Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

🎵 🎵 Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶

I'd like to call to order the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners.

Roll call, please.

Chapman Singh. Here.

McGuire? Here. McMurtry is excused. Miller? Here. Moran? Here. Zhong? Running a few minutes behind. And Ortega?

Aye. Land acknowledgement, Commissioner Miller.

Thank you, Chair. Every community owes its existence and vitality to generations from around the world who contributed their hopes, dreams, and energy to making the history that led to this moment. Some were brought here against their will. Some were drawn to leave their distant homes in hope of a better life. and some have lived on this land since time immemorial. Truth and acknowledgement are critical to building mutual respect and connection across all barriers of heritage and difference. We are standing on the ancestral lands of the Dakota people. We want to acknowledge the Ojibwe, the Ho-Chunk, and the other nations of people who also call this place home. We pay respects to their elders, past and present. Please take a moment to consider the treaties made by the tribal nations that entitle non-native people to live and work on traditional native lands. Consider the many legacies of violence, displacement, migration, and settlement that bring us together here today. And please join us in uncovering such truths at any and all public events.

Thank you. I'll entertain a motion on the agenda of August 11th, 2026. So moved.

Second.

Seeing no discussion, roll call.

Miller?

Aye.

Moran? Aye. Zhong? Aye. Jeven Singh? Aye. McGuire? Aye. McMurtry is excused. And Ortega?

Aye. I'll entertain a motion on the minutes of August 4th, 2026. So moved. Second. Seeing no discussion, roll call.

Miller?

Aye.

Moran? Aye. Zhong? Aye. Chubbensingh? Aye. McGuire? Aye. McMurtry is excused. And Ortega?

Aye. We have the administrative agenda, Commissioner Miller.

Yes, thank you, Chair. I would like to move the following administrative items. Item number three, appointment to the Personal Review Board. Item number four, appointments to the Capital Region Watershed District Board of Managers. Item number five, appointments to the Capital Improvement Program Advisory Committee. Item number six, Parks and Recreation Commission member composition. Item number seven, project budget and financing plan for Arden Hills subsurface drain restoration project. And item number eight, appointment of the Ramsey County Director of Emergency Management Department. I would like to pull that item.

Okay.

Second.

Seeing no further discussion, roll call.

Miller?

Aye.

Moran? Aye. Zong? Aye. Jebin Singh? Aye. McGuire? Aye. McMurtry is excused. And Ortega?

Aye. Commissioner Miller?

Yep. I would like to move item number eight, appointment of the Ramsey County Director of Emergency Management Department. Second. I just wanted to pull this item to give County Manager Becker a chance to speak on it.

All right, thank you, Commissioner Miller and Chair Ortega. Commissioners, it is my pleasure. I'm going to invite our new emergency management director, Kendall Bubla, to come join us here up the front of the dais. It is my pleasure to introduce her, as in the appointment is before you today. Kendall brings a strong background in emergency management with experience serving in government emergency management roles, where she has led emergency preparedness initiatives, coordinated complex incident responses, and strengthened partnerships across local, regional, state, and federal agencies. Throughout her career, she has been committed to building resilient communities through comprehensive planning, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Through our interview process, Kendall demonstrated exceptional leadership in advancing emergency preparedness and response capabilities. And her focus will be fostering regional partnerships, improving our preparedness, promoting equitable emergency management practices that should position us well for our both day-to-day emergencies as well as large-scale incidents. I want to thank her for moving to Minnesota to take this position. And while she's been already on the job for about a month or so, she is officially moved here recently. And so we were able to bring her to the board with this official appointment. My honor to present her for your approval this morning and also thank her for jumping in headfirst. I know even right when you started, we were managing several of the heat emergencies virtually with you, and you've been boots on the ground with our elections team as they've been preparing for today and also the coming weeks ahead. So thank you very much, and thank you, commissioners, for your consideration.

Welcome. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair, Commissioners, and County Manager Becker. I'm honored to accept, if you'll have me, the role of Emergency Management Director for Ramsey County, and I'm grateful for the trust you all have placed in me. I was born and raised in Wisconsin, but I've spent my career serving the communities on the East Coast, including 10 years with the state of Connecticut at the Criminal Justice Policy and Planning Division, Department of Public Health, and Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. I spent the last year and a half at the City of Boston Office of Emergency Management. But the Twin Cities have always held a special place in my heart as I graduated with my undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota. So it means a great deal to me to return to a place that helped shape my values. Throughout my career, I've learned that emergency management and really all of government, as you all know, is ultimately about earning trust. Stewardship is one of my core values, and at the end of each day, I want to go to bed knowing that I have been a good steward of residents' time, trust, and tax dollars. My goal is that when Ramsey County faces a disaster, our communities will know where to turn Our partners will know how to work together, and this board can have confidence that the Emergency Management Office is prepared to coordinate and collaborate with an established framework and with a well-socialized structure. I look forward to working with each of you to keep Ramsey County safe, resilient, and ready. And I also want to recognize the incredible team I've had the privilege of joining, Christy, Kim, Karma, Brian, and our rock star volunteer, Roger, as well as all the county staff, municipal partners who I've met, community organizations, and public safety partners. It's a privilege to serve the residents and visitors of Ramsey County alongside each of you. Thank you.

Roll call, please.

Miller?

Aye.

Moran? Aye. Xiong? Aye. Chapman-Zing? Aye. McGuire? Aye. McMurtry is excused. And Ortega?

Aye. We now have a policy item, presentation on House Resolution 1, implementation. operational readiness?

It would be Director Ali. Thank you.

Good morning. Good morning, Chair, Commissioners, County Manager. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. Before I begin, I would like to recognize our Financial Assistance Services Department staff. Every day they navigate or they help thousands of Ramsey County residents navigate complex and often challenging situations. Their dedication and commitment have positioned us well to implement the changes we are discussing today. I also wanted to recognize our partners across Ramsey County. This has been a one Ramsey County effort with support from information services, human resources, our physical team, and departments across community services and supporters. I appreciate their partnership as we prepare for these changes and continue working together to serve Ramsey County residents. Today, I would like to talk to you about what House Resolution 1, or HR1, means for Ramsey County, what we have already done to prepare, why we still need additional staff, and what comes next. The agenda today is I will cover four things. First, I will explain the changes coming under HR1, Second, I will share the improvements we have already made. And third, I will explain how these changes affect our workload and staffing. And finally, I will review our recommendation list and next steps. Before asking for additional staff, I would like to highlight what we have already accomplished through all Hands on Deck initiative. County Manager Becker challenged us to focus on what we could control. That became our all-hands-on-deck strategy. First, reducing backlogs and improving access to services, then strengthening quality, accuracy, and long-term operational performance. Our first goal was to reduce the backlogs and improve access to services. Once we made progress there, we shifted our focus on to improving quality and accuracy. We did not just ask how to walk faster. We asked how to walk smarter and provide better services. We invested in our employees. Nearly 170 staff completed customer service training from November of last year to July of this year. We have expanded leadership training for supervisors and managers. Staff turnover rate improved from 21% to 17%. We are also updating our job descriptions to better reflect today's work and help recruit and retain employees. The second focus was technology. We are partnering in modernization initiatives statewide. including Snap Forward and Mean Benefit to Maxis, also known as M2M, to reduce the manual data entry, streamline work, and improve efficiency. Since April, more than 2,700 residents have already used the online application status tracker instead of calling our office. That saves residents time and allows staff to spend more time processing cases. we are also strengthening our quality assurance work. Our focus is not just correcting errors after they happen, we are identifying patterns and working to prevent errors before they even happen. We are adding regular case reviews, strengthening supervisor coaching, and worked with information services to build a new digital quality assurance tool that gives leaders real-time information. I also want to thank Chetan Ganatra, our chief information officer, and his team for their strong partnership in developing this user-friendly quality assurance tool. Just as important, we have been intentional about changing our culture. We are creating clearer expectations around accountability, responsiveness, and performance. We are using data to see where we are doing well and where we need to improve and address issues earlier. These improvements have made us stronger. We have invested in our people technology, leadership, and processes. But even with these improvements, we do not have the capacity, we do not have the capacity to manage the workload created by HR1. Little bit background about HR1. Since HR1 became law in July of last year, we have worked closely with the state to understand what it means for Ramsey County. The details continue to evolve as of today, so we have been preparing instead of waiting. Minnesota is the state-supervised county administrative system This means the federal government changes the law and the state provides guidelines and counties do the work. Our goal is simple. We want to be ready while continuing to provide timely and accurate services to residents. The physical impact. The county manager will talk about overall budget. But today I am focusing on operations. The biggest challenge is not just the cost. It is the additional work created by the new federal requirements. Our staff will have more eligibility reviews. Excuse me, I have a question, Commissioner Singh.

Yes. Before we get too deep into the fiscal impacts, I just want to say we were at our latest NACoL policy convention and sitting on a number of different committees. The impacts of HR1 that are happening to counties all across the country, but specifically to counties that are state-supervised and county-administered is really tremendous. It's not just Ramsey County. And one of the things I just wanted to highlight, just to undergird what you're about to talk about, is that the guidelines haven't even all been finalized. And as recently as June, this June, meaning weeks ago, decisions were made as far as different things about work requirements and eligibility, and not just new clarification, but new ways of having to get there. And so I just want to say I recognize the challenge that you all and your team are facing. Already in this last year, we had charged ourselves with improving the work that we were doing, because that just needed improvement regardless. And then we had the government shutdown in the fall, and then Operation Metro surge, and a lot of other things. So I just want to say that while you've made a lot of improvements, it's been during a time of tremendous challenge and stress. And I did not want that to go unstated.

Thank you, Commissioner. I can't say even better. You say it much better than me, and that's exactly what's happening. Because Minnesota, as one of the 10 states in the nation, is one of the states who provides the county administrative programs. So counties have a very vital role as the way to get the details of the implementation as these changes continue to happen. So that's exactly what's happening right now.

And for us, because of that state supervised, the federal guidelines are still coming out. So the state then has to catch up. And then we have to catch up with them. So the lag is tremendous. So the idea that we're trying to get ahead of this a little bit is really our only course to have any success. So thank you.

Indeed.

Thank you. I have a question. When you talk about quality assurance, what are the pieces to that, the components?

Very good question, Chair. So quality insurance, each program has a quality insurance. In particular, SNAP program has a quality insurance that is being measured, our payment error rate. That is what you hear about the cost shift to the counties, if your error rate is more than 6%. So that is what we are trying to strategize and be more upfront to prevent those from happening. So the quality insurance team will work on this work. The tool we are creating, that we just created, is going to help us. That work.

I know that we've provided, in the past years, we've provided more folks to deal with the financial assistance and so forth. And it has improved because I've gotten feedback from folks. But I am still, I just want to make sure that our workers have enough time. I mean, it doesn't help if we have to repeat steps, right? Correct. We're not moving forward in terms of whether it's a backlog or just normal business. So I just want to make sure that It isn't just about numbers that we hired an extra 40 people, but it's really about the procedures and the work and the assistance. How do we make sure that we're not repeating things? I also have constituents where we've had to repeat the steps. And it's really our fault, not theirs.

Chair, that's exactly right. That's why we have been going through since last year a lot of department realignments to make sure that we don't only follow the same structure that we had in the past. We are exploring different ways to do the business. The department today is much better positioned to be very effective in different ways as we are creating different groups that make more sense as they do the work. I will have more update to you if that's the area that you're interested to know about what we have been doing. All these changes that have come to today, it was the investment that this board made a few years back or last year with the county manager's support. That's where we see all this investment outcome today. And this is progress, so this progress continues.

Thank you. Thank you.

So as I was talking about the fiscal impact, the county manager is going to talk about the overall budget impact, but today my focus is on operations. It's the additional, the biggest challenge is not just the cost, as I said earlier, it is the additional work created by the new federal requirements. Our staff will have more eligibility reviews, more verifications, more notices, and more casework. Even with the improvements we have already made, our current staffing is not enough to handle all of that additional work. Medical assistance has the biggest impact, as you may all know already. Money renewals will happen every six months instead of once in a year. That means our staff will complete these reviews twice as often. Many cases also require additional verification that cannot be automated. During peak renewal period, we already dedicate about 1,400 staff hours each month to this work. That's roughly the equivalent of eight full-time staff time. The new federal requirement will add another layer of work on top of those existing workload.

Excuse me, Ali. Commissioner Singh?

So I just want to highlight that again. So right now, it's every year, but it's going to go to every six months. So that doubles the amount of work that the county is doing, but also it doubles the burden on the individuals who are seeking to re-verify their own eligibility. And to back up, before these new executive orders, before these new rules, there had been ongoing momentum to encourage that those eligibilities be like every three years unless there had been some kind of major change. So I mean, this is really a lot of extra work that's coming our way. And the impact on families and individuals who are working to make sure people have a continuity of service, it's an impact on them too. So it means that not only are you all having to do twice as much work, but you're hand-holding folks who are already struggling to get all of their paperwork in. and all of that. So it's going to be extra stressful for the people that you're working with to get them through this process.

That's absolutely correct, Commissioner. This is enormous work is happening and is coming very soon, starting January 1. This is when all these changes are going to be effective. Thank you. Commissioner Moran.

So in stating on, just to go off of what we just heard Commissioner Jacobson talk about, the impact, how do we prepare for this every six months? We know it can be a lot for an individual or for a family. So how are we preparing for this renewal process every six months?

Chair Commissioner, this is a very important question. How we prepare is one of the things that I'm here today is to ask you to help us increase our staffing capacity. That's one thing. The second thing is working with the state agencies to make sure that community and residents understand these upcoming changes. There is already state DHS have built a lookup tool. People can look about the changes that are coming and whether they will meet the requirement of the waivers, what are needed. So this is kind of like all hundreds on deck statewide. And for us, our staff, the team have been meeting, and we are operationalizing all these changes, how we can make ourselves in better position so we can handle this in our upcoming changes. This is very normal, as Commissioner Jambresen was talking about. This is not only from our perspective. This is also from residents' perspective. Many people rely on these very vital services to take care of themselves, their families, and our goal is to make sure everyone who is eligible not to lose their coverage.

So how did that look like? What did that look like in practice? All right, maybe at the three-month, four-month time period, you're sending something out to an individual to say that this is coming up. So what did that look like in practice?

So in practice, this will come in January. People who will have renewals every month, I mean, every six months, they will receive a notice from the state to let them know that you will have reviewed us coming to you and make sure that you turn in your paperwork. So once we receive the paperwork, we follow up. There is a third-party vendor that the state is working with to help them be able to navigate to meet certain eligibility criteria, such as community engagement, volunteering, or working. So there will be a lot of details that are still emerging. We don't have those details how that practical will look like, but in terms of staffing, that's how we are preparing. So that communication becomes very critical. There is a talking point that we shared with the staff that they will share with the community when they receive a call about these concerns. One more, Mr. Chair.

So just for clarity, the state will send out that notification to the individuals, not the county? Not the county, yes. It will be the state that does that. Okay. And we are preparing for this, right?

We are preparing. Okay. Yes.

Thank you, Director Ali. One of the questions I have is just about how you arrived at the recommendation for 12 eligibility special FTEs as well as one eligibility specialist supervisor. My question around this is just how did you arrive at this and is this adequate to meet the moment that we are under?

Commissioner John, that's a very important question. So, HR1 impacts, in general, two major federal programs, which is healthcare, Medicaid at a federal level, and in Minnesota, medical assistance. In addition to that, it also impacts our SNAP program. There is also new work requirements and new changes on the SNAP program. And this slide, I'm talking about medical assistant. This is additional stuff that we are asking for medical assistant. The following slide, we'll talk about the additional stuff we are requesting for SNAP program. How we choose the number is it has been a lot of assessment internally, excluding any potential work that can be done by state or third party or could be automated. This is based on the actual work that Ramsey County is going to do for residents in order to continue their health care. So it has been a lot of planning that went through this to come up with this number, and we believe it's a very reasonable number that we think that we can handle this work in order to make sure that people have their coverage.

And what will you be using to just measure if this is the right amount of staffing or if you need to scale up some more too? Because my understanding also is that some of the back end infrastructure from the state is still being planned as well. And so we do not have the reliability of technology or even the state infrastructure on the back end as well. So what steps are we using to measure and assess and evaluate whether we are getting enough staff members or not to complete this work?

Commissioner Jong, very important question again. assessment and planning for additional staff is based on what is in our capacity, what Ramsey County can control to limit the damage and the impact that this HR1 is going to have on Ramsey County residents. You are very correct. The state is not yet ready in terms of systems that we use. As you may have heard many times, the state of Minnesota uses a system that's about 40 years old, even more. And it's going to be very, very challenging to do this. This additional staffing request today is our best information that we have as of today. And yes, of course, it will be re-evaluated and assessed if we see more improvement systems, whether the staffing still is needed, whether this is above what's needed or below what's needed. But this is the best information that we have today that we can ask you.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Commissioner.

Well, I was just going to say, too, is that we are state-supervised and county-administered, and so the state has some responsibility in supporting the counties as they administer these changes. And so I would hope that this also is tied to our request to our state and federal partners to have some support to the counties as they implement these changes that are out of our hands, because ultimately... the number of levers we had to support these kind of changes are limited. And so I think we have to recognize that, too.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So tomorrow, the metro county administrators and managers are meeting, along with Julie Ring to talk, and Matt Hilgart from AMC, to talk about just metro-wide, just some of the list of things of unfunded mandates and county administered, you know, things that are costing us some funds here, and think about how we can collectively come up with an approach as to how we would bring that forward to our commissioners, likely through either District 10 or through our own boards at some point. So that's happening this week, to have some more coordination around this.

I appreciate that. Because while we're talking about this particular change, there are multiple changes that are compounding in our department.

Yeah, the list was about 15 things to focus on. So rather than have us all work on different 15 things, I think the goal tomorrow is to get strategic and say, OK, these are our top five things among all of us. And then how do we strategize? And who's going to take the lead on different parts? And really work closely with AMC, obviously.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And county manager, is there a plan to meet in partnership with the state, with DHS?

I would think so. I mean, I think that, Commissioner Moran, I think that would be something we've traditionally leaned on AMC to do because that is a statewide conversation and I think as a metro, we just want to make sure we have our large entities who serve so many residents. We just want to make sure we're not all picking different things on that list of 15 of things to focus on. And then I think the goal then is to bring that broader to the statewide effort, and then have those conversations either with a new governor, with new legislators, obviously, and be able to speak of one voice for all counties. Thank you.

Go ahead, Harry. Thank you. This slide talks about SNAP workload changes as well. SNAP will also see a significant increase in workload. About 7,000 Ramsey County residents will be affected by the new eligibility and work requirement. Staff will complete more eligibility reviews, communicate with more residents, process more notices, and handle more renewals and re-applications. Our recommendation is based on the amount of work involved, not just the number of people affected. We are recommending four and a half FTEs for eligibility specialty positions to handle SNAP increased workload. This slide is a summary about the staffing recommendation. Booting together everything, we are recommending 17 and a half FTE positions. This includes 16 and a half eligibility specialists, one eligibility specialist supervisor. This is a FOCUS request. We are not asking to expand the services that we do today. We are asking for that staff needed to carry out the new federal requirements while continuing to provide timely and accurate services to Ramsey County residents. Hiring timeline.

Excuse me, Commissioner Singh.

Yeah, on the last slide, I know this is a little wordsmithy, but I think it's important. The first bullet on the bottom says, this will enable Ramsey County to implement HR1 policy changes while maintaining timely resident access. And it goes on. I just want to say that this is one of many changes that are happening. in a very dynamic policy changing and technology. I mean, all of the things are happening and swirling all at once. I just want to just give a little bit of a lifeline to your department to say, well, we have high expectations. We have high accountability. We have all of this because we have a mission to serve our residents regardless of the swirl. But also that the idea that I anticipate that there will have some program implications, that there will be some stresses on the people that we're serving. Even if we are as timely and even if we're able to work like clockwork, the very fact that folks have to go through this process twice a year itself will be an impact on them. So I just, I want to set expectations that policy changes have ramifications. And this will be felt on our community, even if we can keep up with the changes. And to just say, too, that as much as we can, we keep compacting expectations on our teams. And some of it's external, and we're paddling as fast as we can, but also there are limits, right? So I just, you know, I think I'm measuring success if we're bailing faster than it's raining, because it's been raining a really long time.

very absolutely correct commissioner jefferson one thing that i will add to the point that you already made um roughly we have about we serve about 150 160 000 people in ramsey county financial assistance services has about 465 employees including leadership to frontline staff including vacancies, including people that don't leave, and everyone. If you just put these numbers to the people that we serve, every member, staff member in FAS or in Ramsey County, service about 340 people in Ramsey County. In addition to that, we are seeing this in our new policies that will bring additional workload, additional complexities, additional interaction with residents. So this is huge. This is very impactful if you don't address it beforehand. Commissioner Miller?

Yes, if we could go back one slide. I just want to mention that last bullet, that adding these 17.5 FTEs will add 0.25% on the property tax levy. And then I just have one question. It says after the anticipated federal reimbursement rate. Is that at the current reimbursement rate, or is that at the expected reduction of the federal reimbursement rate?

Commissioner Miller, a very good, important question. A county manager will discuss about all the details about the budget impact, but this estimated cost that we put in here is the new anticipated reimbursement that we are expecting.

That will be reduced from what we currently receive? Correct. Okay. Yep. Thank you.

Ali, you had, there are 7,000 Ramsey County folks that are gonna be impacted? I thought I... Yeah, for SNAP.

SNAP, yes.

On SNAP, correct? Correct. And so, and there's a work requirement to the SNAP?

Correct.

Who reviews the work requirement? Is it your staff? Yes. So, okay, so it is within, confined to that. It isn't... another, you got the complete cycle on this.

So, Chair Ortega, once we get the details, so this is already in the SNAP program, it started last year, right? You know, it's still evolving. There's certain areas that are now still not clear, still, you know, evolving. But generally speaking, verification is followed on eligibility specialist's duties. You have to verify if someone is eligible and they meet the requirement before you approve their case. So yes, this is in our FAS employees that will be doing this work.

So if they don't meet that employment, if they can't provide that documentation, for example, then they're off SNAP? Automatically?

Then they will be eligible only for three months in three years. There's something called SNAP Limited Recipientes, we used to call ABAR. If you don't meet those requirements to extend your eligibility for each month, then your benefit will end after three months.

I may be conflating the two between the work requirements for medical assistance and the work requirements for SNAP, but one of the things that I recall is the changes in the disability requirements and the idea that it used to be that there was a list of disabilities that if you were verified by a doctor or your medical team that you had one of these lists and then that automatically allowed you to be seen as somebody who has who has waived from meeting those work or community engagement eligibilities. But now one of the changes that has happened is not only do you need to say, yes, I have this disability, but specifically for you, your disability in this moment of time prevents you from working. And one of the concerns that I have is when I was in one of these panel discussions, was the idea that nobody actually specifically does that. So how are we training our staff to not only say, yes, your doctor says you have stage four cancer, or whatever the list may be. I don't have the list in front of me. But something of that kind of ilk. And then to say, yes, but you're having a good day. you're good or no, you're deep into treatment right now and you can't even get off the couch. So who is able to then take that next level to determine that? Because that's a new piece of this puzzle.

Very good question. So there are two different things here. There is still about a few months ago, I don't remember exactly, Center for Medicaid and Medical Services issued guidance about what those medical eligibility criteria is going to look like. I know there is some legal debate about that, whether that's going to meet or not. But in terms of us, eligibility specialist area, In order for someone to qualify based on temporary incapacitation or temporary inability to work, we do have a form that's called a medical opinion form. The people take these forms to the doctor. What the doctor provides, we just take that information. So it depends on the doctor to provide that information. Commissioner Moran.

While we're on this page here, what do you mean by manual notices? What do that look like?

So, manual alerts could be like, you know, so each county, for example, the medical opinion form that I was just talking about, it's not something that you can automatically send it to, you know, a resident. So, you have to talk to people, ask their question, why you cannot work, why you need to have it to get GA, and then the worker sends this information manually. We may use it now with case works. I'm not up to speed to the details about this new case work system, but there is a lot of multiple things that we have to do. And then another manual could mean, you have to override the system. Systems are too old. It's not consistent with the current policies. So sometimes you have to go to deep dive to the system so you can override your notices and information that you're sending to people to avoid any confusion.

Sidebar. When are we going to get our, are we able to update? Because that's so tedious. I mean, and I know our system is currently outdated. Are we working on this process?

Because that is very tedious.

Is the question about the systems?

It's about the manual notification and our system that we're using that you have to call an individual up to ask the questions versus sending out maybe a survey or some type of documentation and they respond to it.

So Commissioner Murray, the notices that are sent by state or sent by county most of the time could be confusing. And people always have a question about some clarification about the notices that they receive. So this is something that we are dealing with a system that are set up to be very complicated. And we are trying to simplify it with our ability when we have it. So I don't know exactly where you're heading to in terms of these notices here, but what I can say is they're very, very confusing, very complicated, and we are trying to make it simple to our best ability that we can do that.

I'm just concerned about the manual notices where you have to individually call up everyone to have a conversation with them. And how time consuming that is. Right? It just slows down a process. And we're not able, at this point in time, able to just send something out. And I get it. Some people may have questions about it. That's just a part of the work that people need to better understand what you're asking. Could that be a part of the process? Or is the priority to make the phone calls?

So Commissioner Cameron, in terms of determining eligibility, it's a very tedious and complex process. And it differs from one person to another person. So the worker may meet with the person A and ask now five requirements and may talk with the person B and ask about 20 different verifications. So that is what I mean when it comes to manual interaction. So it's not like identical every case. So every situation is different. Every household composition is different. So that there is a multiple shifting gears as you process those cases all the time.

I get it. OK.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner McGuire.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Moran. Now I brought a question to my mind about we know that the state has an antiquated system as well. Are we trying to interact with the state with these programs or is it other programs that we try to interact with the state on? And I know we're trying to get... the state to have a better technology and a better system. Are these programs wrapped up with that, or are those other programs?

Commissioner McGuire, FAS in Ramsey County, Financial Assistance Services in Ramsey County, we manage about 10 different programs. Almost all of them, they have a state system connection.

So there's a need. And I know the legislature gave them some money to help with that. And it's not enough. And so how are we coming on that?

And that is our hope. There is a statewide initiative going on, as you all know, that last year the legislature allocated some funds to system modernization, and that is what we are hoping to come up with something. But that change is not going to happen very soon, in my opinion.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner McGuire, I did want to just let you know that the state is setting up that modernization work group. We have our chief information officer who is going to be a part of it. We think that's a really strategic move. We have AMC to request his participation because of his past work at the state as well. And then also Commissioner Miller will be joining that. And then kind of under that, we have Deputy Director Hedin and other people who are more subject matter experts of the system supporting them. So we felt it was important that there's plenty of people at that work group now that understand the MAXIS system and understand the mechanics. We actually just want to put some strategic folks, both the commissioner level and our CIO, actually, to put time in there. I will say the other thing that we've briefly talked about, I know I've talked to our deputy county manager, Francois, and Dr. Ali about this, is continuing some of the, maybe you and Commissioner Ortega would maybe have the most history here, but Hennepin County has built over time some workarounds and we have not as a county and we are going to start some of those conversations to figure out is there a partnership that's possible because at some point we've been waiting for the state to fix something and at some point you have to take some control of your own destiny and I think there's an openness on behalf of a couple other counties to consider what that would look like. And obviously, that would include a fair amount of collaboration and maybe even resources. But we want to at least explore, are there some bridge efforts that could help us accelerate the work while they're building a new system? Because things are continuing to happen while we are waiting, and it has for a long time. And for those of you who've been in this conversation a decade has passed. So I think we need to keep thinking about how we thoughtfully align with what the state's doing, but sometimes do our own thing as we need to, because no one else is coming to save us at this point, right?

So, yeah, I think that helped. Instead of us trying to catch up with them, they can catch up with us. We've got to get moving.

Exactly.

Thank you for that background.

Yeah, so a lot's happening on a modernization front. Thank you for that update on modernization.

Thank you.

But I do think that, I do want to just thank Ali and the staff for We have done everything we can to control the things that we can to improve. What we are bringing forth to you today are the things that are out of our control, both the hiring timeline, which is why I'm having them accelerate bringing this to you, because that is out of our control. as well as the actual requirements themselves, where we've been able to create better retention with our staff, better training, better customer service, improve processes wherever we can. I mean, really, this work was kind of the catalyst for starting Operational Excellence two years ago as it kind of became an organizational-wide thing. There was just a lot of opportunities to improve. And we need to continue. And I know they've continued to share how we are improving with the community. And I know Commissioner Jevenson as part of the first AHOD round, started a partnership, a meeting or convening. And we continue to inform those folks. Because when you guys were getting all those emails, this was probably about two years ago where it was coming so hard and heavy. I think part of the situation was people didn't understand what we were doing. And we've done both and. We've been more transparent about where we are improving, what things we can and can't control, as well as having made improvements. And so both of those things can be true at the same time. And both are equally important. We have to admit our limitations to our community. But I just want to thank Ali and him and his leadership and his team. They have really leaned in. I've seen a tremendous amount of change in that department and to the point where we've been receiving some kudos from the state as to how are you guys making those improvements. And part of it is we've really just said this is a huge priority for us and we need to put the resources and the bandwidth and give the department some opportunity to leverage resources from throughout the county. When was talking about being able to have access to the IS department and making that a huge priority, I mean, that's really critical. Because they have a lot of work that they're doing, but they need to understand what is most critical on behalf of the commissioners and myself right now, too. So thank you so much. I know you have some next steps, but this is very similar to when the sheriff came with the ADC request. It's a two-parter in the sense that we need to do some FTE additions. get some contingency funding to get it started so we don't miss this window, while also knowing that it is committing us to something in the 27 budget. There are actually three components of H.R. 1 impacts. to the 27 budget. I will talk about all three of them in a couple of weeks when I present the budget. This is just one of the parts, if that makes sense. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. You know, let me just add that one of the things we have to do, that's why I asked for the quality assurance questions, to the extent that we could limit the reapplications. I know that it's not all due to our environment, but Those that are within our environment makes it a whole lot easier because the legislature, just because they allocated money to whatever doesn't mean, quite frankly, anything if we've learned that because they've been getting money over the last several sessions and we're still in a quagmire, quite frankly. It's up to the counties to figure out how to do this. And if we could come up with better ways, quality assurance is one of the big keys internally for us, because we could avoid duplication internally. That makes it a whole lot easier. So I'm just trying to support what you're saying, that we have to. continue helping our employees do a better job, and also providing them with the tools to do a better job. So I think that's key, more than worrying about the dollar, per se. I mean, we need the resources, but we also need to be innovative internally, and not wait for the state. It's not coming.

Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, County Manager, for those comments here. So I will talk about the next thing, the hiring timeline. One thing that I wanted to point out, hiring timing is very important. Eligibility specialists are not fully trained overnight. After they are hired, it takes about six to nine months before they are fully trained and able to independently manage a caseload on their own. One thing that I also wanted to point out, in alignment with the quality control and quality assurance, we are also building our internal training capacity through a program called the Train the Trainer. approach. We have three internal certified trainers which will allow us to expand our training capacity as we are adding additional staff. This is something that I shared with you a million times before that you know we were under the mercy of the state when we hired people. We cannot even bring them as soon as we want because we have to go through the state in coordination with the time slots and Now, the state has worked with us. We thank them. We have three certified training that will be fully available come in October, which is in a good alignment with this request that we're making today. Approving these positions gives us time to recruit, train, and prepare before these changes take effect. This is particularly important.

Sorry, I didn't mean to slow your roll there, but just the idea that there are 87 counties who are going to be facing this, so the idea of getting ahead of recruiting folks who may want to be able to do this work is no small feat.

Absolutely.

This is an initiative that Ramsey County led, and we appreciate the state partnership that we are one of the first counties that get these certified trainers. This is particularly important because we are already operating in a high-value environment, as many of you have already noticed, and these new federal requirements will add additional work, and waiting until the new workload arrives, we will already be behind, and we don't want that. So the timeline, today I have outlined the operational impacts and additional staffing need to prepare for these changes. On August 18th, we will return with request for board approval. If approved, we will begin hiring and training right away. That will help us ensure we are ready before the new federal requirements take effect. In closing, I would like to close with three simple points. First, we have been preparing since the low pass last year. Second, we have already made major improvements in our operations, technology, leadership, and quality assurance. Finally, while these improvements have made us stronger, they are not enough to absorb the additional work created by HR1. This staffing is focused practical, and based on the work that we know that's coming. It will help us continue providing timely and accurate and reliable services to Ramsey County residents while meeting our new federal requirements or responsibilities. Thank you.

Thank you. Mike Young and then Singh.

Director Eli, based off on our work on the AMC SNAP subcommittee, there have been a lot of conversations around the request of delaying implementation of some of this. My question is, if we are successful in getting a delay in some of these requirements, would we still need this many FTEs?

Commissioner Jong, I will say yes for a number of reasons. Number one, this delay still is, as you know, the farm bill was not voted and the second chance will be in September. And we don't know if this delay will happen or not. The delay that's on the table is one year for now and the other one is over two years. However, there is a risk attached to that delay itself. That delay will shift now from the penalty from 15% to 20%, which will increase the fiscal responsibility on the counties, if that's going to be the way. But what we don't know yet, how we are going to overcome with the payment error rate that we have today. Because there's systemic issues, There is, in my humble opinion, there is little hope that that system will help us to achieve that goal to be under 6%. So I would say that in our delaying fighting this position, it will not be a very strategic move because that uncertainty from the Farm Bill is still in the discussions.

Commissioner Zhang, I would like to address this as well. I appreciate what Director Ali is saying on the staffing side. I will just say that similar to what Commissioner Jevenson started with when we first started to introduce this item this morning, there's a lot of unknowns in what's going to be implemented. We continually are trying to still advocate. I know, obviously, the work group you're working on, but also our government relations has been tracking along with AMC, the Farm Bill, other things to try to continue to do delays. I think on all our state and federal mandates and challenges, and I'll talk about this more in the budget, is we're trying to be very thoughtful about where we sit on our risk continuum in terms of how much we need to plan for versus how much we don't want to over plan for and levy for. something that may not happen right and so this is a moment where we can be grateful that we've had a strong board and who over many years has been good fiscal stewards of resources in the county this is going to be a moment where counties who have more basically fund balance, are going to be able to manage a little bit better because we need to make good choices when it comes to what we're going to levy for versus what we're going to bridge for, if that makes sense. You're going to start hearing about some counties that because of their fiscal situation, they might have to put into their levy kind of some of the big scary things that are coming. while the state really still has an ability to have a conversation or the federal government might still be able to make a delay. We're going to be in a good spot, at least thinking very thoughtfully about where we need to start investing and make those decisions. And where we might not want to, as one of the larger counties in the state of Minnesota, there are things that the state can still fix that I am not going to put in our I'm going to tell you that it's a risk, and we are going to work on managing them. But I am going to bring some things that I think are imminent, and we need to acknowledge those and be prepared for those. So it's a delicate balance of managing some of the risk. But when you are in a solid financial position, you're able to manage that risk a little more strategically, if that makes sense. I think because of the difficulty in the hiring timeline, This, in particular, was something that I felt needed to come to you sooner than later, because we don't want to get caught where we are completely not. Because it's what Commissioner Ortega said. This isn't going to be an issue of resources. At the end of the day, we're going to be able to find, hopefully, the funds to hire these people. It's that we don't have control over when they can be hired. how quickly they can be trained. And that's the part that we can't control. No amount of money can buy us faster training and onboarding, if that makes sense. So we need to just be strategic here. But this is the real challenge that all 87 counties are talking about. And you are going to see some discrepancies across the counties. Some are going to say, we're levying for these six, seven things. And others are going to say, we're only going to do these couple of things right now. Because you have to be really thoughtful. I have taken... some of the advice of our COO who's been sitting at some of the tables statewide and looking at some of the big shifts. We want to not signal to the state that we are going to levy for some of these things that we still feel they can help us with. So we're going to be thoughtful and strategic and still be very honest with our legislators that we have a major problem of an unsustainable property tax here. And we're not going to just assume that the county is going to take that full burden. It's a little bit of a layers of the onion approach, but I appreciate the question, and I think this is a, I would highly recommend that you consider this hire for all the reasons that Director Ali said, but also because we have to control the things, or we have to move on the things we can't control, and this is one of them, so.

All right, Commissioner Sing, then Moran.

Yeah, so, County Manager, you alluded to what we saw on slide 43, which is that there's still programmatic and financial impacts of SNAP administration and benefit cost shifts. I know that that's not what we were talking about today, but just to put this investment in context of broader impacts, can you give us a little hint as to the kind of programmatic or financial impacts you anticipate that the SNAP administrative and benefit costs are going to be?

Sure. I can give some early estimates. Without going into big specifics, what we're anticipating around the federal HR1 impacts would probably be in the range of $13 million, potentially. Annually. It's a rough range. And what we're looking at in terms of the long-term support services, which is something we'll talk more about in the budget. Again, this is something that we definitely want the state to solve and work on. But for us, it's about a $6 million exposure for Ramsey County. And those are all going to come into fruition in 2028.

So that would be the $13 million plus an additional $6 million. Mm-hmm.

So I'm looking at us dipping into our contingency account. And so I can't remember whether it's Anoka County or Dakota County or both of them who have no contingency dollars left. And talking about also laying off employees. And so I would say with that, we have seen Ramsey County board been very prudent with our dollars and spending with AAA rating. And so you've laid a good foundation for us that we can do this at this moment in time. And I'm just thinking that there the impact that H.R. 1, that the federal government is having on states and counties and cities across this country. And it's through that type of policies and practices that we're seeing here that we're just shifting these costs down to local governments and the impact that it is truly having on real people's lives and the work that we can do or not do. And so as I look at, we're always looking at, in this moment in time, can we hire more? But the question is, can we not hire more so that we can stay as efficient and effective as we need to be and prepare for what's coming? Because it's coming. And as soon as we sit here today, we're going to go back into a session where the state has said, we can't afford this. And the shift is going to come down to the counties. It's going to happen. And so I'm just grateful that we have the dollars that we can invest now. You laid out a really good process of saying that we can only train now in October to look into 2027. And it takes six to nine months to do that. And this is the moment that we're in. And whether we like it or not, how do we continue to be good stewards of our dollars, but also be efficient and effective and accountable to our taxpayers, but also to the residents and the people that we want to serve, and do a good job to continue to do that under the strains that we have been placed in. Not because this is something that we're holding back on, it's because we've been more or less forced to do this hard work and still serve. And so it's a hard decision, but I think you make a really good case for why we need to move forward.

Mr. Chair, I just want to add to this conversation. I know that we're doing the best that we can to control what we can here in this situation. I would also add that not knowing what the other counties are planning, it is very concerning to me that other counties would consider under-investing in this moment in time. Because what the federal government is doing is they're tying payment error rates to many of this for the entire state. So it does not matter whether Ramsey County does everything and we decrease our payment error rate. They're defining us by how we are doing collectively as a state. So it is, I would just mention this and also really urge all of us as we are having those conversations at AMC, at NACL, about the importance of how this formula or what they are tying this to is deeply, deeply flawed. It does not measure fraud. Right. Payment error rates are typical and they are standard and what you do is you are actually correcting them every time and that still gets counted against you. So I just wanted to name how deeply flawed this is and the intention of this is to remove people off of public benefits and make it harder for working class people who are working multiple jobs, disabled people, and kids, and seniors from getting food and health care and getting the care that they need.

If I just made a comment about this, this additional staffing request that we are asking today, It's not about, you know, Ramsey County taking the cost of HR1. It's about the workload that's going to come, which could lead many people to lose their coverage if you don't be proactive. And I just wanted to highlight that. That's, you know, what Commissioner John just said, that that's exactly what we believe. That's what we're trying to prevent, that we wanted to make sure that everyone who is eligible to receive the services, they don't lose it because of our capacity that we don't have it to continue their coverage. So I just wanted to highlight that. Thank you.

Yeah, the only thing I would just add, Chair, and I appreciated your reflection, Commissioner Moran, at the end of that, is one of the things I mentioned in the biennial budget, and it'll be a theme as we go through the next couple of years, is a budget of responsible choices. We are not in a moment where just cutting things is the best option to managing a budget. It is thinking really thoughtfully about what are the things that need to be looked at, improved, but also where we have to make additional investments. And so that's a nuanced conversation when it comes to budgeting. One way you can deal with a difficult budget is to, across the board, just have all your departments take some percentage of a cut and just deal with it. that is not a responsible budgeting technique or investment technique in our community of needs. It takes much more of a scapel approach to think about what are the things where we can potentially let go of, but where are there things that we absolutely should not let go of and things that we actually need to do better in, and the way we're going to do better in is to put more money into it because it's so critically important to what the county does. We're going to have a lot of those conversations in the coming weeks, but I thank you so much for really having a good early conversation ahead of the bigger budget. This has been a good couple of meetings with the things you've had to invest in early that will hit against the levy, both on making sure we're in compliance for the people who are in our care and custody, recognizing that there's other ways we end up paying for that anyway. that investment a couple of weeks ago, and then what you're going to decide today. I think both of those I wanted to bring to you out of the contingency fund because I think they cannot wait.

So thank you very much.

Oh, did you vote already?

There's no vote. We don't have to vote. Oh, sorry. I was thinking you had to vote. OK. I apologize. OK. I do have a couple. On a more exciting note, I want to thank our HR department and our team. I know many of the commissioners are familiar with our employee achievement awards, and how we've been doing them has been for a couple decades, honestly, and we've decided to give it a little refresh. So I'm excited to share about it today. A lot of people have put a lot of time into this. So Human Resources is rolling out a newly redesigned employee recognition program to celebrate our employees whose work makes sense. a meaningful difference to our county residents and our organization. So this redesign program creates more opportunities to recognize employees at every level of the organization with an emphasis on our values. Many of you see our values wheel every day when you turn on your computer, and really we wanted to set side recognition that really focuses on those values. And so the program's going to actually have four elements of recognition. One of them is a Values in Action Award. Those are sets of awards. And they're going to replace the former Employee Achievement Awards. These awards will recognize employees and teams who exemplify people, integrity, community, equity, and leadership. And any employee may nominate a colleague or team for those value awards. We also have what's going to be shining star awards. Those are quarterly department level recognition for employees who distinguish themselves through their commitment to operational excellence and the county values. We wanted to make sure that while a very limited number of people get maybe countywide awards, there's more recognition that could be happening at the department level. And then we also are going to refresh our High Five program, which is an informal peer to peer opportunity We just want to thank someone for doing a good job on something big or little. And then I'm really excited about a One Ramsey County Award. This is going to be a county manager award that recognizes employees or teams that demonstrate an exceptional commitment to work across their areas and disciplines to advance our shared goals and improve outcomes. And what I'm really excited to tell you about is your role in some of that. So as part of all these awards, we are now going to set aside April as part of County Government Month. to when we do the actual formal recognition of all these employees. So there'll be an event that the board will be invited to every April, where we will then honor the teams who have, or people who received awards throughout the previous year. So instead of coming to, This board meeting, they'll get more acknowledgement at the department level, and then the board will have a more formal, larger award ceremony as part of county government month every year. So that's exciting. So I want to thank our CHRO, Patience Ferguson, in leading the team and refreshing, giving that a great, great refresh. So thank you, Patience. All right, and then today, I just want to acknowledge that today, voters from across the state of Minnesota will be able to vote in our state primary. Ramsey County residents will be able to vote for various offices, such as the US Senate, US representative, the governor, and other constitutional offices, as well as local offices, such as their county commissioner, mayors, and city council seats. During a primary, no candidates are elected to office. Instead, the primary reduces the number of candidates who will proceed to the general election, which will be November 3, 2026. It is important to remember that in Minnesota, for offices that have partisan primaries, voters can only vote for candidates of one major political party. Polling places will be open in Ramsey County from 7 AM. This morning, they were open. until 8 PM tonight. Voters must vote at their precinct's polling place. Any voter in line at the close of polls will be able to vote. Minnesota law does not require registered voters to show ID when voting. If you are not currently registered, you will be required to show an approved identification in order to vote. Minnesota allows voters to register on election day at polling places. This is one of the reasons Minnesota consistently leads the nation in high voter turnout. To confirm your registration status, find your election day polling place review a sample ballot or to find other election information, go to mnvotes.gov. State law requires employers to allow employees time off to vote without loss of pay or use of vacation or sick time. So I'd like to encourage everybody to go vote today if you haven't already. I want to especially thank our elections and volunteers that make this all possible. over 100 polling places throughout the county. Also, I want to note thank yous to Communications and Public Relations. They have done a lot of communications about all the iterations of how people can come vote over the past few weeks. And for many people, I know you just appointed our new emergency homeland. Security Director. But we have a very robust team of folks that help to prepare and plan for elections. And that includes folks on the election staff, the team that Kendall leads, our sheriff's office, property management, our information security team, and also communications, obviously, and the county attorney's office. So lots of people have been working for many weeks and many months and will continue to do so. This is just one of the milestones as we approach election day in November. But just thank you to so many people for their commitment to doing this work that really is the... you know, the foundation of our democracy. So thanks to everyone for their work today. And we'll be excited to just, you know, see the results at the end of the night here. So thanks.

Thank you. Let's move on to Tina. Do you want to kick it off?

Sure. Thank you. Let's open up by saying I think the employee recognition is an awesome, awesome thing to do. So I just want to say kudos for highlighting that and moving that forward. Let's see. A lot of things I'm not going to. Let me see. Over the last weekend, last week, I was able to recognize National Night Out. That was plentiful. And it was a beautiful day. So happy it wasn't hot and sunny. But it was just great to get out into community and connect with different communities. It does make a difference. Yes. So I was able to do that. I attended a family shelter work group meeting. which comes out of heading home Ramsey County. So we have, there's a family shelter work group that focus on family in a meeting to continue conversations about the needs of families experiencing housing instability. I do still remain committed to strengthening coordinations across systems so that families can access shelter services and pathway towards stable housing with greater dignity and consistency. So it was really good to That was my first meeting with the family shelter work group. I told them they was grateful to see me there, but I'll be there for the rest of the meetings going forward. Really good group of diverse group of departments and leaders that's in that space focused on the well-being of families. And what really comes down as we think about the number, I think there's still a waiting list over 90-something families who do not have stable housing. And we just need to look at the impact that that has on as we are about to go into a new school season where kids are not stable. That impacts learning. That impacts attendance. It has a huge impact for the parents and how they can meet the needs of their families and stabilize their kids and want the best for them. And it's really difficult when you're not stable. So I look forward to the continued work with that working group. My office attended the Snelling University Partner Work Group yesterday, which included an update on the PXI encampment closure. I was able to attend last night the MAFA community meeting, which is a group of community members from the African-American community that's come together to look at this new law. Hindenpin and Ramsey County is a pallet of where it's going to be now statewide come 2027. But just want to say thank you to Elder Atum, who's with the Cultural Wellness Center, for her leadership. I want to thank Giovanni Ford from NETCAD. NETCAD means the Network for the Development of Children of African Descent. I want to thank the community members who came together to really bring their insight and their wisdom and their lived experience helping us, the county, helping the state to identify what is culture, right? So when you look at out-of-home placement, what we have seen within the child welfare system is that cultural piece missing. You know, I remember as a little girl living in my community where when a family was struggling, it wasn't... a system that came in to support them. It was other family members and community that showed up to support them. And we have over years of of a child welfare system that has negated that piece of family, been the foundation, been the strength of the community, been the strength of the family, and that grandmothers and aunties and sisters, they all matter, and not going to an outside source and putting kids with strangers. And so it was really good to see this work happening in real time. The meeting helped explain the process, how community members can be involved, and why this is an important opportunity for community voices to be at the table. So I was really proud to be in a room with Ramsey County departments who showed up. to be doing this work in partnership with community members that came together in genuine collaboration around the future of children and families. So it's work that will continue on. And this also can be helpful when we look at the intake process. It is that intake work. kids are either, families are either screened in or screened out. Well, we want to go up front and be a part of what that looks like, that decision-making process that happens that really is screening in families, or absolutely black families, Native American families, disproportionately. and really bringing in what do that cultural piece look like, and why does it matter, and how we can help states and social workers who are making those decisions to make those decisions through a more comprehensive lens. So that's it for me.

All right. Let's see here. Last week I attended the Wall That Heals with Commissioner Jebin Singh at Polar Lakes Park in White Bear Township. The traveling memorial, it was a three-quarter scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in D.C., and it honors more than three million Americans who have served in Vietnam. And the 58,281 service members whose names are on the wall. There were seven, was it seven, I believe, that were from the White Bear Lake area that were specifically, they had their names in their pictures. It was really great to be there. Just thank you to White Bear Lake Historical Society, White Bear Township, our local VFWs and American Legion posts, and the many volunteers and partners who helped bring this experience to the community. Then I attended the NYFS annual board picnic. That is a board picnic that the board posts for the staff members. We had it at Hanson Park in New Brighton. I just want to shout out this park, which is really neat. It reopened following improvements that included upgrades to an inclusive playground, a Ninja Warrior-style challenge course, and even little timers that can time you. I lost. Against my daughter.

Trail enhancements and a new park building with accessible restrooms.

So that was really great to spend some time with the staff and the NYFS board. And then I attended a career force touring in the WIB meeting. It was held at the Ramsey County Government Center. We received updates on federal and state workforce program allocations for 2026, 2027. Heard from the one-stop operator, of course, How do I say that word? Consortium. Consortium. There we go. And held a partner showcase and resource fair, which was pretty neat to see our partners there. Then we also had the opportunity to visit CareerForce space located at the Ramsey County Government Center. And I got to see the WIB members, where our workforce development team, where they are housed at as well. So it was pretty cool to see that. And finally, I ended the night at the Montessori American Indian Child Care Center graduation event. I had the honor of speaking. MIAC holds a really special place in my heart. Just from the time when I was working at DIW, I also sat on their board. They were one of our closest partners. And we also got to welcome back their alumni from their first Montessori graduation class of 2015. So seeing those young adults now going into high school was really neat. So it was pretty great. And with that, I am done. Thank you.

Commissioner Singh?

Sure.

I'll just say that last week I was able to attend the East Metro Mental Health Roundtable, and I've had some fits and starts in connecting with the group just because of schedule overlays, but it was lovely to be in that space. This was the day of the encampment closure, and Mayor Herr was giving an on-the-ground or in-real-time update Um, and where MC County was able to report on the supports and investments that we, we were doing, um, to kind of meet that moment. Um, I will say we also got, um, updates on Alina's mental health and addiction services and capital parks facility. I am really hopeful about being part of this group because. It was a constructive conversation where people were holding each other accountable and also providing dedicated support to say that we all are in this together. These are community issues to solve, that we have to have a place where we can share our concerns over things that are going on, whether it's staffing issues that are still going on at Capitol Park, whether it's the timing of future encampments and how we can make sure to be there to surround community, but that we do have these spaces and we continue to meet in these types of spaces, like Heading Home Ramsey County, like all these other places, that say the only intention we have is that we collectively support community and the needs that they have. So how do we continue to meet in positive spaces? So it was nice to be in there, and also not just to have it be a, isn't this great, we're all here, but to be able to say, hey, this will make us better next time. This is what we need. So I applaud the leaders who continue to show up in those spaces. Then I also had a chance to be at the League of Women Voters for White Bear Lake Area's annual picnic. And I've been part of the League of Women Voters since my entire adult life. But during this time, I appreciate them even more. They are trusted advocates for democracy, nonpartisan. They provide election forums. They provide help with registering new voters and advocating for safe, effective, and accessible elections. And they've been really trusted messengers in community and have really been great partners. And then last night I had held my quarterly community connections group. This is community organizations that are grassroots and individually led across District 1 and excited because this group continues to grow. We had representatives from many faces, from the White Bear Lake area, Duguid Roseville, North from North Oaks, Venice Heights Community Action Network, the Spring Lake Park Forward Together group, representatives from the Shoreview Human Rights Committee and the Moundsview Community Engagement Committee. And while they were also using that time to build their own networks and learn from each other and collaborate on work to making more inclusive and welcoming communities, they also were expressing concerns over the elections, the concerns over potential disenfranchisement, people being afraid and staying at home, making sure that they were getting information. And so I'll continue to provide them that information. I'll shout out to our communications team. Many of them have been copying and forwarding on social media the posts that Ramsey County is putting out. They express their appreciation for that clear information. Um, and so, uh, I, I appreciate that and I've encouraged them, encouraged individuals who are concerned to continue to watch our, um, our workshops on our elections and to continue to look to our, our elections website page for accurate and up-to-date information. So, um, just letting folks know that this is a concern that folks have and that community members are, um, providing each other education. They're sharing positive, accurate information. and they're helping each other get to the polls and to exercise their rights. So thank you to everybody in community, along with all of our election staff and volunteers, for continuing to make sure that everyone's voices are heard.

Thank you. Ms. McWay?

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. A lot going on last week. I just want to give a shout-out to the people that apply for our community advisory councils and that get appointed, and today we appointed People to three of our boards and I won't give a shout out to my colleagues Commissioner as young and Commissioner Moran who service in the interview team this time we all take turns so every year we Three of us do the interviews for these boards and we get great Great a response from our public and just encourage people to keep applying for these boards shout out to Samantha Wicks who was appointed to the personnel review board and Hoana Sullivan-Jansen, Joseph P. Collins, and Rick Sanders, who were appointed to the Capital Region Watershed Board, and Nico Lemieux, Clarence Patterson, and Maisel McCoy Anderson, who were appointed to the Capital Improvement Program Advisory Committee. These are people that give their time to the county and to our residents, and just thank you to them. I wanted to give them a shout-out. It's in the board docs, but we don't say their names, so I just wanted to give them a shout-out. Also, I want to just add my thanks to everyone who participated in National Night Out, all the community neighborhood meetings, all of our law enforcement that made it to so many of them. It was just a great night for community to get together. Also, as community festivals are continuing, New Brighton had their Stockyard Days this past weekend with a great parade and, oh my goodness, There's so many people. They had an antique car show and then just an amazing community day at Ramsey County Park, Long Lake Regional Park. They filled the park up with hundreds and hundreds of people. I'm sure there were probably 1,000 at one point for all of the activities that they had. So shout out to our community festivals. Then Roseville Rotary had Do Good Roseville's founder and director, Kathy Ramut, who is helping with our collaborative work. And she's just talked about how she started this amazing organization in Roseville that every community wants. Every community wants a Kathy Ramut in their community because she just finds a work that needs to get done and she does it. And I just wanted to shout out to her and and thank her for all the work that she's done in our community. She can do work faster than government can sometimes with the group of people that she brings together. So shout out to Do Good Roseville. Our League of Women Voters in New Brighton had their summer social last night. So shout out to the League who, as my colleague Commissioner Jeven Singh said they do the forums for our election judges, and they are just keeping our democracy in check here. And so we really appreciate their work. This weekend is the Rice-Larpenter Summer Block Party from 11 to 2 at Rice-Larpenter. And they always put on an amazing event with food and music and community coming together. So I encourage people to go to the Rice-Larpenter Block Party this Saturday. And with that, I'm complete. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Young?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to highlight, in addition to National Night Out, I had an opportunity to meet with so many of the folks who cared very deeply about so many of the issues that we were working on, including the encampment issues, as well as supporting permanent supportive housing projects. So they thanked us for supporting a beacon interface project on the east side. In addition to that, we were also able to share about south of Maryland on White Bear Avenue, the county is doing a study of the road. So we were able to share and pass out flyers about that, that the county's public works team is sharing that and getting input from community members right now. I also want to add for this week, there is an Eastside Youth Appreciation Day, the Salvation Army, that's on Payne Avenue. Tomorrow from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., Youth and families can expect to get access to backpacks, school supplies, get haircuts, braids, and then, of course, additional bouncy house for the kids and also music, too. So there's just a lot of good connection with community members there. And it also includes businesses who are on there contributing the haircuts, the music, and also the bouncy houses.

I should have gone for a haircut.

And then, let's see, this Saturday is a Pathways to Wellness. It's a community health initiative. The impact is across Ramsey County, of course. However, it was intentional of being at Arlington Hills Community Center to connect Eastside residents with health screenings, wellness resources, school supplies, and trusted community services. We were also able to work with them to put together a community proclamation to recognize Community Health Workers Awareness Week for August 25th through the 31st. So folks are invited to join us. Thank you.

Thank you. I just want to make a comment that National Night Out, the weather was, it's a long time that the weather's been that nice on National Night Out. Usually it's super hot, and it was a great night to be out. The other thing is I was president for the lighting of the first bank sign on the roof of the first bank building. What's symbolic about that, I think, is it's a building that, of course, was closed and has been bought by Jamie Rand from Florida. And he also bought the Great Norfolk building, I believe, and two buildings that foreclosed. And it's just symbolic that St. Paul and downtown is coming back to life, and there's people interested in investing in the city. So that was very positive. Following the board meeting, we have a close to the public executive meeting regarding the sale of 97 Moore Street, St. Paul, Minnesota. We are adjourned. We could take like five minutes so you guys could take care of your personal business. Take care.