Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

who came in person and those who called in I would like to ask the staff to please roll the tape Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Administrations, Operations, and Budget Committee of Tuesday, September 30th, 2025. We'll begin the agenda with the minutes from the previous meeting, which was September 16th. This is attachment to the Administrator Ops Budget Committee minutes of September 16th. Do I have a motion?

Second.

Any corrections changes? All those in favor signify by aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. The next is new business, but we have a lot of routine items, items 2A through 2G. I'll move the block, Madam Chair. I'll move the block and read it in. You can pull anything. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. I'll read them in and then we'll vote. Item 2A is an agreement with the City of Wayzata to purchase law enforcement and terrorism prevention equipment from October 15th to December 31st of 2025, not to exceed of $9,136. Item 2B, agreement with CapEx Inc. to provide temporary staff and administration of workers' compensation claim at the direction of the county from November 1st of 2025 through October 31st of 2028, not to exceed $225,000. ITEM 2C IS TO NEGOTIATE AMENDMENT 1 WITH MAPLE GROVE, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY, EXTEND END DATE TO 12-12 OF 55, AMEND THE REAL ESTATE-RELATED DOCUMENTS AND NO CHANGE TO THE NOT TO EXCEED. ITEM 2D IS TO NEGOTIATE AMENDMENT 1 WITH TWIN CITIES HABITAT FOR HUMANITY FOR CREATION OF AFFORDABLE HOME OWNERSHIP NO CHANGE TO THE CONTRACT DATES AN INCREASE NOT TO EXCEED BY 43 334. ITEM 2E IS TO NEGOTIATE ONE AWARD MODIFICATION TO ASSIGN 2023 HUD HOME AWARD TO TTT HOUSING LLC amend the real estate lease documents, no change to the not to exceed or term. Item 2F is the sale of approximately $3,100,000 of tax-exempt general obligation bonds for watershed district purposes, fixing the form and the specifications thereof, and providing for their execution, delivery, and payment. And item 2G is sale of approximately 100 million of tax-exempt general obligation bonds for capital improvements and approximately 155 million of tax-exempt general obligation refunding bonds contingent upon the market conditions, fixing the form and specifications thereof, and providing for their execution, delivery, and payment. I have a motion and a second. Would anyone like an explanation on any of these? These are real standard.

Please, Commissioner Green. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to have an explanation on 2F and 2G. I know they're standard, but they're just big dollar amounts. Yes, they are. I believe Mr. Rogan.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Kathy Cardell is here and can explain both of those actions.

Oh, welcome. Ms. Cardell.

I can't read without them. As you noted, there's two resolutions in front of you. The first resolution authorizes the county to issue up to 3.1 million of general obligation bonds on behalf of the Riley Purgatory Bluff Creek Watershed District to provide long-term financing for an approved capital project in their watershed management plan. State law provides a process by which counties, well, districts can ask counties to provide bonds to finance these projects on a long-term basis. The district, the watershed district, will levy property taxes within its own geographic boundaries in order to pay the debt service on these bonds, and then they will remit those property taxes to us to pay our bonds when they are due. The second resolution, which has the big dollars attached to it, is $100 million of new money, tax exempt general obligation bonds to fund capital projects that are included in the 2025 to 2029 adopted CIP. There are also two proposed refunding issues. The first issue is approximately $93 million to refund some outstanding tax-exempt variable rate bonds. We're going to fix those out over a shorter period of time and hopefully realize some debt service savings and also eliminate some risk associated with replacing a bank liquidity facility next year. The last one, and I think all of you were here, well, maybe not Commissioner Edelson, but we've talked about refunding some taxable bonds that were issued out of the Great Recession, Build America bonds, and Recovery Zone economic development bonds. The federal government has failed to pay the full amount of their interest subsidy that they have owed us as a part of issuing those bonds since 2012. And we are proposing, hopefully market conditions will go be favorable for us to finally we find those bonds with tax exempt bonds as we're committed to do and completely mitigate that ongoing federal risk of nonpayment happy to take any questions for the questions commissioners others.

thank you very much all those in favor signify by aye aye opposed motion carries thank you we have several items for discussion and action item 2h is agreement with the acoustical technology inc to provide outdoor warning systems which will benefit all hennepin county cities starting october 21st 2025 through june 30th of 2031 including implementation in five years of maintenance and support the not to exceed of three points over just over 3.7 million dollars.

I'll move this drive a second second and staff Madam chair and commissioners Hennepin County emergency management is responsible for the integration and coordination of our public alert and warning system in Hennepin County including all of our outdoor warning sirens While cities own those sirens, there's about 300 of them across the county, the physical infrastructure and the software needed to activate them is owned and operated by emergency management. The current siren control system is 13 years old and has limited capabilities, including it lacks the necessary mapping interfaces. THIS PROJECT WILL PROCURE SOFTWARE AND ASSOCIATED INFRASTRUCTURE HARDWARE THAT WILL ALLOW SIX DIFFERENT SIREN CONTROL POINTS TO ACTIVATE 293 FIXED AND THREE PORTABLE OUTDOOR WARNING SIRENS ACROSS HENNEPIN COUNTY. ERIC WAGEE, THE EMERGENCY MANAGER DIRECTOR, IS HERE IF THERE ARE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS ACTION.

COMMISSIONER, SO THERE ARE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS.

COMMISSIONER EDELSON. THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. AND THEN WITH THIS, CAN YOU JUST TELL ME WHEN THIS WILL BE INSTALLED AND UP AND RUNNING?

Madam Chair, Commissioner, I'm going to ask Eric to provide the details on that.

Thank you. Chair Fernando, commissioners, Commissioner Edelson, we anticipate that we'll have the whole system on board next year. And so we would take about two or three months to go through all the sirens, replace their current control packages, and put a new control box on each one. So it'll take a while. We might be slowed down with winter a little bit, and we'll pick it back up in the spring.

Madam Chair, do you think June? Or just an idea of next year?

Yeah, ideally it would be great to have in place for next storm season, but we might be more in, I hate to commit to anything in particular, but maybe in the middle of the storm season rather than the beginning.

Commissioner Lundy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This kind of triggered a different question. I don't expect to have the answer today, which is usually my favorite question. I've had a lot of residents ask, you know, this summer, I think the alerts that we receive on our cell phones for missing adults, missing kids, you know, shelter in place alerts and stuff like that there's is it possible maybe to get a memo or a guidance on how that system is supposed to work because sometimes I get messages for the wrong city sometimes I get them days after a person has found it it seems to be everybody does their own thing and then Interesting, because I know not every city does the same thing on the alerts. For like missing kid from group home, my home city, Brooklyn Park, is using it regularly and other cities don't. So I don't expect to answer now, but it would be interesting to hear how that system is supposed to be run and not that it's saying it's run anything other than top, but.

Chair Fernando, Commissioners, Commissioner Lundy, that is a lively topic right now, and we're in the midst of discussing that, and we'd be happy to kind of bring you up to speed on the discussion points and things like that that we're talking about. Thank you.

Thanks. Others? Okay, Commissioner Fernando.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just since you're following up with information, a sense of how often they've been used, where are they just I actually didn't know that we were responsible for this portion. I think it's wonderful. It makes a lot of sense given our facility in Medina. And it's it's usual for city ownership and kind of infrastructural support from the county so that my curiosity is just to get a sense of we have physical scale, but where is the density? What has initiated these types of warnings? Is it all weather? What type of weather?

not far from what commissioner lundy he's on the operations side i'm interested in the utility in the last 13 years sure chair fernando commissioners these are frequently used tools we generally in the county get a a tornado warning probably once or twice each season on average and so they're automatically set to sound without any human intervention when the national weather service issues a tornado warning, the new system will be able to alert inside that polygon that the National Weather Service draws. Our current system can only go as small as the entire city. So, for example, if Minneapolis had a warning and it was in South Minneapolis, the entire siren system in Minneapolis would go off. And we're trying, over time, to get those warnings more and more refined to those specific areas. And so they're a component of that overall system, including phones and crawlers on TVs and interruptions on your radio and all those kind of tools used together to alert the public. People have their favorites. Oftentimes, sirens are their favorites. For a lot of people, it doesn't become a real emergency unless the sirens are going off. And that's fine. That's a confirmatory thing. We're hoping to spur people to action. So I hope that answered your question.

Yeah, I want to follow up, Madam Chair. Yeah, absolutely. And so there are 290 presumable polygons that you'll be able to, with the new software. What's the geographic area for each of the warning sirens?

So typically a siren has a planning radius of about a one-mile circle. And that depends on topography. It depends on vegetation around each siren. But that's the planning figure for how, you know, Distant that that siren can be heard a lot of people are under the impression that they're supposed to be able to hear them inside their house That's really not the intent of a siren supposed to be an outdoor warning tool if you happen to be located nearby one You're gonna hear it inside But we recommend a system called the NOAA Weather Radio for inside monitoring. That's another thing that just continuously monitors and goes off. So that helps people inside. But the arrangement that we have with the city, which predates me and goes back decades, is a really good one because I go to a lot of metropolitan areas and each city has its own system, its own policies. It uses them in different ways. And so we're a large jurisdiction that because Hennepin County operates the control system, we're able to be very, I'm sorry, we'll be able to be very consistent about how we sound the sirens. And that leads to a lot less confusion, a lot more reliability.

Commissioner Anderson. And then I'll go back to Commissioner Lundy and then Commissioner Lundy.

Thank you for that. I'm interested in like the the upgrade with this and you know I'm obviously in the western suburbs we see a lot of growth happening and if each siren is about a one one mile and we have about 600 square miles is there expansion that's needed In concurrence with this, how are we looking at making sure that we have adequate coverage for all of the residents in our county?

Chair Fernando, Commissioner Anderson, that's a great question. Some cities, since the cities are really responsible for the individual sirens, some cities have been very innovative in some of their zoning and land use things. And if there's a developer that puts up a certain number of homes, then the city insists that they also put up a siren to their specifications. So there's a lot of tools. There are areas that really need sirens to be built as that population continues to expand, and we're working with the cities to help them select appropriate areas and systems and things like that.

All right, just quick follow-up. So just to make sure that I'm clear on this, if there's an area or there are residents who are currently not seeing or like not hearing a notification or something, there's a gap in this, While we operate or control the operations of the sirens, it is the city that we should be partnering with to make sure that they have a siren in their vicinity to make sure that the hardware is there for them.

That's correct. At the end of the day, it's the city that makes the decision to have sirens and to expand their system. Okay, thank you so much.

Good questions. Commissioner Lundy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I bet you were thinking you were going to get out of here without asking me this question. But I would still love for the people that are too smart for me to switch from a watch and warning. Because if it wasn't for the fact that I'd have a 50-50 chance, I couldn't tell you the difference. And I'm going to wager most people can't. And so when you get alerts that say thunderstorm warning or watch on your phone, which is the other way around, I don't know anything until I see, until the sirens go off. Because the sirens always is imminent danger versus the alerts. And I think the fact that the wording says watch and...

warning uh i couldn't tell the difference that that is an active discussion um largely down in oklahoma at the national storms uh severe storms laboratory as to how to warn people adequately we find that warning really requires an advanced knowledge or foreknowledge so we want to make sure that people understand that today is a severe weather day so that when they hear that warning it's not the first thing that's they've ever been confronted with. So yeah, that terminology is difficult, no easy answers, but everybody's working on it. I agree with you.

I would always say attaching yellow and red always, I think everybody kind of understands those colors when they're attached, especially on alerts on phones, because usually one means worse than the other. Thank you. Sure.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was going to say I'm also one of those people, it's not real until the siren goes off and then we head to the basement. But I did have a question about Acoustic Technology, Inc. Can you talk a little bit about how they, did we RFP this? Have we worked with them for a long time? THIS IS JUST SOMETHING THAT WE DO, BUT IT'S A LARGE NTE, SO I'M WONDERING IF THIS IS SOMETHING THAT WE CONTRACTED FOR RFPED OR JUST HAVE A STANDING RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM.

THANK YOU. CHAIR FERNANDO, COMMISSIONERS, COMMISSIONER CONLEY, YES, THERE WAS A LONG PROCESS, YEARS, IN FACT, We hired an engineering consultant to help us scope the project and come up with really what we were after. And then we set it up for bids. We got five different bids, which is pretty good for a really niche industry that doesn't have too many manufacturers. Acoustic Technologies is an American company out of Boston, but they have In fact, the siren system in the nation of Israel was their system, and they've got some other large clients. We're one of the larger systems in the United States, just here in Hennepin County. So we have a big system, not the biggest, but a big system. And they came out ahead in the competition for the features that they're able to offer us and some of the other five-year maintenance and other things like that. So we went through a pretty rigorous process. you know, assessment, and we think we got a good deal.

Any further questions? Thank you, Mr. Wacke.

Thank you.

All those in favor, signify by aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Item 2I is to approval of the Birth Justice Community Advisory Board Governing Law Bylaws and Committee Summary. Would you like to move this, Commissioner Conley? I'll move it. I'll second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? I just want to say that I went through with staff to get, you know, some more background on this. I think this is fabulous. I think we're going to be doing a lot. And I was asking about, there's people I'm going to ask to put their resumes in because I know they'll be really good on this. So we would get some, there's some people out in the community, I think maybe all of us know, who really would like to dig into this issue. And I think they have some great ideas. So I'm really looking forward to doing this. So appreciate the work on this. Other comments?

Commissioner Green? Thank you, Madam Chair. I was excited to see this come before us. I perhaps erroneously was sort of connecting it with the birth justice investments that we made a year or two ago and feeling like, oh, gosh, this is such a great outcropping of that work. And maybe the two were sort of parallel but separate. But either way, very excited to see this.

Yeah. Go ahead, Commissioner Conley. Thank you, Madam Chair. I cannot take credit for this one because this is Commissioner Lundy. And it did kind of flow very well together because we had already made the investments into maternal health, which resulted in the birth justice collaborative. And then I'll let Commissioner Lundy speak to how we came about, how the advisory board actually came about. Please.

Thank you. Please. Commissioner Lundy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just want to give credit. I always think that what I love about Hennepin County is just that having people with lived experience advise us on the things that we do so that we do it better and never assume that we're doing it right. I think it's a credit, and every time that we can do that is good, and so I don't have that lived experience, but I know people do, and having them at the forefront and being at the table to give us advice on policies or how can we do better or what are the challenges, I think that's most important thing is what the people who are the benefit benefactors or benefit from our policies uh help us craft the next person needs in mind thank you for bringing this forward to us we really appreciate that thoughtfulness i think we're doing a lot of great work up here so

Any please go ahead, Commissioner Green. Thank you, Madam Chair. And yes, additional thoughts. I'm I thank you, Commissioner Lundy, like it is a global issue that men are not involved in policymaking to do with family planning. And so thank you for this. Like, of course, I support what you just said about having people with lived experience at the forefront of policy design, but also that you brought this forward, I really think deserves heralding. So thank you.

Other comments? All those in favor signify by aye. Aye. Motion carries. Item 2J is responsible contractor policy offered by Commissioner Conley. I'll move this.

I will second.

Commissioner Conley, please.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Absolutely. So, colleagues, you see before you a responsible contractor policy. I'll just give you a little bit of background of where I'm going with this, and I want to hand it over to Deputy Administrator Rogan for some background as well. You'll remember about a month ago, we approved a contract with Unparalleled Security that was about $8 million. And with contracts that are that big that involved a large workforce, I think it's important that we put safeguards in place for that workforce, especially given the size of those contracts. I'll just say that, again, the idea was first brought to my attention by SEIU leadership because King County in Washington, Seattle, has an ordinance similar to that. It's in fact called a Responsible Contractor Ordinance, but here in Hennepin we legislate via policy and board action. What I'd like to do with this is, and so I was inspired by that ordinance and have been working hard with administration to really see how to make this possible, but speaking of lived experience, I don't believe that we craft a policy without those who are experiencing or without workers without organizations who represent workforces present. So what this does is it will ask staff to work with internal and external stakeholders, and they can speak to who that could be, to draft a responsible contractor policy to bring back to us I believe it's the end of March of 2026 for us to review and vote on as necessary. So if you'll allow me, I'll ask for Mr. Rogan to add to that. Thank you. Please, Mr. Rogan.

Madam Chair and Commissioner Conley, yes, this bar does three different things, as Commissioner Conley explained it. First, it asks the county administrator to draft a responsible contractor policy focused on maintenance, and I'll explain what that term means in a minute, and to do that drafting by, in part, meeting with relevant stakeholders to discuss the policy elements and to bring that policy back for the board's consideration before the end of March of 2026. And this responsible contractor policy really kind of fits into the history of Hennepin County as a leader in prevailing wage. Back in the 1990s, Hennepin County passed a prevailing wage policy in 1997. Expanded upon where the state was there was a prevailing wage part of state law that required local government and the state government in for contracting for sorry for building trades to pay prevailing wage and in 1997 Hennepin County passed a resolution that that adopted prevailing wage for maintenance contracts, and specifically for defining maintenance as security contractors and for janitorial contractors. So we expanded upon where the state was by a resolution, as Commissioner Conley explained, And since that time, we've had a prevailing wage policy and a prevailing wage apparatus that involves the county attorney's office monitoring prevailing wage and making sure the contractors are paying prevailing wage for not just the maintenance contracts, but for all of our contracts. So we have a robust process that makes sure that we're paying a prevailing wage. In 2014, the state of Minnesota passed a responsible contractor policy, again focused really on those building trades on contracts that are in that specific area. And Hennepin County is, again, it applies to the state contracts and to local government contracts, so we comply with that state law, and that has additional elements to it that are outside of just paying a prevailing wage, like meeting state and federal licensing requirements, a look-back period for whether there's been any wage theft complaints, et cetera. This policy direction is for Hennepin County now to In essence kind of mirror what the state did in 2014 for those maintenance contracts really dealing with security and janitorial There are some provisions in that state law that might not be applicable because of the different ways that The different types of work that are done here But this is really for us to meet with stakeholders to understand what what the need is what what we can do and really to just clarify our prevailing wage and to really make sure that we have responsible contractors that are qualified are the ones who are going to be Qualified when we do a bid process and that when the board knows that when we come forward we have those provisions that have been part of our RFP process or bid process and that we have those embedded in our our contracts going forward so that we can continue to be a leader in making sure that we are have responsible contractors or while at the same time making sure that we're knocking down those barriers to small businesses to make sure that we're not putting any policies in place that make it so that some of our small business vendors can't compete. We don't think that they're in conflict with one another, but that's why we want some time to work with stakeholders to make sure that we can come forward with a policy that meets the requirements of what this resolution is and that is something that hopefully can be supported by all stakeholders as we go forward. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Colleagues, I'll start with Commissioner Fernando. Go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Connolly, for bringing this forward. In transparency, I had approached Commissioner Connolly to see if it would make sense for me to add a resolving clause. I think this is a great idea. And then learned about the coordination with SEIU and with workers, and so I am not bringing that in. I think that the scope here is appropriate and makes a lot of sense. The reason why I wanted to add more to this methodology is because prevailing wage is clearly not enough when it is not enforced. I mean, from a wage theft standpoint, there are certain industries for which a lot of public dollars go to through Hennepin. for which we don't have a sense of the kind of second or third impact of wage theft. So for me, I appreciate, I'm grateful that we have decades of foundation around ensuring that we are naming the wage, but if that is not being met, like what are the processes there? So again, very, very grateful for that. As this, I'm supporting it in case that isn't clear. PREVAILING WAGE IS WONDERFUL, NOT ENOUGH UNTIL THE ENFORCEMENT SIDE. AND WE HAD MULTIPLE COMMENTERS TODAY THAT ARE SHOWING GAPS IN OUR SYSTEM FOR WHAT WORKERS, ESPECIALLY ORGANIZED WORKERS, SHOULD BE PROTECTED OR SHOULD HAVE SOME DECENT EXPECTATIONS ABOUT. AND US NAMING IT IS NOT ENOUGH. IT HAS TO KIND OF MAKE IT ALL THE WAY THROUGH. SO THAT IS WHERE I WILL BE PAYING A LOT OF ATTENTION. transparency for everybody. I was trying to bring in construction. We just spend so much money, so much money on construction. And in my mind, if this methodology is the correct methodology, thank you for engaging with individuals and groups prior to bringing it forward and for informing me of that. And so I wanted to share that this is the right way that this type of policy should be brought forward or this type of action should be brought forward.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Commissioner Adelson.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and very, very supportive of this. In the instance where we have had prevailing wage not met without us knowing, can you just tell me, Mr. Rogan, are we anticipating having this completed closure of some of these unresolved, like we had testifiers today that talked about things that might not be resolved yet? Do we have any idea when they will be resolved?

Madam Chair and Commissioner I don't have a specific timeline on the Black Knight in particular that is that is one that we are aware of and we are working with Black Knight to set up a system so that we can ensure that All of the employees are paid the prevailing wage. As you know, in that instance, the prevailing wage changed and that wasn't properly communicated to Black Knight, nor was it communicated to the employees. That was subsequently found out and we are taking responsibility for that and we have set aside money that we're going to be paying back wages to those employees. It's a little complicated to make sure that we have what is the, you know, how many hours people worked and we're setting up an escrow account and other things. So it's a little bit complicated, but we're in the process of getting that done. And, you know, my hope is that that will be done in the next several weeks. I'm sorry that it hasn't happened already, but it's more complicated than I thought in the very beginning.

Please. Thank you. I think, thank you for that. And I think anybody where this has happened to them, of course, is going to just want to know a timeline. So I appreciate that as quick as we can. Thank you.

Other comments or questions? Commissioner Conley and then Commissioner Anderson.

Thank you. I'll be quick. I just wanted to add, if, thank you, Madam Chair, if Mr. Brogan, if you could speak to maybe some examples of stakeholders that might be a part of creating this policy.

certainly Madam Chair and Commissioner you know I think that we're going to certainly be speaking with our union partners and the unions that represent individuals in these areas. SEIU is one of them and others. And then really making sure that we're speaking to some of our small business contractors so that we're making sure that we're not putting any policies in place that would be prohibitive for them to participate. As you know, one of our goals is really to help our small businesses be able to compete on Hennepin County contracts, and we want to make sure over time we had some policies in place that were prohibitive and we been really effective at knocking those down. And so we want to be really thoughtful about engaging with those stakeholders as well to really make sure that what we've drafted is something that doesn't have some unintended consequences to it. But those are just some of the stakeholders that we'll be reaching out to and communicating with. And we'll certainly be able to communicate with who we met with when we come back with the policy as drafted.

Please. A quick follow-up too. I think Commissioner Fernando raised a good point about construction being our big, where our big dollars sit in terms of contracting. And you mentioned that this was kind of this mirrors the state law, but can you speak a little bit to how construction might fit into what is in the background?

Certainly. So since 2014 we have complied with Minnesota State's responsible contracting policy for all construction contracts above $50,000. So this doesn't need to apply to construction contracts because we already have a state law in place that covers all of that. The gap that this policy will get to is looking at we don't have a responsible contractor policy for those maintenance contracts where, like security and janitorial, that Hennepin County merely has a prevailing wage policy. This will now expand to have a responsible contractor policy cover those contracts.

Okay. Commissioner Anderson and then Commissioner Gray.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate having this brought forward. Very interested. I appreciate the explanation also on the construction side of things. Is there, so my understanding of prevailing wage and contractors who are engaging with this. If they don't follow through with that, they're breaking a law. And so there is some kind of legal recourse available to impacted parties, right? Employees who aren't getting paid prevailing wage, The county attorney can go after for wage theft that type of thing Is this I would be interested colleagues to expand this into our our platform To try to make sure that prevailing wage for government contracts cover everybody so that there can be recourse you know my understanding of how this works is because we have a policy there's not going to necessarily be a legal recourse outside like to the the contractor outside of our own enforcement can you talk a little bit more maybe about what remediation can look like with the implementation of this policy outside of the contract or the construction

Certainly, I think, Madam Chair and Commissioner, I think there's two parts to your question. One is prevailing wage is difficult to determine in many different industries. The Minnesota Department of Labor sets the prevailing wage in construction areas. So when you think of particular construction areas, they've set a prevailing wage in a particular market. And so when we set our construction contracts, we can say pay the prevailing wage. And there's a place on the Minnesota Department of Labor that changes as wages increase. There isn't one that's very easy to determine for maintenance, for security and janitorial. But Hennepin County, works with our union partners to determine what the prevailing wages for janitorial, that usually it's what SEIU has negotiated for downtown or for Hennepin County. And we use that as our prevailing wage. We set the prevailing wage at what the union wage is. And similarly for security, when you get outside of those particular areas, there is no real way for us to determine very easily what the prevailing wage is for a particular type of thing. So I think it would be very difficult to have it be expanded beyond where we are. The second part of your question is, is there ramifications for someone not paying prevailing wage if it's just violating the Hennepin County prevailing wage statute? And the answer is it already does do that right now. The county attorney has authority. under the state law to look at when there is wage theft, when there is a wage set and then employees are not getting it, regardless of whether it was under a prevailing wage or just under any other wage that was set. When employees are sometimes told what their wage is and then their checks don't end up matching that and whether or not it's a county or a government or somebody else that could constitute wage theft and the statute is broad enough for the county attorney to have jurisdiction to look at those.

Very helpful, thank you.

Commissioner Green. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Commissioner Conley, for bringing this forward and I really appreciate the way it seems to have developed and the sort of collaboration with administration, because we do have pretty great history on these topics. And so I like that there's space for that. Thank you. I wanted to also thank administration, Mr. Rogan, for the way that we are addressing the issue with Black Knight and the back wages. feels like absolutely the right thing to do and it reflects what I it reflects my vision of what Hennepin County is as an organization that we would of course take that on so thank you for that I wanted to just highlight that my sense is and I don't I don't know if I'm looking for a response here My sense is that this policy, which granted isn't written yet, will not actually address some of the concerns raised today by SEIU members. And I am interested in ways that contracts can be written that advance transparency for workers. So we've talked a lot about wage theft, super important, but I also want us to use our leverage to have contracts have contractors treat their employees the way they would be treated if they were county employees. And I know this was a complicated situation that is maybe grounded in precedent, but maybe it's time for that precedent to change.

Madam Chair and Commissioner, we will certainly look at that as part of the policy. I think Commissioner Fernando brought up as well kind of the, it's one thing to put it on paper, it's another thing for how we're enforcing it and how we're applying it. And I think We had a gap on our side related to the Black Knight situation, and that is something that we're looking at internally to make sure that we figure out why that happened and how we have a process in place to make that better. But we will certainly look at other ideas to make sure that it's not just incumbent upon an internal structure that we only know about, that maybe there's other ways to really make sure that we're

procedures in place and practices in place that make sure that employees are protected thank you other comments all those in favor signify by aye aye opposed motion carries and that concludes our agenda

Good afternoon. I will call to order the Health Committee on this Tuesday, September 30th, 2025. The first item of business for us today is to approve the minutes that were held from the meeting held on August 5th of 2025. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? Move. Second. Item has been moved and seconded. Any corrections or comments on the minutes? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? The minutes have passed. Item 2A is a routine item. This is to amend an agreement with the National Health Care for the Homeless Council for the HCH program for budgetary adjustments to the underlying agreement. The dates on this are January 1st of 2023 to December 31st of 2025. This increases the receivable to $25,000. I'll move that if there's a second.

Second.

Could anyone like a summary of that or have questions or comments? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? That item passes. That looks to be the end of our agenda, and I will declare us adjourned.

will call to order the human services committee it's tuesday september 30th it's 2 26 p.m i'm the chair heather edelson our first order of business is to approve the minutes from september 16th i'll move them if i could have a second second thank you they've been moved and seconded all those in favor please say aye aye opposed the motion carries We have two items, routine items, before us today. Item 2A, I just passed around an updated report for 2A. If I can move both items, item 2A and 2B, I'll read them into the record.

I'll move both.

Second. Thank you. Item 2A is the Human Services and Public Health Resolution, including contracts and amendments to contracts with providers. More information is outlined in the updated report that I just passed around, and I'm going to have staff speak to that in just a moment. There was 35 contracts, and it looks like there's 34 in this new handout. But item 2B is approved for service agreement A-25-13056 with the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families for the Minnesota Family Investment Program during the period of January 1, 2026 through December 21, 2027. And so with that, Mr. Murphy, if you could just tell us what changed in this updated report. It looks like the amount reduced, so that's, you know, I'm in favor of that as long as it's not anything too terrible.

Madam Chair, there's been one report that has been removed because it was not ready for approval.

Oh, very good. Okay. With that, members, do you have any other questions? Okay. All right. So item 2A and 2B have been moved and seconded.

All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed?

And the items 2A and 2B pass. This concludes the Human Services Committee and we are adjourned.

I call today's Law, Safety, and Justice Committee meeting to order. We have a couple items. First is the minutes from September 16th. If I get a motion, a second.

So moved. Second.

We have a motion, a second. Any changes, additions, corrections? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. We have one item, 2A. If I get a motion, second.

So moved. Second.

Two ways to establish a 2026 adult corrections facility rates for housing residents. It's a routine item. Does anybody ask, would like any background on it? Commissioner Connolly, do you want background? Yes, please. Okay. Chala, please.

good afternoon chair lundy commissioners uh item 2a before you speaks to the establishment of 2026 adult corrections facility rates for housing residents so the adult correctional facility or the acf is authorized to charge a daily amount that is a per diem for confinement of residents. And they assess that amount to arresting municipalities for misdemeanor clients who are sentenced to the adult corrections facility. They assess this amount to other Minnesota counties that might request that individuals who are convicted by their courts be reside or be incarcerated at our facility. They also sometimes assess this amount to the Hennepin County Sheriff's for confinement of overflow residents from the jail. Now that is something that has not necessarily happened recently as we are annexing as well. DOCCR is recommending that the client portion for work release and work release EHM remain constant. So that cost is at $20 per day for 2025. And Just for awareness, as you might recall, the adult correction facility uses a sliding fee scale that reduces or discounts this fee based on certain guidelines as to indigency. So it's not always assessed. There's the sliding scale. Straight time electronic home monitoring clients who are at the adult corrections facilities are not assessed a client portion. as it often is that individuals who are in straight time electronic home monitoring, so they remain at home and only have very designated times to be released, that those individuals tend to oftentimes be unemployed or unable to work while confined on straight time. And they have limited capacity to pay the daily rate, so they are not assessed. For awareness, we know that the cost of electronic home monitoring is significantly less than the cost of in-house detention. And it continues to provide municipalities a financial incentive to support alternatives to incarceration. But if they so choose and they want to order that individual survey sentence at the adult correctional facility, then we will assess some of the costs to offset what it cost us. I am able to provide any additional information if there are questions and if Ms. Heng is also available if there are additional specifics.

Any questions, Commissioner Connolly? Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I want to thank you, Ms. Guzman-Vegert, for the excellent breakdown of that, because this is what I ask about every year. And the reason I do is because I wonder about what's charged to the actual person, because these are typically people who do not have enough money to afford $20 a day for the equipment that they have done something to earn. What I will say is I appreciate that there is a sliding fee that you know, it is a mechanism of accountability as well. But I wonder too about if people are unable to pay, is there like a debt that they go into? Can you speak more to that sliding fee and if someone is working and or Usually if you're on home monitoring, you may not have a job. Just speak a little bit more about a person's inability to pay the $20 per day, which adds up. And then is that a debt collection situation? Is it the probation officer re-evaluates that cost? Is it something that just stops completely? I'd love to learn more about that. Thank you.

Chair Guttel, Commissioners, and Commissioner Conley, I'd like to invite Mary Ellen Heng, the Director of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation, to provide more specifics. You laid out a number of different variables, and I think it depends would be the quick answer, but I'll invite her to give you more specifics as to how the department and how the county addresses those types of situations. Ms. Heng.

Thank you. Chair Fernando, Commissioner Connolly, everyone, this is one I will admit I do not have any, I am new to all of this. As you know, I've been here about a year and this has not come up. I will need to ask those questions, but I will find that out for you, Commissioner Connolly, and I will get back to you on that as to how we handle that.

Any other questions or comments? Seeing none, all those in favor of 2A say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. And with that item done, the agenda of the Law Safety Justice Committee is perfected and we will declare the meeting adjourned.

I will call to order our Public Works Committee for today. Our first item on the agenda is the approval of our September 16th minutes.

May I have a motion and a second? So moved.

We have a motion and a second for the minutes. Any additions, corrections to the minutes? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The minutes are approved. We have three routine items, construction related. I would ask for a motion of the block, item 2A through 2C.

I'll move them. Second.

We have a motion and a second. I'll read them into the record. Item 2A is to negotiate an agreement with Bloomington for cost participation in a subproject of a section of road that's construction happening. It is not to exceed cost of $500,000, 384 from surplus property tax revenues, and 116,000 from county bonds. Item 2B is to negotiate an agreement with Maple Grove for jurisdictional transfers of remnant Fernbrook Lane and the extension of Maple Grove Parkway. And item 2C is to negotiate agreements with Spring Park with MnDOT for County Road 51 reconstruction project transfer revenues and adjust budgets for the project with an estimated county cost of $325,000 receivable from Spring Park of just over 2.6 million. Do my colleagues want any explanation on any of these? Yes, Commissioner Fernandez.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't need explanation. I just want to comment that I enjoy jurisdictional transfers. It just takes a lot of effort and a lot of steps, and especially for certain parts of Hennepin, suburban, exurban areas, which is very, very necessary. So I'm not involved in this one, but I appreciate the effort it takes for all communities to have an action like this come before us.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I appreciate that. This one has been years in the making. And I do appreciate the work that staff puts into getting everything lined up and worked on. So thank you for calling that out. Commissioner Lundy, did you have a question?

More of a place, so thank you, thank you chair. Just you know I look at 2A and I know this conversation other commissioners have also talked about cost participation and so I don't think it needs to be dealt with today but I think in the budget hearings and briefings we go through that will be a topic I'll ask about not that I expect a resolution you know meeting with Brooklyn center was looking at twenty four million dollars for highway to get to thank you with the state's cost participation and they brought up one thing I thought was intuitive and I thought worth repeating kind of placeholder for the future is that you know the the state in the. The county's got additional money for road projects, which has accelerated our ability to deliver them. But when we have cost participation with cities, they didn't get any new money. They just got that. So I just bring that up now. Don't expect an answer, but I do think it's something we have to look at because I really grew to understand we've got more money and that allows us to do more. But that didn't change the cities.

So thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Lundy. I will say that I know the cost participation conversation is happening both at MnDOT and I've been having conversation with Ms. Cerny as well about evaluating our cost participation kind of in collaboration with what's happening at the state and other counties in the in the metro area too. So Commissioner

Yes, and I think I brought this to a couple of you folks, colleagues, too, that I've been hearing from cities, and not just the ones I serve, but cities outside of that, and their public works departments, and just the maintenance costs alone, too, for some of their budgets, a third of their budget just to maintain county roads for us. Depending on how the city is situated, sometimes they can have a lot of county and state roads going through them, and they're really small, and they're highly impacted, and they don't have a better tax base. And you're right to point out, Commissioner Lundy, that They didn't get any extra gas tax or anything like that to help them out, and they are struggling to try to do these. We have a lot of great work coming down the pipeline, and I'd really like to find a pathway forward rather than having cities say, we can't do it now, or to put it off or to do half of a project. And I know I've talked to Ms. Cerny, too. The conversations are going to happen. We're willing to work with them, and I think we're going to get this done. So I'm just looking forward to that.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Seeing none, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Those items are approved. Thank you. And that concludes our agenda.