, but partnering with school districts I think has been something that we have talked about. for a very long time of how do we better integrate in with our schools to find that partnership to address the needs that our kids are facing so that we don't see the challenges that they are experiencing perpetuate into the future. And it's not just them, it's their parents. It is like the community that surrounds them. And so I think that there is, you know, looking at this from a holistic standpoint, I really appreciate that we're talking about, you know, BDI, and workforce development and education and you know and health and human services and all of these other things like I think those are all incredibly intertwined and we need to continue to look at that and examining how they are interconnected and how do we make sure that like we don't become too siloed within any one particular place. I think this year because of our immense challenges being pushed on us from the federal government specifically, I am very interested to know, like, in these numbers, what do we see as the preventative impact that we anticipate impacting other programs? Or put, like in a much more blunt and not incredibly kind way, it's not how I intend this, but how are we justifying the numbers in a budget sense? because we know this isn't absolutely required of us to do. I firmly believe that we should be doing it, but I would love to be able to come back and say, by investing $9 million in our workforce development, we've generated $15 million in new businesses and growth opportunity in Hennepin County, or prevented... You know this many people from re, entering a system that we have to pay in on a deeper end. I think those would be helpful narratives to have alongside. At some point, so. That's just, I think, my takeaway. I don't know if you want to respond to that now, or separately, that's fine. And, yeah.

Administrator Whelan. Commissioner Anderson, yes. That is something that we can work together to pull. As you see, this is our first, and you will see some of, these prevention programs also throughout. And highlighting that, and you're absolutely right, that $9 million investment in workforce development has some significant impact that are positive to our community, prevents deep end services, our education support services, and as Deputy County Administrator Murphy identified, our grow, our learn, our thrive strategy is bringing that together as a county, and then how do we work with our systems, our school districts, and align our funding resources, and we can pull that information for you.

Thank you. One last thing, if I may. Really, really disappointed to hear about the ENT decreases from the federal government, especially at a time when they are increasing the work requirements. For recipients, it's unconscionable to me that a program designed to help people reenter the workforce for people who are needing food assistance, that they're removing that support. It is absolutely disgusting.

I think all of us feel the same. Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I also have a lot of gratitude. I think that this is the correct direction. I don't say that lightly. We know that this is a year where many governments, universities, school organizations, businesses are not willing to say the word equity, are not willing to follow the data and the numbers. Even if I were to agree with the policy choices coming from the feds, the operational timeline shouldn't be like a year or six months. And so there's the strain that is placed on each of you and your departments. We don't necessarily feel the same way, but just want to acknowledge what it took to... propose the direction that maintains the continuity of what we've been expressing and succeeding at for several years at a time where it is not as financially comfortable or, you know, media comfortable even to, to pursue these. So that, That is an aspect of gratitude, especially when we look at climate. I mean, it is really devastating to see how people are still not accepting that there are climate shifts occurring, I guess, regardless of causation, that there is a shift. And if I'm remembering my weekend stories correctly, I mean, New York City is like a subtropical environment now. Did you all see this? New York City... the city of New York has met, I think, five-year temperature criteria to be classified as a subtropical environment. I mean, so all that to say from a policy direction or a legislative direction perspective, this is the correct direction. And we understand and I acknowledge that to maintain this direction is harder each year. And Well, we thank you for your resolve. Second comment or kind of area that I'll think about is, as Commissioner Green was saying, how do we approach this year's budget and then this particular line of business? The big one for disparity elimination, of course, is data. Yeah. I am concerned or I let me say this differently. I want to decrease our reliance on other jurisdictions collecting data. because we cannot rely on other jurisdictions collecting data. The example that I have is eight years ago when I was sitting around here-ish trying to fight for more census funding. And at the time, the concept was that the feds will cover census. And of course, as we understood in 2020, that ended up not being as significant of an operation on the feds or state side. And so that is the most accessible civic data that we have access to or that we should be pursuing. And so I do not have confidence that other jurisdictions will be reporting data at the time that we have expressed. So how do we think about that? What are we measuring? You know, over time, an over time example is, you know, you opened with slide four, you know, 11,000, you know, 10,500 residents served across workforce programs. You know, what was it 10 years ago? What was it five years ago? How are we thinking about that as an employer, with our contracts, with our providers? Like, what is that picture showing over time? In a 10- or 15-year period, for example, we know that we have shifted our in-house employees in contrast to our external contracts. So we have looked at that. But overall, from a workforce perspective, and obviously if you want to comment on that, but for me it's more about what is the data – showing and then how are we collecting that ourselves or at least taking secondary markers? Commercial development, for example, could be a way, you know, Commissioner Anderson, you're sharing with an investment of X, how does that impact, you know, essentially our tax collections on the commercial side? I mean, there are other ways that we can think creatively in the event that the federal government or the state government does not report on data at all or any time line that we would expect. Hopefully that's an appropriate way to say that. Yeah, so workforce and tax base. And then the other example is still on workforce. This is budget books 21. And so there's a little bit of a question by way of confirmation, Mr. Murphy. So the last bullet here on the right side, significant issues, page 21 of the book. to meet the targeted property tax increase. Thank you, by the way. So proposed reducing the initiative contracts, including people exiting homeless consultants for Workforce Leadership Council and succeeding employment. I am hopeful that I'm understanding that as a decrease in providers and not an elimination of the work, but I thought I would quadruple check that. Yeah, and I figured I wouldn't be the only one to that question. So if you could clarify that, then I could move on with my diatribe.

Commissioner Fernando. I would like to invite Meijong up to respond to that question, please. Our Chief Workforce Director.

Chair, Cattell Commissioners, thank you for your question, Commissioner Fernando. Yes, it is not a decrease or is not an elimination of the work. It is purely a small percentage decrease in each of those areas to make a whole. So we had to decrease the total of about 450,000 across all programs to offset the cuts from SNAP and federal. from SNAP and WIOA dollars. So to make a whole, we have to kind of look at the entire workforce programs as operating as one versus individual programs operating as their own. And so this decrease is really just to mirror that, to keep the work moving forward solid.

Thank you very much. I figured that, and this gets back to this data piece. There's a shift here because of WIOA funds, multi-decade bipartisan funds, and SNAP out of the ag bill, feeding families. So again, this is not a questioning as to why, but just really making sure that as you are tracking, as we are tracking the data, that we are being more expansive because there are aspects of data that are just not going to be reliable as we move forward. I'm still going. Okay, so policy direction was one way I was thinking about this data. I have four total buckets. Third bucket is generational. I think in the past I've used the word systemic, and I want to think more about generational outcomes and impacts. So climate, I've already mentioned that. I appreciated what was stated around Heat Island in the budget book, and that's probably why I wanted to raise the subtropical New York City environment. Just like in your home, it is too late once it's too hot in your home to cool it down. In your home, whether it's you or you're throwing a party or whatever, if you are feeling hot, it is like a little too late and it's going to take a long time for your household temperature to get to a place that is appropriate for human habitation. The data is so stark and... You know, we have historically, this country has utilized aspect of military response technically, right? The disaster response. But we've seen federally that disaster funds are being used very differently as is military. So I don't want to, like, we can't rely on that. So how are we thinking about that in a... way that is truly generational. I mean, imagine the, you know, a baby in your life who cannot yet advocate for themselves. I'm going to move forward. Another generational, I appreciate you mentioning this, Mr. Murphy, around the land and water acknowledgement. I know that we've made strides to advance our work there and There have to be creative ways by which we, as a organization, work to be reparative and restorative with the origin of this institution's power, which is on Dakota Wind. So I thank you for mentioning that. I look forward to creativity there. My last bucket is financial models. So again, this is how I'm just trying to think about the whole budget. So for financial model, there was an easy one in here, which is nice, maybe not that easy, but it'll sound easy compared to my others. For procurement purchasing contracts, for where we can consolidate, please attempt to do so. I think that with the hospital, I think that with partners even, I mean, think of land disposition. We do that with our cities. Just how are we really syncing up in a different kind of way? And I am personally a fan of county-based purchasing. It pains me that our 200,000-person counties are out there negotiating their health plans on their own. So I just, in general, not just the 26 budget, just overall... Our residents are expecting a operational unifying for where political unifying may not be possible. Our residents are expecting operational unity for where political unity may not be possible. And costs are just rising everywhere. Tuition is going up, but the class offerings are going down. The groceries are going up, but I swear those portions are going down. And so how might we think about that differently? So that's technically the easy one. The second thing I wanted to mention, which is still not the last one, I think that this might get to Commissioner Lundy's point. I agree with you, Commissioner Lundy. If we have young people that do not have the skill development necessary to live their most vibrant potential, then how might we be able to engage with that as a community? So the big thing I'm looking at here is TIF. I don't know what's going on with tax increment financing, and I don't explain it perfectly yet, but conceptually, tax increment financing does impact not the amount of money that's collected, but how much goes to local governments and how much goes to schools. So that, I think, has to be kind of, that thread needs to be pulled on. Again, not that it's like an incorrect tool, but I am curious, and I've said this to our assessor, and I've said this to other folks, this is not out of nowhere, no worries, everybody. But what Minneapolis Public Schools is certainly in need of funds. And I have asked the questions around, is there a relationship with a significant use of the TIFF tool and maybe an inverse impact with school offerings, teachers, et cetera? So I'm like very on that kind of, you know, in that thinking. And maybe I'm being too eager, which many of you are aware that I might be. Menpace. I think has always bothered me. I'm not sure, but since it was so clear that that was a shift in accounting, and this is where my actual question is, I think from what I've understood in the past, which is limited, MnPACE is nearby. It is not TIFF, but it is nearby from a special levy perspective. It is nearby because it doesn't have the same kind of governance You know, TIFs have a particular governance model that doesn't require approval from the places for which that money should have gone or could have gone or was eligible to go to. Got to be a little bit careful with my language, I suppose. So, yeah, I wanted to let everybody know kind of how I'm thinking about the budget overall, and then I'm really interested in MinPay's and my transparent bias is I think I don't like it already. So I'm not sure if that's appropriate or not, but I'm interested in hearing about MnPACE.

Madam Chair, please. Thank you, Madam Chair, Commissioner Fernando. So starting with MnPACE, which is the easier program to explain. So that's been at Hennepin County, I want to say close to 10 years now. That was brought forward by the legislature as an option for property owners to request that a special assessment be put on their property to pay for energy improvements or water usage improvements or improvements to the resiliency of their property. The challenge with that, as you pointed out, is it is a property tax payment. And so if you think about on your street, when you might have a special assessment for road repair, the mechanism is the same. MnPACE is the first time in the county's history that we use special assessments. Prior to that program, we were not doing special assessments on our projects. So we can provide more information on the types of projects that have been done. There have been many of them. The amount that you see reflected in the budget is the annual payment that all of the outstanding PACE loans that those properties are paying each year. So there's millions of dollars that are being collected in fees on those special assessments to pay for projects that have taken place I know, I think Deanna is over there if she wants to speak more specifically, but we can give you more background on how that's been utilized in the past and what that mechanism is. I think if I recall correctly, the first one in the county was an auto repair shop in Edina, I think that puts solar panels on the roof as an example of a program that And that program is administered for us by the St. Paul Port Authority. They have special legislation that allows them to be the administrator statewide. The county signed an agreement with the Port Authority some years ago. So we can put together some background information about the structure of that program and the history. But what makes it slightly unusual when you think about how it's administered is the property owners work with the St. Paul Port Authority on their projects. Our role is to impose the special assessment. So that is a unique program and is relatively new.

So the special assessment is separate than property taxes collected for that site? Correct.

It is in addition to the assessed property taxes from the value of your home based on the levy.

I moved from dislike to just regular skeptical. But anyway, that's good.

So for TIF, I'm going to recommend that we actually come back to you with a memo because I think there's a number of layers here. There are multiple types of TIF districts. Historically, 20 years ago, you probably would have seen a TIF district created and a local government might issue bonds to pay for a project. Today, what is most common is that a TIF district is put in place and they operate on what they call a pay-go basis. So if you think about, I'm going to use the Arbor Lakes up in Maple Grove, there's a TIF district put in effect to rehab the soil to allow for all of those commercial properties to be built. And so you're correct, they effectively are paying property taxes, those properties, they're aggregated in the TIF district, which then is paying for the rehabilitation, which is basically digging out the bad soil and putting gravel in. And I think there's reasonable arguments on all sides from a policy standpoint about whether that is good policy or bad policy, so I won't make a judgment on that. But what we can show you are actual examples of TIF districts that have come through in the last 10 or 15 years. We can also show you what happens over the life cycle of those TIF districts. So the Mall of America, for example, was originally constructed with a very large TIF district. I don't know if any of you were on the board at the time that that district expired, but at the time that that expired, that property tax base then comes back onto the county tax rolls. And at that time, I want to say it was equal to 0.8% or 1% of the county's total tax base. It's a very large property. They today have a different variation of a TIF district, which is unique to the Mall of America. known as a fiscal increment. We can talk a little bit about that. There's a lot of writing that's been pulled together, so we can also give you some additional resources. It's a complicated topic, but I think we can give you a couple samples to show how it's been used. Also, you should be aware from time to time, and I know Commissioner Gattell has had these before, you will see TIF districts come before this board, not because we're creating them, but sometimes special legislation requires you to approve an extension or a rule modification. The other one that I would just point out, and we can pull this together as well, your comment about the schools. So the outlet mall south of the Mall of America, just south across the river, when that TIF district was extended and created to construct that property, there was an active public discussion between the city, the school, and the county at that time about whether or not that TIF district should continue. And my recollection that we can confirm is that the school district actually opted to have their tax base or their share pulled out of the district because they needed that funding. And so there is a case study out there we can show you as just kind of an example. I don't know that that's particularly common, but that's just one that I recall.

Yes, Madam Chair. Thank you. And that's kind of what I'm getting at. We are clearly in a time where we have to review our whole budget. And so we have to review all of the tools, in my opinion, and just make sure that they are working in a way that makes sense in today's construct. This is not meant to diss however it got created, but it is, does this make sense in today's construct? So if it's more on the special levy side, I mean, I have tons of opinions on special levies. I'm looking at Ms. Cerny over there. I learned last year during the Lowry Avenue reconstruction that the cost participated portion of that reconstruction, the city special levied those parcels. And so again, there is a disparate experience occurring With respect to special levies, to tax districts, I'm not in formal opposition to any of these. I want them to work in today's context. And the reason why I said I wasn't sure if I liked MinPACE is because one of the benefits it says is the program is tax neutral with no financial exposure to cities or counties. And that just sounds so pleasant that there's likely... inquiry for me so that that that is where my um kind of intent i went up no exposure completely neutral then why is it being used all the time so i so i just wanted to be transparent as to everybody as to why it's such a curiosity and if i could madam chair i think you bring up a great point um when these min pace loans are put out there the port authority is working with investors who ultimately buy these loans

That's where the upfront capital is coming to build these projects. And then the special levy is imposed to repay that loan. So it's complicated. But the comment that you're pointing to where there's not risk for cities and counties is because there are private investors who are at risk, whether or not those perform. And we do have safeguards in our agreement with the Port Authority to protect taxpayers.

These aren't bonds.

These are not bonds. These are loans. And so in the event that a loan defaults, that special assessment runs with the property. So if you were, back to an example, if you're an auto parts or auto repair shop and you default on your loan or on your taxes, that special assessment remains with the property. And that's where this gets a little bit more complicated. I'm not aware that any of these have ever run through difficulty in the event that there's a property sale. that special assessment typically needs to be resolved. If you think about selling your house when there's a street assessment or something like that. So there's a lot of experience out there with these, but it is complicated.

Then again, I really just hope it is for its intention, right? If it's about renewable, like if it's about businesses doing it for these purposes, then wonderful. But what are the public dollar checks and balances? And in a time like now where everyone is being asked to do more with less, like we really need to ensure that our financial model is as tight as it could be. That's what I have. Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner Connolly.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So congratulations on the first disparity elimination budget briefing in history. I'm thankful that, I'll just echo that I'm thankful that this came to us in the way that it did, because it does allow for more discussion. And I got some deep dives I want to get into. Commissioner Fernando asked the question that I was going to start with, which was in workforce development around some of the programs, which, in my opinion, are really important ones to keep whole so in the people exiting homelessness the succeeding in employment specifically I would be interested in like what those decreases look like how many you don't have to answer that right now it could be a follow-up but like how many people does that impact like how many people won't be served if those programs specifically are ones that we had to impose reductions on which then leads me to like just a follow up in general. We are all very much as you've heard concerned about what is being done to snap. It's, it's, I'll echo Commissioner Anderson that it's gross and disgusting. As a follow up, though, I would be interested in what are all of the services and initiatives that we have to reduce then for 2026, like a full list if we could be provided with that. That would be helpful for me in understanding those people that are behind the programs like or the initiatives like people exiting homelessness and the succeeding in employment because Those to me are powerful and it gets to that point about return on investment How much do we save in the long term? by investing in programs that are preventative in nature And then I wanted to ask a question about OCS work. So just all of this work is something that I think as a county, we take very seriously. Our ability to be on the ground with residents, our ability to do things like actively engage with communities in ways that are culturally relevant to them, in ways that speak to their needs, in ways that we can hear what those needs are directly from impacted people, and then design our services around that. because that's the best way that we make headway. So my only question around OCS is it looks to me that the budget remains the same, but with the loss of four FTEs, how do we maintain a level of meaningful community engagement? I see you about to speak to those FTEs, but I want to maintain a level of meaningful community engagement without that full FTE complement. How do we do that?

If I could, Madam Chair. Thank you. Madam Chair, Commissioner Conley, part of what you're seeing reflected in this line of businesses budget is a slowing of our plan growth. So our plan for the 2025 budget was for OCS to be at 15 positions. Ultimately, as we were putting the budget together, I believe that we had nine on staff. The plan is to grow that to 11, and that's leaving four positions that would likely not have been filled going forward, just recognizing the challenges ahead. And so I'm going to look to Vernota and make sure that I'm not misspeaking. But our intention here really is we're slowing the growth in the budget. We're actually planning to have more people on staff. We've also made sure that we've got permanent base funding for the Trusted Messenger Program, which is an area that you're very familiar with. And so this is about solidifying and again, I think some of you have had better verbiage, but making sure that we're sustaining the commitments that we've made. And it's not about retrenching or backing away from those, but trying to make sure that we are definitely resourcing what we have and where we are able to grow and see a return in areas that we think are valuable investments that we continue to do that. So it's not easy. It certainly was a challenge and I see Jody might want to add to that.

Commissioner Conley, and I'm looking to Director Boswell, who might be able to provide further information. The other piece of it is we have been working over the last couple of years to really building out a federated model. So you see the core team, and there's deeper than the core team. And so Vernona has been working with all of our line of business, aligning our work and leveraging those resources. So it's okay, I'd like to ask Vernona to speak a little bit about that work. Please, welcome. You can come to the table.

Thank you commissioner chair commissioners, thank you so much for this great question I too cried when not literally but figuratively when those positions were vacated and I certainly understand the fundamental reasons as to why it will create a challenge of course we were hoping to one day become a staff of 15 which would put more boots on the ground folks in the community in various communities. We had some ideas and suggestions around what those FTEs would look like in the future. But here we are today of like, how are we going to sort of maintain or do more with less, if you will, and where is that going to hurt and hit us? You know, fundamentally, because again, being able to be responsive to the communities and especially communities of color, where we know there are greater and dire needs of community engagement, getting the feedback from our residents, So some of the things that we plan on doing for 2026 and strategies is, as the administrator Whitman mentioned, to build more of a federated model with internal departments and also external community vendors. And part of the ways in which we're going to do that is we're going to start formalizing what's called a community engagement steering committee, where we're going to pull together internal directors who have some sort of community engagement component to their line of business. And by pulling those leaders together, It gives me and other community engagement leaders a high overview of what is the work that is out there? What is what is doing? What is happening in the community? How do we come up with responsive efforts together as a county, as a government to respond, to be responsive and not necessarily reactive, but more responsive? For example, we see hot spots and hot pockets in our communities where there is crisis, whether it's drug use, there's crime, there's a need for unsheltered residents. We want, by putting this steering committee together, we want to be able to come up with a response of who's doing what and how can we build an alignment, a federated model of who's going to respond. Do we respond as a team? Do we put together a crisis responsive team within community engagement? And folks come to the table and say, what do you have to offer? Whether that's care packages, we're working on that. Whether it's different things in the community to meet those needs. Do we need David Hewitt at the table? Do we need Olita's group at the table? Do we need OCS at the table? All of those things, the steering committee will get to better finding out where are the gaps, where are the needs in the community and who are we going to send out there? Is it appropriate for the county or is it appropriate to send, to vendor out that, to ask the community engagement team team or an agency to respond on behalf of the county because we have a partnership. So this steering committee will hopefully be able to address those gaps because again, we are all going to be asked to do more with less. And so that is part of some of the strategy in terms of the federated model. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Very helpful. Thank you for that. I look forward to the steering committee. I think that that's a brilliant idea to strategize. It sounds like There's nine now. There will be a total of 11 with the addition of two. It sounds like administrative assistance.

Great. OK, great.

So thank you. Otherwise, everything was great. And thank you for keeping trusted messengers whole, because that's our voice to residents and community, and it matters. And we continue to keep that whole. That brings me then to education and support services, and then I'll end with climate and resiliency. And I had a similar question, too, around, I'm on page 29 of the budget booklet, and in the significant issues, it ends with, again, reduced contracted services, including less spending on community-based agency programming offered on and off-site at Hennepin County family shelters. That worries me, so I would love if we could just talk a little bit more about what those contracted programs are that might be lost.

Please, Ms. Wetland. Mr. Connolly, I'd like to ask Director Krista Vims. Welcome, Ms. Vims.

All right. Thank you, Chair Gautel, and thank you, Commissioner Connolly, for the question. I just want to start out by saying this is the new work that we have been doing in partnership with Housing Stability and our Hennepin County Libraries called Operandamos Juntos, Let's Learn Together. The offerings that we were providing on-site at the shelters were available and open to all shelter families, of course, but we also had some targeted particularly Spanish language availability to support those families. We have been leveraging our staff to be able to come in and provide and connect with those students and families, be that bridge for educational partners, work with Housing Stability, try to bridge all of those kind of gaps. The funding that we had for community-based partnerships was to come in and provide different types of support sessions. We've had educational excursions for families. We've done some partnerships with Three Rivers Parks. Ultimately, we decided that we wanted to be strategic with our funds to leverage the expertise we have on our staff and then reduce some of the offerings we've had onsite at the shelter. Hopefully that made sense. It did.

Madam Chair, so then I'd like another follow-up on that one too. Like how much are we reducing? How many families does that impact? Because that's good programming. And I would hate to see that not everybody who's involved with this work has access to it. So we don't have to go into the deep dive now, but I would love a follow-up that really outlines for me that the reduction in contracted services around that work, how many families will it hit? How many families will not be able to access it? again, a hard decision to make as the leader of this area. I really do acknowledge that. And it's not lost on me that you're also thinking about how many families would be impacted by it. So I would like to see it though.

Yes. And, uh, to repel commissioner, um, I, I would like to call to Zandy to ask for the exact dollar figure that we made that reduction. Um, however, I would like to say some of this has been kind of to, uh, chief financial officer Matthews points that anticipation of growth. So it doesn't, uh, in the, in our actual implementation. it really isn't a true reduction. It was our hope to be able to provide more services. So we really are trying to be thoughtful and strategic and ensure that we can leverage what we have. We're trying to work closer with the partner schools in those areas to make sure that where we may not be able to bring in a community partner, potentially there's another partnership we can leverage. ECFE has been coming in and supporting early learning and play times. Our Hennepin County Library invested in play spaces for our family shelter sites. So we really have just been trying to re-strategize. So I don't see it as a loss, it's a hope that we can grow.

And this Iverson commissioners, the amount was $40,000. So it went from $130,000 for these contracts in 2025 to a proposed $90,000 in 2026.

Okay, I really appreciate and Madam Chair, thank you. I appreciate the framing you put on it at the end there around the hope that's still there, that's not lost, and that we could potentially still get there. And, you know, 40,000 isn't a whole lot of money given the entirety of this budget. But what that funds is meaningful. So thank you for that. Thank you. All right, I'm going to move to climate resiliency, and I will try to be as quick as I can. I realize that this is something that I am very passionate about, so we'll be long-winded, but I will try not to be. I'm going back to Commissioner Anderson, that whole return on investment. In July, we had a climate briefing that talked about how increased acreages and urban farming and how access to food and how heat island affected communities, which I live in one, really just devastate residents and impacts communities as a whole. like every aspect of the places in which we live that are hit by overheating, pollution, and lack of access to fresh food, the work that we do to mitigate that is critical. And I think I underlined something in July. It says, this work that must stay well-funded and never cut, it's untouchable, because it meets our mission and vision as a county to keep people healthy. So the questions I have around the climate and resiliency budget specifically I'm glad you asked those questions around MnPACE, because I was like, what's that? But I got it. So I'm on page 36 of the budget booklet. And again, the mission says, foster climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts focusing on building a resilient and equitable Hennepin County. It's currently not as equitable in certain areas as it is in others. So I'm looking at this other revenue And it's an actual of $600,000 for 2024, a 2025 actual of $400,000. If you flip the page then, it goes into a little bit more detail around that, which is that the 2026 budget included $200,000 from Public Works for Urban Ag. And then I highlighted the part about the fiduciary fund being used and not needed to be budgeted. But I need you to talk me through where urban ag and programs like Ignite and Fortify that were highlighted in the beginning of the budget booklet, where they sit in 2025 and where they will sit in 2026, because it looks like a reduction in that. And I can see on page 38 the proposed adjustments under the 2026 proposed budget, urban agriculture support from Public Works, $200,000. But that was $400,000. So can we talk through this, Ms. Waltwood?

Chair Cotell? Commissioner Connelly, thank you for the questions. Joe Matthews, our Chief Financial Officer, can explain.

Actually, I'm going to kick it over to Zandi for the numbers first.

Explain the numbers.

Smart.

I can tell commissioner Conley so very specifically I'm going to tell you the twenty twenty five adjusted budget amount for each of these areas compared to the proposed twenty twenty six as it stands so urban agriculture there was three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the twenty twenty five adjusted budget in twenty twenty six proposed we have three hundred and sixty six thousand $736. And as you noted that $200,000 transfer from Public Works will be going towards that. For the Fortify program, there was actually $300,000 there is available in the 2025 adjusted budget for that program. Currently, this proposed budget for 2026 has $100,000. For IGNITE, there was $120,000. There is in the 2025 adjusted budget. And then for the 2026 proposed budget, there's currently $20,000 slated for that program.

Okay, Madam Chair. I would like us to find a way to right-size that. Specifically, these are programs that directly impact residents' ability to have access to food and climate resiliency resources. These are mostly residents who live in areas that are impacted by pollution, heat islands, and a lack of access to fresh food. We should not be cutting those programs. We have to right-size those. So I think that this is an area of business within disparity elimination that has historically had funds from solid waste, funds from HICRA, SO WHAT IS THE, HOW DO WE MOVE INTO 2026 RIGHT SIZING PROGRAMS THAT FEED PEOPLE?

CHAIR COTELL, COMMISSIONER CONLEY, I WILL START AND THEN I'M GOING TO HAND OVER TO JOE MATTHEWS. SO I'M GOING TO START WITH, THERE'S TWO STRATEGIES. ONE'S A LONGER STRATEGY AND ONE IS GOING TO BE THE IMMEDIATE FOR THE 2026 BUDGET. IN THE LONGER, BROADER STRATEGY, AS YOU INDICATED, THERE IS THIS WORK SITS IN MULTIPLE DEPARTMENTS AS WELL AS FUNDING IN PUBLIC WORKS, in housing and economic development. And Deputy County Administrator Kareem Murphy, along with Assistant County Administrator Lisa Cerny and Dan Rogan, Deputy County Administrator, have actually brought together the teams to align our strategies and our work and our funding focused towards climate and resiliency. And so how are we assuring full alignment on our strategies and our priority and funding? So my hope is that in the future, you will see even a broader and bolder plan around climate and resiliency aligned. To address the 2026 budget, I will let Joe Matthews, CFO, talk about what we've done in regards to Ignite and Florify.

Sure, and I think, you know, Madam Chair, Commissioner Conley, actually, I think Administrator Wendland did a nice job of outlining what the long-term strategy is. I think as we move through the next couple of months, we are trying to make sure and evaluate where we have opportunities to leverage all of these different programs. So between this department, HED, the HRA, as you mentioned, HICRA, we really do want to make sure that we are appropriately leveraging all of our state and federal resources that remain, as well as aligning our local ones. And so we'll be working with Deputy Administrator Murphy and his team just to make sure that, to your point, we don't want to leave people behind in these areas. And if that means that we need to go back and reprioritize, we can do that. But the intention behind this was not to leave those areas empty. It was really to make sure that we're not duplicating the same services that may be provided elsewhere. So we'll come back with more information on that.

So Madam Chair, if I may. I don't know that it's duplication. And it's because of my understanding of the programs, right? So Fortify Community Adaptation Initiative, over 10 community-based organizations have received funding from that to advance nature-based solutions, resilience strategies, educational programming. And Fortify... supports the addition of 15 community and rain gardens, right? I think that the work that's happening in HED is for infrastructure, not necessarily. So you can walk me through that, but not necessarily as community focused as rain gardens, for example. So that's why these two programs specifically are so important to me is because they directly impact community in a way that I think what's happening in HRA doesn't. It impacts the infrastructure. It impacts the building, the material, the capital pieces of it, as opposed to the actual organizations that would apply for this type of thing.

Am I off? No, no. I think you're on point, Commissioner. I think it'll be helpful for us to come back with maybe something that lays out more of a high-level overview of all the strategies so we can show, and to your point, if it's not truly a need that's being met somewhere else, that we can make sure that we've assessed what the needs are and can resource it as appropriate.

I would appreciate that, Madam Chair. Thank you. I just want to end by saying that I can't stress enough the importance, again, with people not going to have SNAP soon, because what those cuts mean is that there will be less people who will be eligible for SNAP. When there is not access to programs that we provide that get fresh food, get climate resiliency highlighted in communities where it's not, that's a detriment to us. That, in my opinion, it's disappointing to me to see. I would very much appreciate the high-level overview, a very strategic way to, if there is couch cushions that can be flipped over, that we right-size, fortify, and ignite, and that urban ag is fully funded. Like Commissioner Lundy said about education and doubling that, I want to double urban agriculture work. I see it every day in our community, how many people are getting food from food shelves are going to community gardens to get their produce because we can't afford it in the grocery store anymore. It just costs too much. So if people are cut off SNAP and they don't have access to fresh food, they're not healthy, they're sicker, and we don't want to go that direction, even with those cuts, right? So the way that I talk about this with community members is like we're the first line of defense because the federal government is not looking out for you, but our vision, our mission as a county is to do so. So anything that takes our community from healthy to unhealthy is not something that should be on the chopping block. It should be like a push to keep people well fed. To me, climate and resiliency is how we do that among a host of other things, but it's a very important key part. So I'll stop there. But I think we had two more people to get through. Commissioner Adelson. I think Jody wanted to go. Okay, quickly.

Thank you, Commissioner Conley. Thank you so much. And I think you will see through the budget process, this is, as we built this budget, there was a lot of unknowns. And we are continuing to just, so first of all, how do we maximize? How do we align our resources? How do we prioritize? As well as what are the federal and state impacts? And we are still, even post-budget submission, experiencing those. And so you will see, back to right-sizing and or adjusting, That is something that we are working on, and you will see that coming through later in the budget cycle. Wonderful.

Thank you. Okay.

Ms. Radelson, please.

Okay, so I want to talk about, of course, climate change. So I just have three. So I want to talk about climate change. Kareem, you had mentioned on the slides that we are launching an initiative to cool neighborhoods. Can you just tell me what that initiative is? It says climate action. It's 12, actually. No, no, if you go by 12 or 6, it's page 6, but slide 12. If you could just tell me what that initiative is, because I am concerned. I can't remember what commissioner it was, but I've said this before during our climate briefing. is as somebody that grew up without air conditioning, and a lot of people in our community do not have it, we have University of Minnesota's projecting that climate to just keep increasing. So what I wanna know for our residents, especially, I mean, I'll just stop. Tell me what we're doing with those initiatives. I think that would be helpful.

Madam Chair, Commissioner Edelson, I'd like to invite Deanna Shaman Salas up to respond to that question.

Welcome Ms. Shaman Salas.

Our Director of Climate and Resiliency.

Please put the mic up.

Thank you for your question. Madam Chair, Commissioner Edelson. So we recently won an award from the NPCA, about $116,000, that is funding a heat resiliency plan, which is based on a campaign that we did with NOAA funds. Again, everything is funded outside of the county to map the urban heat island throughout the county. It identified specific areas and neighborhoods that are facing higher heat urban heat island, and it's obviously mostly vulnerable communities. So we're now working with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and Minnesota MCAP, so University of Minnesota Partnership on Adaptation. And we are building an assessment and doing engagement with trusted messengers from OCS, thank you OCS for your support, to create a wide plan with concrete strategies and a suite of actions that we'll be implementing to reduce urban heat island. Some of those include expanding the number of cooling solutions, but also looking into specific areas that could be greened, investing in nature-based solutions, and then listening to what community is currently doing to reduce the effects of urban heat island. We will be having a plan finalized by May of next year. And hopefully with that, we should be identifying new sources for the implementation. But we're currently connecting with different partners, including the University of Minnesota, as I said before, MPCA. And so we will be deploying the plan next year. Thank you.

I just want to think, oh, is it on again?

There we are. I'm glad you're engaging with residents because I think that's going to be very important to make sure that, I think we already know that I think people should have a cooling mechanism in their home, whether or not that's income dependent. I would just ask, you know, if people don't have air conditioning or if they do, turn it off for three weeks. on your hottest weeks in Minnesota. And then you talked to me about not making sure that everybody has access to air conditioning. So thank you, I appreciate that. Okay, so the next thing I want to talk about is SNAP. So SNAP, we said SNAP, the E&E programs are being cut by 70%. I think is that what I heard? 69%. being reduced. And so those essentially are how we do vocational in job searches. So just again, for like me just making sense of it on my own. So we're, we're saying we're implementing work requirements. We're cutting how we help people get jobs. How are we meeting that so that we're helping residents meet that moment? Because what I see happening is we're saying we want you to do this work requirement for the federal government, but we're taking away all your supports to meet that demand. and then to your point our food shelves requirement are going to go up and so i love what you were talking about creating this triage group of how are we going to help people because i think this next year disparities reduction your jobs are not going to be more important because we have a lot of disparities and so i guess tell me how we're meeting those shifting needs commissioner edelson thank you

So you're right. You just outlined it's a challenging environment that we've lived in and heartbreaking actually in so many ways with federal changes around the work requirements that's not just for SNAP but actually for health care as well. so in order to have access to health care coverage for many of the residents we serve and at the same point in time the resources that came from the federal government to actually support residents in achieving employment has been reduced for the actual employment and actually you will hear it in the upcoming human services line of business the funding to support the staff to help residents get on SNAP and stay on SNAP has been reduced, and this budget has experienced that reduction. So what we're doing is multifaceted in here. It's in this work, and I just want to commend our team and the level of cross department, cross line of business partnership. And Commissioner Conley, you talked about our investments, and you will see that upcoming in our health line of business. You will see food insecurity funding that we have maintained as a whole at a time because residents are accessing food shelf and needing access to that. But I'd like to ask Mei Zhang, Chief Workforce, to talk about actually the planning that has been underway over the last several months around how are we going to do this with reduced resources.

I'm having the same problem.

Chair Cattell, Commissioners, thank you for your question, Commissioner Adelson. In partnership with Economic Supports, our team has been reimagining the program model. So unfortunately, with the funding cuts, we've had to reimagine what it means to serve our participants who are on SNAP to ensure that they're also receiving their food benefits, but also able to access workforce. So our two staff that's been part of the SNAP E&T program will work from an outreach and engagement perspective to make sure the recipients that are on SNAP actually do meet those requirements. We are going to be relying heavily on our providers to continue doing this work. And at the same time, we're also working across all of our other county partners to ensure that regardless of where residents live, that they are connected and coordinated. So we as a county, along with our county partners, are having to kind of step up in ways that we haven't done before. And then internally here, we've been in partnership with Economic Support for the last three months, planning and reimagining what the program model will look like so that no one gets is able to move without any services, that we are able to engage in them early and often so that they don't lose their benefits at the three month mark. So it's been a huge internal shift, but it's also one that has really forced us to really kind of bring together an intentional model where Economic supports team is being, you know, is a partner in this. We're complementing our services and we feel confident that whichever direction we go, especially in partnership with economic supports, that recipients will be served. It will be lesser than what we anticipated because of the funding cuts, but we do anticipate the, you know, continuous outreach engagement to connect them and to have them stay on SNAP.

Well, thank you for that. I love the words of reimagining and being creative because I think it's like just dealing with the realities that we're facing. And we shouldn't, I wish it wasn't the place that we're in. So we know that the age is going from 54 to 64 for requirements. Do we have any anticipation in terms of how many people will be impacted by the SNAP changes? Because SNAP is changing January 1. So this is like our emergent versus Medicare. We still have a little bit more time. So do we have any – I mean, and I also would love to know, and I'll wait for health. We need some estimated numbers in terms of what we're projecting. And then also, you know, just like the top 10 public schools, universities, we're kind of creating a triage group to figure out how to handle some of the legal concerns with an administration coming. What are we doing – for residents that we don't have a solution for. So we know whether or not our team is doing the best job they can, and I have no doubt they will. More people will be forced to go to food shelves. More people will get rejected. That is just a reality. I don't care how creative or how reimagining, all that, it's happening. So what are we doing in those instances? How are we partnering with food shelves? That's my other question.

Chair Cattell, Commissioners, one of the things that, one, in terms of the numbers, right, we are, we've got preliminary numbers right now, and so I can definitely follow up with those accurate numbers. We're working with economic supports to really look across all the programs to ensure that we've got the right numbers. We've done some preliminary data looking into that, so I'll follow up with some, you know, accurate information around some of that. In regards to the other question regarding the services, that is one of the conversations we've been having with DCYF. and many other partners in the state around if they become, so the state has applied to become a pledge state. And that basically means when you become a pledge state, you are in essence committing to serving all recipients of SNAP in order to ensure that they are getting the employment training services. That opens us up to more funding and what that might look like. How that's going to get distributed, we are not sure yet. They did apply. We don't know yet what the status of the application is. But we are trying to be intentional about what that means as it flows down to our services to the recipients. So that's one where we're paying attention and staying in close coordination with. The other piece is that we are going to be looking at continuous state funding for employment and training services. So while these, we also understand our providers are also getting, you know, short budgets and they're getting their budgets tightened because of this as well. So we are having to be creative around funding sources outside of SNAP B&T in order to get them on. So one is making sure they are aware of the requirements, that they're engaged and they are aware of the timelines. Two, that we are leveraging whatever resources we have with DEED and other training sources to provide trainings from our providers. And then the third is tracking what's happening at the state with the pledge status application because that will also then hopefully open us more for funding for employment change since that becomes a broader expansion of the population.

Thank you. And Madam Chair, I just have one more question. Thank you. I think everybody on the board would love to know about the pledge status. Thank you for being creative there. Krista Mims. For education, great job on all of this. The one thing I don't see is mental health. We have 40% of youth in our schools are experiencing a mental health crisis right now. And I would love to see in our disparity elimination We're never going to get rid of mental illness as a whole. Again, I get that. But it should absolutely be something that is included in this packet. students are struggling. You think about who doesn't go to school, and at a given day, there are definitely youth out. We have this generation that's growing up right now that is essentially the testers of what it's like to grow up with social media. And they can't turn it off. We didn't have that growing up. I can't imagine high school was hard enough. So I think that mental health is something that we should Absolutely put in here and ways that we can continue to really work on that as a disparity elimination will be helpful And that's all I have madam chair Okay

Madam Chair, Commissioner Adelson, I appreciate that. You will be hearing more about mental health and children's mental health specifically in the Health and Human Services budget briefing that's coming up later next month. So we'll be sure to include information about our strategies and investments there. Inclusion of the overall, you heard earlier about the Grow, Learn, Thrive framework, which is designed to collaborate across lines of business, across departments, and with our intergovernmental partners, school boards, our cities, our state, et cetera. That framework is the holding bin for that level of collaboration. And I think I hear behind your question, but we'll be providing some specific information about investments, the investment strategy, and the proposed 2026 budget at the Health and Human Services. budget briefings. And I also just wanted to add that you've been hearing about collaboration. Collaboration is infrastructure that is designed to respond and to be as proactive as possible around these cuts. Efficiency is the infrastructure we'll be using to build out, to address, respond, and protect against these cuts. And so you've heard a lot of it from workforce development. There's a ton that have been in the works. they've been plans and ideas that have been on the shelf that are being taken off and prioritized because this moment calls for it you'll be some of these things will be built out once you I'm presuming once you approve the 2026 budget and we'll be able to provide a bit more detail but there's There's a lot of directors on that side and county administration on this side, and there's a lot of collaboration that's been taking place over the past several weeks, probably several months, since the cuts we've been facing. So I just wanted to forecast what you'll be hearing in a few weeks for some of those budget briefings and some of the more programmatic collaborations that you'll be hearing about across the course of 2026.

I'm going to go next, but I know there's a couple of my colleagues who want to add.

I'll put you down.

We have until 3, right? I have yet gotten to mine and I would like to get to my comments and then I will go back around. I have Irene, Jeff, and Marian on after me. I wanted to first say that on page 7 of the budget book about reducing the heat island effect, I really concur with what my colleagues have already brought up about this issue. But one of the things that I want to point out in a very positive way is the mobilizing of 120 community volunteers. And Commissioner Fernando made it very clear that we can't count on government to provide these data. This is great. This is what we're going to have to do. We are going to have to provide. But we have volunteers in this community that want to do this work. We have high schools and students and so many other ways to engage people, to bring this to fruition. So first of all, kudos whoever thought of this. Second of all, we need to replicate it even more because this really matters. And I'm going to start with the mental health that Commissioner Edelson brought up. And I want to say that I have been making my regular rounds. I go in and talk to various police chiefs and everything. A superintendent is one of them. I was just at the Minneapolis school, and they currently can't afford their mental health offerings at the level of services that they currently have. And they've told me that and that some of the budget is cut on that. And so I'm sure that there are other schools that are looking at some of these other things. What can we afford? What can't we afford? And we think about mental health. That's a really big thing, especially after the pandemic. I know that I also brought this to a current administration already. We are talking about this and the fact that we don't do the superintendent meetings. And so we're going to try to start those back up. We need to find out if we're really going to get serious about education, like you said, Commissioner Lundy, and by God, we better be talking to them. I'm talking to my community, and I'm sure some of my other colleagues are too, but I'm literally sitting in there. What's your rub? What's going wrong? What's going right? So I want to go back to that whole education about kids reading and writing. Well, they've got to show up. They've got to be at the classroom. They're still not showing up. Now, we had some pilots that had huge promise. and showed some really great results through the county attorney's office. We got to operationalize it. And by the way, we don't have any money to do it. And I've already talked to the superintendents about this. You need to start partnering in your community and figure out how to do this. We know this work really works. And it's just outreach through the summers to these, and specifically to these families who are struggling to keep their kids in the schools and to bring them into community. We're going to have to figure out how to do it with volunteers. or other people or other businesses that want to see this in their community. We're going to have to figure out, because we know it works. So how are we going to be able to make this work? How are we going to get those kids? If you show up, that's half the battle, right? So I'm really big on wanting to make sure that these kids just show up to the classroom. From there, that's where they can get the assessments and everything. And I know I brought Administrator Whetland a tool for mental health, and I know that we're assessing it right now that might be a breakthrough from an FDA thing. So I'm real excited about that. We're testing it out now. We're talking about it. There may be some ways forward to save some dollars here. And by the way, our large insurance companies are paying for it. Thank God they stepped up. I too want to look at this. This is slide four where we talk about the number we serve. I think that's a fabulous idea about how many we've served. I think that, you know, the involvement of the community in collecting data is great. I also just want to know how will we be able to keep up this level of service? I think that's the same question I've heard. Up and down the day is here. How will we keep this up? It's going to be difficult. We certainly see the need, and how will we make that work? Yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing what we find from broadband and digital inclusion later on because I'm really concerned about closing that gap. for a lot of reasons, education, but also our seniors. They're trapped by themselves many times. This is the only lifeline they get to their families. How will we be able to do that? And I would like to know, are our partners, our commercial partners, are they stepping up with some extra dollars or something about that? What are they going to do? I mean, we're going to have to ask them to start doing this stuff, because they know that it affects the community, too. So I would be interested in hearing about that. The SNAP. I think we're all concerned about SNAP. And I don't want to go over what everybody else has said because I think nothing more needs to be said about that except that not only is it the food and we're going to go to the food shelf more, the food shelves are already cutting back, folks. They're already lowering what you can only get one on you. You can only get one gallon of milk. And by the way, you've got to make that last. You can't come back for two weeks. So this is a real problem because USAID and the food-to-table dollars are gone for our schools and the budget for my food shelf was cut by 30%. 30%. So whatever we do on food, you talk about, well, we're keeping it stable. Well, it's not going to keep up. And there just aren't a lot of dollars coming through to that. So I'm just really concerned about that. And then I want to just say about this whole, I think outreach is so critical. Community outreach that's specific to cultures really matters. I know that I had some phone calls this week from some of those kinds of communities saying we need more outreach culturally responsive to some of the service centers that are not necessarily county but serve these communities to address the homeless issues that they have at their front doors because they can't, people are afraid to come in their front doors because there are so many homeless people around their front doors. So how do we get our arms, I don't think this is gonna get better unless we get our arms around it and we literally go and start having those conversations at the front door of some of our partners out in the community who are serving some of the people most in need. So I just think that those are some of the, that's some of the conversations that are coming into our office right now. So I don't know if anybody would like to respond to that.

Thank you. We maintain a very aggressive outreach and engagement program primarily hubbed through the housing stability department, David Hewitt and his team in terms of connecting directly with communities. There's a our streets to homeless team does regular surveys throughout the county. It's not just hotspots inside of Minneapolis, but that's a countywide service. Those partnerships do exist in terms of connection with long term housing stability. So that's the services for persons living with disabilities. That includes H.E.D. and Julia Wells area as well. And we do have partnerships with municipalities in terms of ensuring that there's an environmental scan that can happen when our staff isn't able to be everywhere all at once. So those partnerships are there. The training and outreach for community level services, I think there's an inherent externality to our homeless and outreach service. So I know that our outreach and community supports department is there to provide guidance and expertise. But if there is a face of Hennepin County that is always outside of an office building, it is very much going to be our streets to housing services there. In terms of connecting with business owners, I think that's just part of the overall scan that happens. I know because of the shooting that happened, of the shootings, I should say, that happened off of Lake Street, we've had a heightened level of concern, but also a heightened number of calls for service that involves our COPE team. We have a community healing service that is a joint work, I believe, between behavioral health, outreach and community supports, and housing stability. So we've We've got some infrastructure in terms of programs, staff, and contracted providers. So I hope that's a little bit of a response.

I mean, I know they're there. They don't know to call. Some of these people actually just don't know to call. I'm just going to say that. And they didn't. And they don't realize when I talk to them how much we're out there and what we're doing literally every day, literally every day of the week. And we're still not where we need to be if they don't know to call us, right?

Yes. Okay. We can always do better.

Yeah. Other? I'm going to pass it back to Commissioner Fernando. Oh, great. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm going to give you five minutes each. Yep. Okay. Thank you.

So just a couple more just contributions in this space. On the SNAP and food piece, which is really about cuts, right? We are, you know, individuals on high have redistributed the complete financial model for us. So how are we sharing that load? So identifying the need and trend, the accompanying financials, so that we can advocate. Like, we should not be the only local government that's contributing to replacing the food need, you know, that has to be distributed. And either local governments will then you know, find ways in their budgets to tax for it, or maybe that will assist in our success in establishing additional or diversified revenue options. I mean, my point is there is... a important function that for over five decades in a bipartisan manner, SNAP, Medicaid, other examples that have been distributed and that has, while we have had, well, we've had to close the gap on some of those aspects, that primary amount that is being taken should not be replaced by just us. And so how are we thinking about that in kind of a regionalized manner, if you will, and really just getting the numbers I have long been frustrated about this with respect to specifically homelessness in our unsheltered population. You know, we are not required by law to care for those who are unsheltered, and yet Hennepin has found many, many ways to contribute. And so we need to be sharing that responsibility and that outcome of shared humanity with our locals. That was one comment. Second comment. This one's a bit looser, but I was inspired by Commissioner Ellison really focusing on the mental health piece. And now I'm going back to like, you know, like seven years ago or eight years ago, stuff that I think I said back then. It might be time for us to really back then we were still saying mental health care is health care. You know, we were still just really attempting to destigmatize it even up here. When we think of physical health and mental health, however imperfect. We got the food triangle, again, however imperfect, the 10,000 steps, the eight classes. I don't follow any of these, but I at least know what they are and can speak about that. When I speak about mental health and behavioral health, especially with young people, I speak about it by emotional regulation, safe environment, and safety. like multi-generational care, caring adults, comes from the youth development, you know, Peter Benson's model. Anyway, what is our, you know, how might we be thinking about that in this time period? And that's what Commissioner Adelson's getting at. We have a uniqueness in today's conditions that are about today's conditions. just like with everything else. So again, the way that I speak about it might not be the way in which the county would speak about it, but in general, like safe physical spaces, that makes sense. How are we ensuring that community is reconnected after it was so disconnected by requirement in virtual land? that like blip that took place, how are we reconnecting that community aspect and then individually I think a lot of this gets to social and emotional regulation. And I know that that sounds more formal than I mean to but it's because I don't know what the right word is but As a youth worker, we sought to ensure that young people didn't never fall or make a mistake, but of course that they knew how to rise from that moment. It's termed as resiliency at times, but you can't be resilient if you don't know the skills out of the gate first. And so how are we... ensuring that young people are, you know, learning how to meditate and not getting suspended at school, that they're being fed food, when acting out before having to be expelled where there may not be food. And so I just thinking about it from that lens. And thank you.

Just, it would be interesting. I'll Well, my office will try to do the research, but I think transit has to be included as far as disparities. You talk about the cost to get places nowadays that doesn't have access to transit. I think Kevin's district where we simply don't have it. There are people there who are in poverty and they don't have bus lines that go by and they don't have anything planned in the nearabouts. And so I do think given the cost of owning the vehicle, the cost of insurance, which is accelerating, I'm sure everybody else here has felt that when you see your insurance. And so I do think that has a disparate impact on people. And I don't know, I don't want to blow this into this thing, but it does. The work that we do in transit about trying to eliminate some of those costs have you know, have opportunities. The other thing I wanted to talk about is just, we collectively have talked a lot about stuff we want to spend money on. I think we need to take a look at things that we have that need to be consolidated. I think that the services side, be it school, should be in education support services. I've said that for two years now. I'll say it again. There is a legal statutory requirement for truancy, but the services that need to be provided do not need to be in the county attorney's office. We have community engagement everywhere. We have inside the sheriff's department, we have inside the county attorney's office, and we have in the county. We should really have a conversation with all three entities, which I know what that'll look like, but that's too bad. If we're gonna talk about community engagement, we need to stop with the silos because all three of them are doing engagement on behalf of all of us. We all work together. I will say in Brooklyn Park, I helped pioneer community engagement. It was started when I was there. We had it as a standalone that other parts would reach into and say, I need help with this outreach. And so this was a team that would provide support to all different agencies or departments within the city. There's absolutely no reason you can't do that at the county. We may be bigger, we may feel like we're smarter, but at the end of the day, having a central group that provides community engagement for everyone, allows people to have relationships that may be built in certain areas be used for other things. So I agree, as I look at the budget, I think about we need to look at consolidation much more ruthlessly. And I don't mean people, just where does money get spent? And that having all these things out there makes it really hard to say that we're trying to do things, I think. And I look at myself, I'm trying to figure out what am I not bringing forward? I am not bringing back Cities United this year. I brought it here to two years. I care about it deeply. But at the end of the day, if you're not willing to sacrifice something that you care about deeply, you can't ask others to do it. The last one was just a question. I want to thank Mei-Jung on the comments on the SNAP pledge. I would be really curious, what's the impact on the county? Because my impression right now is the feds and the state are, we got this great pledge, and are we expected to put money in? Because it does offer 100% benefits, but impact financially? Does the state getting it mean that the county is going to carry more burden for them to carry the pledge and we pay the bill? Or is there movement at the federal level, and I would defer to our IRGR team, are they going to be changing that as well? Because we can't be the only state that's discovered that there's this program that offers 100%. So that changes. We may be jumping to a lily pad that may not be there by the time we land. So I would appreciate that, and that's something offline. Thank you.

All right. Commissioner Green.

So a couple of questions and comments.

about TIF. So it sounds like we've got a memo coming. Thank you for that. I wondered if it's possible in that memo to track the use of TIF by city and if it makes sense if that's like in my lay person's mind that's interesting. But what I'm really after is anything that highlights geographic winners and losers. That's one of the things that concerns me about the use of TIF is that it's sort of a way of getting around equalization. And So I'll acknowledge a differential in the geographic impact on Hennepin County's, you know, what's coming to us as property tax. So interested in that. On this topic of SNAP, so I may be the last person to have learned this, but today I absorbed that not only did they cut SNAP, but they expanded eligibility for Like, I can't roll my eyes enough. I wondered in the – it sounds like we're also going to be receiving a memo about that. I'd be interested in the figures for the number of people impacted in the old eligibility criteria and the number of people impacted in the new eligibility criteria. And also – and I think others have hinted at this and – maybe have been more direct, and I just didn't get the message, but what are other counties doing? Especially the seven-county metro. Sounds like there's immediate thought on that.

Commissioner Green. So I think a few things in regards to, so we will get the data, and you will hear more about it, I believe, in the human services. It is a pretty large budget driver. The SNAP impact is multiple years. So what you're hearing... today and you will hear more at the upcoming human services line of business is just phase one of snap impacts that's going to be the eligibility so we'll get you to add on how does that impact the residents and whom it will also um address what are the initial either lost in funding or cost shift um about an eight million dollar cost shift around administering it And then there is a snap error rate coming, and that is even a larger cost shift. Metro counties, counties are working together, having regular meetings at the Association of Minnesota Counties as well as MAXA and the metro counties are discussing how we can partner and learn from one another. One of the key conversations counties are having, Minnesota is one of a few, I believe it's less than a handful of jurisdictions where the county bears majority of the burden of these cost shifts. So part of the conversation is the role of the state in SNAP and the impacts to SNAP. Currently, the counties are the ones that are primarily on the hook for the cost shifts. Okay.

Thank you for that. And do you, are you... in those conversations? Are you seeing that other, like, for example, for us, I'm really proud of us. And I also want to sort of make sure the world knows that we decided to just step in and do it. Is that what's happening in other counties?

Please Commissioner green yes, so other counties are working hard as well stepping in doing the work. They're all in different scopes of the work. I mean, part of the issue right now for the counties is getting better sense of our data conversation about data. It's a very real issue even for snap. Currently, there are a lot of delays in data and data error that we're reliant on. So counties are trying to partner with one another to get the best data. So SNAP error rate is an example. Data is six months or greater delayed. So very difficult to get on top of that. And partnering. Hennepin is leading. in our SNAP work, and I'm just proud to say that, and in a respectful way to our peers. Part of the reason why HANFIN is leading is our core belief in disparity elimination, the conversation that just is taking place today. and leaning in. As you see, we've had to, we're making difficult budget decisions. We are finding ways to actually align our strategies and our funding. And in that, how do we make sure in our funding that we are doing our best? I agree, Commissioner Gautel. Us keeping stable funding is not meeting all of the needs our providers are experiencing. And yet, We are funding in spaces because we know that there's no one else funding right now. And so I think that is unique to us in how we're delivering some of those services. So our food security is a good example of that. And maintaining, and you will see a very large, robust food security strategy on the health line of business that is outside of any mandated services, but core in our health disparity elimination, core in our climate resiliency work. that we're providing. And so we're using, also Mei Zhang speaking, it's a very unique relationship we have. I don't believe other counties have the relationship we have, even how we use our MFIP TANF dollars. And this was under Mei's leadership and vision. We built that about three or four years ago. And it's allowed us a different space to actually, what Mei shared is a space that we have that's unique, that we are working together and includes our data and how we are looking at our data.

So if I may follow up the sort of the way what I took away previously was and that's consistent with today is $8 million a year for Hennepin County going into the future. Like in perpetuity. And it sounds like it'll be more than that, right? Like sort of as time unfolds, whatever. This year it's $8 million. Maybe I should say that. This year it's $8 million. So can I say that the six other counties in the seven-county metro are also stepping in to pay? Yes.

They have the same, it's the same formula, so it is a reduction of what's called administrative reimbursement for our people. It's our cost of delivering the services. Federal funding has reduced substantially, so the primary cost now to deliver the services is at the local county level, all counties.

Then 100% of counties that you're in touch with are also stepping up to fill that gap.

All counties are. We're mandated to provide the service. We are no longer, the funding has drastically...

The mandate. Okay, okay. Thank you.

I'm going to have to cut off the questions at this time. I just want to say this has been one of the best discussions.

I'm sorry, we have until 3 o'clock. The discussion is why...

Oh, it's 3 o'clock? Oh, my mistake, my mistake. Sorry. No, it's all right.

Go ahead. Sorry, I just, I did like the discussion time. So thank you for that. My next question was actually about food shelves, but maybe we'll hear more about that in the health line. we were discussing that. So I wanted to respond a little bit to the or maybe thread together two comments. One was about mental health and one was about education and how fundamental that is in ending disparities. I do agree that education is fundamental to ending disparities. I get a little nervous when I think about us taking that on. That is a space where I see us only as conveners because our role is different. We are not the school districts. We are not funding ourselves with school district money. Now, do we have a role to play in the school systems? Absolutely. And we're doing that work, and I'm really proud of it. I think I'm speaking more to my colleagues with this comment that I want us to be careful about how much we bite off. I'm happy to use our power to put other jurisdictions under pressure or get MDE in the room, for example. And when we start talking about mental health, that's where I really do see a role for Hennepin County. And I just wanted to sort of name that for the group because this is the discussion time. And my last comment was thank you so much for the greater detail on OCS and community engagement and the understanding of the federated model. I'm very interested. And I just want us to be careful. One of the reasons that OCS was formed in a way was because we had a very informal federated model. And so any way in which we can nurture, you know, communication, the network across the different divisions to, like, the federated model sounds good. I just think the devil's in the details on how it's executed to continue to nurture the great work that your team is doing. So I just wanted to get behind that. Thank you.

Other comments since we have time? Other comments? Okay, go ahead, Commissioner Conley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I had a couple more questions, if I may, that I forgot to ask. So on page 19 of the budget booklet is really, like, I get the federal funding cut, but there's also a significant state cut for 2026 for revenue. What state bucket is that that's dropping?

Oh, my gosh.

That's a huge decrease. page 19 of the budget booklet in workforce development. There's state revenue that was at 2.9 for this year and it drops to 1.3 for next year.

Chair Gattell and Commissioner Conley, the state revenue, so first I'll say the workforce development revenue, some of it is federal, WIOA, Workforce Investment Opportunity Act funds, I believe, and then some of the funds are actually state programs. So there are state, there's something called the Minnesota Youth Program, We have a state dislocated worker program and a state adult program. So they kind of mirror the federal programs. So there was a particularly large cut, I would say, that you're probably seeing in this in the state dislocated worker program where that was the 25 budget, that was $2.3 million. And in 2026, it's about $1 million. So it's about a 55% cut from 2026. So it's just that there are some state and federal buckets.

So- Now, I'm sure if I may, so talk me through that. Is this something that we need to advocate for as we get ready to prepare the state platform, or is that the state got less money from the feds, which is less money that we got? How did that trickle?

Commissioner, Chair Cattell and Commissioner, I believe that there are both. So some of it is federal dollars coming through, and then there are state portions. So that could be something that goes on the platform.

I would love to know what that state portion was. Thank you. And then just there was one other question I had, I had a lot of questions around climate and was there resiliency, but I want to get this budget number right for 2026. So I'm on page 36 of the budget booklet. And I'm trying to figure out where the min pace was that we don't have to budget for anymore. Right. So is that the 8 million under fees, or is it the $9 million under services? Because that drops to $637,000 for 2026, and then up above that, the $8 million is just gone for 2026. So I'm trying to figure out what this $2.1 million, what that should actually be, like if we were, like what is the full bucket of money?

Madam Chair, Commissioner Conley, I can try to field that. You're correct. It's an $8 million shift or accounting change.

So it's $8 million.

And another way to think of it is these special assessments for the min-paced loans, if you think about when we collect the property taxes for your school district or the city, we're collecting that and then passing it through. And right now in the expenditure side here, what you're seeing is the expenses budgeted for paying, you know, passing that through to the Port Authority. And instead we're going to just treat that like we treat all of our other property tax payments. it shouldn't flow through our department. It should just go from the taxpayer, we collect it, then send it right to the Port Authority to pay their loan. That's the big difference you're seeing.

Yeah, thank you for that. And what I'm trying to figure out, though, is what the actual budget for climate and resiliency is then for 2026. Is it 2.1?

Yes, it is 2.1. That's correct. And so if you look to your earlier comment, so when you look at the fees for services on the revenue line, that $8 million, that's the estimated amount that we had for payments from Property taxpayers that had those special assessments was 8 million. And then it's showing up on the services line. So if you were to back out that 8 million on the revenues and then take a like amount, I don't know if all of it would be under services, but the bulk of it likely would be, you would get a more apples to apples comparison of what's there. And if you look at the actuals, COLUMN FOR 2024, YOU CAN SEE THERE THAT THE ACTUAL SPEND IN THAT DEPARTMENT IN 2024 WAS ABOUT $1.8 MILLION. AND SO I WOULD ESTIMATE THAT FOR 2025 WILL PROBABLY BE SOMEWHERE SIMILAR NET OF PACE. AND THEN YOU CAN SEE FOR 2026, YOU KNOW, THERE'S KIND OF MODEST GROWTH THERE.

OKAY. THAT HELPS ME.

I THINK THAT'S ALL I HAD FOR NOW. OKAY. ANYTHING?

COMMISSIONER FERNANDO?

YES, THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. SO ON MIN PACE. So let me just make sure I'm getting this correct. Somebody can special levy. So I'm borrowing a full loan. It's like a credit card adjacent. I thought that these were bonds. I thought that because it connected to a government, there was something else. So I promise I'll be brief here. What am I allowed to borrow against? The valuation of the property? What makes me eligible to say for the next 20 years my future levy is going to be... I mean, what a convenient tool available to five people. I'm just like really...

Yeah, Madam Chair, Commissioner Fernando. So the way that the program was imagined was to find a way to finance energy or water saving projects that would actually yield net savings to the actual property owner over time. So if you think about... I'll use a parking ramp as an example. If you put solar panels over the top floor of a parking ramp, you can generate a lot of electricity and that could maybe offset the electricity use at whatever property that's attached to. And so the intention would be that those energy savings would help you afford the payment for that and that over the life of that project, you as the property owner would have net positive savings. So you are borrowing effectively against the future savings that you expect to realize from that energy improvement. Your property is being encumbered with a special assessment.

But what am I eligible to borrow up against? I mean, that's, unless I'm not saying something interesting, I think this is... No, you're asking a great question, Commissioner.

We will follow up in writing with what the criteria are, because I'm not aware off the top of my head of what the parameters are for the upper... you know, sealing of what's permissible. The program is administered by the Port Authority. And so they largely have to review these projects and make sure that they fit within the statutory confines, and that the progress programs are deemed, you know, feasible, so that financially that the loans can be repaid. But we can work with Director Deanna, Deanna Chaman Salas and come back to you with more specifics on that program.

I see how it's not if you are borrowing against the future cost savings against question mark valuation for property. et cetera. Wow. That sounds like a legislature offering if I've ever heard one.

That's interesting. What if it works for us?

What if there's a benefit? I don't know. Now, hey, you said couch cushions. We're moving bar soaps from bathroom to bathroom. I don't know what we're doing, but I think that's where we are. And if you have not done that as a household, well, you know, now you've been inside mine.

But I digress. Thank you. I just wanted to say to that, the PACE program for industry has been around for decades. And it's the same program, except that industry utilizes it to do those kinds of things and then pays back the loan. And it's called PACE. And the St. Paul Port Authority also administers a lot of that. And so it's been really hard to get it into residential. I remember having this conversation a lot of years ago when I was mayor. We won't say how long. That's a long time ago. When we first wanted to go do some of this. But as far as for cities doing those kinds of assessments, lots of times cities will do special assessments to help out their residents. I know in the city of Richfield that When you had an emerald ash borer tree that was actually your responsibility, you could put that on your tax over a period of usually 10 or 15 years and pay it off slowly so you could have it removed so it didn't infest other trees. So the actual concept of putting something on the tax and paying it off over time is not, the property tax is not important. But the idea of doing something ahead with savings coming, that's what's so innovative about this particular project.

And I think if it's working well, then wonderful. But if for some reason there is a question here and a couple of couch cushion coins or whatever, you know, now is the time to ask questions to make sure all of our, you know, tools are using as they're intended. Cause like the value capture district from the briefing from the, like, I hope that there's money in there and it can go towards transit, such as the blue line. Like, so I'm not saying all of these things because they shouldn't be used, but They should just really be used for its intention, in my opinion. But I'm beginning with questions.

I agree. And I think that's what the intention was, is to make sure that people could do energy savings who wouldn't otherwise do it, like somebody lower middle income could get this. And some of the companies that install solar panels and everything will actually help you figure out how to qualify for those things. It's kind of like when you get rebates and stuff. So it's quite a unique program. Madam Chair. Please. Go ahead.

When you do that report, I'd be interested to see if it's loans or bonds. Brooklyn Park, we put a large solar array complex in partnership with a private company, and the way those deals are structured can be unique with each one, and sometimes they're They get the tax credits, but the other part is it's equally important is at the lifespan of a solar array is 20 to 25 years at 20 years. I know broken parks. They get. Full value there's like a sliding scale so that the benefits become more back weighted, but at year 20, the company walks away, but there has to be a bond, which there is at least in Brooklyn park that says, okay, when it comes time to tear it up. and dispose of it, you have to have, somebody has to put a bond there so that there's money to pay for it so that in 20 years the city doesn't find themselves having to cop up a million dollars to pull out those arrays. So some of those things are important. I'd be curious to see how the St. Paul Authority is doing that, because a larger arrays, it's different when it's a house and you've got it on the roof, but when you're talking acres of solar, you don't want whatever the government institution that's responsible for this great thing. to suddenly have to pull out all these arrays later when they do hit, I think it's 25, it's max maybe 27, but there's a point where they just stop generating the energy. So be curious about that. And just on the TIF districts, Brooklyn Park at one point was, I think, the worst offender or worst user of it, depending on your point of view. but I know some of them, you know, the homeless shelter in Brooklyn Park was paid for out of a housing TIF district that was situated that we used that money to capture. So different things, different ways. Oftentimes TIF districts may be used for infrastructure that stays inside the city versus going to a developer, you know, so you'll pay for sewer water if you gotta move a sewer line or something like that, that you can use those TIF districts, but it is contentious, I think, now, and I think a lot of people are trying to renew. They have to get legislative things to get renewed, We had to get those renews as well.

I also want to say the housing TIF is very different than other TIFs. That would be interesting for people to know about. There's a difference of how you can qualify or what you can and can't say no to in those kinds of instances. The other thing that's unique to the residential program for energy is that you need to be checking with your insurance company to make sure that if you have storm damage on your roof that they will remove and then replace your solar panels. Many will, some will not. So there's a lot of things of education that need to happen in some of those instances where we're doing some of those kinds of things. There's also some contention with some of the energy companies when you have to feed it back and they want you to upgrade their systems and everything. And actually, you don't have to. They are supposed to do that. But they do push residents to try to pay for the upgrades that they are responsible for. So there's a lot here to unpack on that. So other comments or questions? Ms. Rutland, would you have any last words?

Chair Gautel, Commissioners, thank you for the conversation. We will be following up with material and information. I look forward for our future. This is the first of a number of budget briefings, and so we look forward to ongoing conversations. Our teams are working quite hard. I just want to express my appreciation for the team of leaders we have here who are making such a significant difference for our residents and our community, and to Deputy County Administrator Murphy's first budget briefing. So thank you.

I just want to say thank you to my colleagues for the great questions, the wonderful comments. We have a lot more to dive into, and I think it's going to be a complicated year as we move forward. I want to thank all the staff and those who can't be here, too, who are probably listening online for all the work that happens. And again, I just want to say how much I appreciate that a lot of these budget booklets got out really quickly. So I appreciate that a lot. So at this time, seeing no further comments, I'm going to move to item 2A, which is old business. So I take a motion to lay this over until 12 p.m. noon on Wednesday, October 1st, when we will reconvene for the hearing on the 2026 proposed budget to consider the public works and law safety and justice lines of business. All those in favor signify by aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. I'll move on to item three, which is open forum for the budget. We don't have any callbacks because this is our first one. Members of the public watching the budget hearing can call to leave a recorded comment that will be played at the next board, at the next budget hearing board. If there's not enough time to play all comments, recordings are going to be sent to the commissioners just like in our regular forum. Your comments should be related to this specific budget hearing on disparities. Recorded messages will also meet the following standards, which are standard for our in-person comments, which is callers need to state their first and last name for the record. Callers will need to adhere to the rules of decorum as outlined here. and posted guidance for addressing the board. Comments must be kept to approximately two minutes. Comments that are made beyond two minutes limits will not be heard. You can also contact us via email or other ways to leave comments. To record a comment, you call 612-688-3550. The line will be open four hours at the end of the budget hearing. It's currently 2-13, so until 6-13, the line will be open for you to leave comments on this particular. Again, the number is 612-688-3545. If you want to send an email or letter to your commissioner, you can do that as well. To speak to persons on the board meeting, please attend the annual Truth in Taxation meeting. That's December 2nd at 6 p.m. That's an evening meeting. And all the 2026 proposed budget information in this hearing is available on www.hennepin.us forward slash budgets. Thank you, Ms. Rutland. Thank you, staff. The committee is now in resource.