Budget Committee - Regular Meeting

Need to order. Alright. Roll call, please.

Hi. Can can anyone can anyone can everyone hear me?

Yes.

Okay. Perfect. Council member Molly Coleman? Here. Dilworth?

Here.

Lausner?

Here.

McVeigh? Here. And Chair Naker?

Here.

Awesome.

Thanks. Thanks, Sonia. And thanks so much, everyone, for joining us today. We have two items on our agenda. One is an introduction to Mayor Her and her leadership team, which we're really excited about, which is intended to be a conversation between us and the administration.

And then secondly, we are going to be interviewing three candidates for our new community advisor position. So I thought we should start. This is really exciting, I think, for the audit committee to have the opportunity to welcome a new mayor, a new administration. We have not done that before. And we're really excited to build a good working relationship with the mayor and the administration in part because of necessity, because this audit committee is empowered to do performance audits of city departments, but we have no authority over what happens with the results of those audits or if those findings are ever put into practice.

We've been gratified by the fact that despite not having any formal authority, departments have really adopted and embraced our recommendations to this point. But we think that will be more likely to happen and more likely to happen systemically if we're doing this in partnership with the administration. And we hope, although this is a council committee, we see this as a service to the whole city, not just to the council. So I thought we could start maybe with just a quick round of introductions, maybe just name and role and if you're on the audit committee, how long you've been on the audit committee, what else you do besides your service here. And then it's really going to be an open discussion of really from I think the mayor's administration's perspective, are there things that just in the few short weeks that you've already been on the job that you are interested in exploring?

I know all you've been thinking about is potential audit topics this entire time, so we're eager to hear your thoughts. And then from our committee, or discussions with the administration. And we know this won't be our last conversation with you all either. So why don't we start well, I can start. Maybe we can go this way. So I'm Rebecca Nacre. I represent Ward 2 on the City Council. I chair this committee. And I actually helped start the Audit Committee many, many years ago with Councilmember Jane Prince. Restart it, I should say. The council had one a long time ago and it was lost in budget cuts. And now we're back. I really enjoy this work. I think it's important to be able to show folks that we care about not just that the work is what the work is, but that it's being done well and that we're always thinking innovatively about how to do it better.

Amazing. Hi, everybody. Molly Coleman, St. Paul City Council member for Ward 4, currently our newest, but not for long audit committee member. I've been on the committee since I joined the council in August, September.

Yeah. I guess maybe the one thing that I will add is you know I've been going with member McVeigh to district councils to get a chance to talk to them about the audit committee. And it's been really gratifying to see how excited folks are about the work that we're doing here and how they are really, I think, starting to understand, thanks to the presentation that I do not give, that Member McVeigh gives. And that is very well done That this is a real opportunity for people to get into how our city actually works. And I think seeing the ways that people understand a financial audit versus the type of audit that we're doing here which is really around is our city, our services, our programs, our departments actually working for the people that we intend them to work for has been exciting and I think makes me excited to be on this committee.

I'm Jeremy Lostetter. I'm one of the community advisors. I've been on the committee for just over two years now And it's been great. I live in Ward 1. I've been pleased to be part of this committee. And outside of this, I'm an internal audit manager for Hennepin County, so other side of the river. Have kind of both sides' perspective. We're really excited to meet Mayor Her's administration representatives today. Thank you for coming.

Thank you for having me and having our office. My name is Nu Vang, Assistant Mayor of Staff and Strategic Partnerships. And I'm brand new. So thank you so much for having me and my team here.

My name is Nia Bang and I've been the audit committee staffer for a number of years now. And I'm very happy to know that we have various study that we have completed, and we have one that's underway that is dear to everybody's hearts, and that topic is data practices.

Hi, everybody. My name is Laura Isdal. I'm the new policy aide working with assistant mayors Vang and Stumelanger, and I'm a Ward 4 resident. Excited to be here. This is my second week.

Yes. True new move.

So you're actually new.

Yeah. Yeah. We know exactly what's going on. My name is Nick Stumelanger, Assistant Mayor for Housing, Economic Vibrancy, and Infrastructure here in Mayor Her's Administration. Really excited to be here. Thank you for having us. I think a lot of the topics and consideration points from audit committee are really they align well with what the mayor is interested in. You're talking about process improvement, talking about how departments can work better together. And I think understanding how the different programs and ways that the city kind of operates, that's all like in the same mix. So I'm excited for the partnership here and helping make sure that the stuff that we're spending or the things that we're spending money on, the services and programs for folks are as good as they can be.

Thank you.

I'm Stephanie Dilworth, community advisor. And this is my I'm starting my second term as community advisor. So guess I'm the oldest next to I Chair really enjoy being on the committee and learning about the city. In my day job, I'm at the University of Minnesota in the College of Design as their finance director and a budget and facility. So I love being here.

And now there's me.

Last but not So

my name is Noah McVeigh. I am the newest community advisor on the committee. Not the newest member, but the newest community advisor. I joined just in June actually, June. I work for four different school districts in 12 different schools as a substitute teacher full time. I'm in two master's programs in public administration, governmental accounting, and let's see what else. I live in Ward 3. So, yeah. I am passionate about state and local audit, and I love the work that this committee does and all that we do as colleagues. So, I'm looking forward to that continuing. So, that's all I have to say.

Well, thanks everyone for the introductions. As a former middle school teacher, I came up with an opening question to get discussion going. But you can either answer this question or you can completely ignore it and just say whatever you want. And we don't have to do hands because this is a discussion, so just talk. But the question to everyone, but especially to our guests joining us today is, as you think about the idea of auditing city departments and programs, what excites you about that? And what do you find that is challenging or even, shall we say, terrifying about that?

Can you guys hear me?

Yes.

I'm so sorry. This is, assistant mayor Jody Farr. I apologize that I have to come to you online. I'm en route.

So

I just wanna make sure that I was inner inner that you know that I'm here. And then I'm a process I would go ahead and answer your question right away.

Good. Go for it.

Alright. I'm I'm a process person, so, like, our systems are perfectly designed to get what we we get. And so auditing and relooking at how we are structurally set up and the type of culture that we are creating and how we set ourselves up is what I'm passionate about. And so that that excite that excites me. So what you guys do, it excites me.

It's always, hearing the feedback and then implementing in a way that can improve the system and improve the culture. There's always a lot of dynamics to that, and that can become a little overwhelming. Not impossible, but just considering all the dynamics, considering all the perspectives, and ensuring that they're all listened to as we try to move forward and improve things, just that balance act that that sometimes requires.

Thank you. And I don't know if you're en route here or not, but either way, we look forward to seeing you soon, if not here at another time. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you.

So I think for myself, council president, I think one of the things that I'm excited about which I've just mentioned in the little intro is that process improvement. What I've talked about especially in the impacts of operation metro surge and the impacts on the city is really focusing on what is the role of city government in helping folks and where can we help facilitate and point people in the right direction for county, for state, and then I guess eventually for federal government support. And then also looking at the foundation space and other kind of organizations. I think something I'm interested in is from the audit committee saying, we're saying we have goals for what a policy will do. Are we meeting those goals?

And if those goals are the legislative intent, the things that the city is saying that they're doing with those things, how can we kind of adjust? Sometimes it's internal controls from a financial perspective and you're talking about what's happening at the state level. But then sometimes you're actually looking at are we suited? Are we the best suited actor to do the policy goal? And I think a lot of the process is iterative in my experience at the state.

I'm guessing that's the case here too of saying that we all agree on some of the things that we would like to have happen and maybe we can best point resources to that right level of government or foundation philanthropic partners so that we're all kind of playing the role we are here to do as well as possible, basically. That's kind of how I at least think about your question.

Yeah.

Six weeks in that's what I got.

It's pretty good. Other thoughts? And committee members can answer the question too or say anything else or ask any questions of the administration.

I think it's important that the city and the council and the audit committee all work together as partners understand that we're all each other's friend and it's not an adversarial rule. It is to make the city better. It's to make internal controls better. And so we need to work together.

I would also add that for me, I'm really excited to learn more about the work the audit committee has done and the work that maybe we need to continue doing. I'm looking forward to the collaborative work that I know the mayor is really keen on collaboration. And so I'm looking forward to that and how we can help add on to the work that you all have done and will continue to do.

And Noah, saw you maybe wanted to say something a minute ago and maybe you could also Noah is also the director and chair and I think only member of our community engagement subcommittee of the audit committee, which means that Noah is pretty much single handedly responsible for going and talking to district councils and community groups about what we do. So also knows all of the audits that we've ever done. So if you wanted to just answer his question briefly with that information too.

I think there's opportunities to follow-up with departments in terms of internal controls, really looking at standard operating procedures and doing this more on a routine basis in the months and years ahead. We kind of operate in an ad hoc nature right now. It'd be really nice if we could go in on a rotating basis and really evaluate where things are going well. Because by and large, things are going well in terms of operational department operations. But I think there are opportunities for us to grow and to learn from where we have some shortcomings.

Think when we look back at the cybersecurity incident that happened this past summer, that's definitely something that we as a committee and the administration and the council, need to work together on to ensure that our systems are robust with the increasing risk that cybersecurity incidents pose

to

us as

a city, we have a lot

of sensitive data. We provide a lot of different services to constituents. St. Paulites expect the lights to keep running and the roads to get clouded. They don't want those services being interrupted because we've had some kind of breach that is affecting us to maintain accounts payable and accounts receivable.

And so that's something that we need to look at in the long run. I'm I'm glad that the administration has an interest in where we can make a process improvement because that's why we're here as a committee. Another thing is getting our work out to the community as that altogether comprise our city. There's so many people from so many different backgrounds living here in St. Paul, and where we can work to really reach out to our constituents, I

think is

instrumental in informing our work. Just in reaching out with the district councils over the last couple months, I shouldn't even say last couple months, last couple weeks now, starting basically at the start of new year. I can tell that there's a lot of opportunity for engagement, but it's like in my experience I see it as I am in a little canoe. I have just one oar. And I am in The Pacific.

And I think that there are real opportunities for the audit committee to work with departments to get information about what we're doing and our findings in concert with those that are implementing because we are independent. We are housed in the legislative branch. We do not implement recommendations that we make. It is up to the administration to do so. And so if we can get that information out there, have a broader reach, I think the administration can work with us in that.

I think that'd be instrumental in terms of fostering a culture of high performing public services that our constituents expect of us as a city. So I'm gonna stop rambling now. Yeah. But I wanted that's my piece.

It's great. So And while you were speaking, we were joined by two additional guests. Would you like to introduce Sorry, I'm really

No, you're fine.

So hi, I'm Erica Schumacher. I'm the first assistant to the mayor. And she is on her way. So we were just running late

from a previous meeting. I apologize. Abdulah?

Hi, everyone. My name is Abdul Aziz. I'm with the mayor's office.

Good to see you. And the mayor's here. Welcome. We were just

talking about you.

Come on up. Come on up. Sit here. Here. Why don't you sit here?

Should I sit here?

There. Nothing. Okay.

They're both fine. Mayor, we just did we did instructions. I asked folks what they are excited about auditing, what they're terrified about auditing. You And can answer any of the above questions. Auditing?

As well as introducing yourself. Auditing's amazing. I worked with the state auditor very closely at the legislature because I was the chair of pensions. And I also did a lot of work with like firefighters across the state with volunteer firefighters that requires a lot of auditing of the retirement plans because they're not part of a system that is not part of our main like state system. So like auditing is that's my jam. So I'm glad to be here with all of you. I think it's exciting. And I know that it's kind

of a sleepy thing, but

it's so important. It's such an important function of, like, government and, you know, how we do our work and why we have to do it a certain way. So I'm really excited to be here with all of you.

One of the questions I wanted to ask the whole group as well was just, again, mostly to the administration but also to others here. As we mentioned, we so we've studied a number of things. We've studied constituent customer service in the city of St. Paul. That was the audit that found that there are 500 different general purpose entry points to the city as an example, you know, phone numbers, emails, etcetera.

We've studied the parks and library systems and how they could better work together, what kinds of operational efficiencies they could find that actually came to us from the parks and library department. They were going to budget separately for that. We said we can use our audit committee budget to do that. Most recently we studied the CID community engagement proposal process and they are taking some recommendations from that into their process this year including the idea of having like a pre application to make it easier for those who are not quite as technically savvy, don't know how to run the numbers on public works construction projects for example to apply. So those are a few of the audits that we've done and currently as Nia mentioned we're auditing data practices.

One of the things that I'm so excited about, Mare, with your orientation is, as you said, just sort of this lack of pride or drama in the programs, even the programs that you have helped create. And we talked about College Bound St. Paul very early on. And I said, you know, I think it might be time for an audit of that program to see how it's doing, see if it's living up to what we've talked about, to see financially, etcetera. And you're really open to that.

So I think, I guess to the group I would say are there particular topics or departments or questions that have arisen in your minds, again with Ms. Dilworth's point that it's not hostile, it's helpful over the last few weeks as you've been getting to know the city, are there questions that have arisen in your mind that you think, you know, maybe the Audit Committee could be at this? I just add something really quick?

Yeah, please. I think to that same sentiment that I want us to look at our city as a way of also and like city government used to function very specifically. Right? And we always really sort of knew, like, what is city government? What is county? What is state? What is federal? And I've seen that over in the last probably decade. There's been a lot of crossing over each in into each other's lines of business. And I don't look at anything that anybody brings up as as a a negative thing. I think it is important for us to look at our our businesses and would and be

critical about it and say, like, we've expanded into doing x, y,

and z, but and it's a really great thing that we're trying to do, but should we be the ones doing that? Do we have

the resources to execute to do some of these things that we've taken on? And I

think that, you know, in the desire for people who are elected, and I've done this too, where we want to do good to try to solve a problem because people are coming directly to us, we sometimes will create things or processes or programs that maybe we shouldn't be the ones to be doing that. And so I hope that you all pick things that that will look critical. And if it and it's like, yes, we should be in this space. We should be doing this, then great. But if the audit shows us that, like, it's a great thing,

but we should not be

the ones doing that. It's expending too much staff time and resources to do this, that it is not efficient when we do it. Like, then we should we should know that. And I'm very open to that. So I just want you all to know, like, nothing that you bring up will be looked at as, off limits. I think we should be really critical, and we should do it with the eye of, like, how do we do right by our cities and our city and our residents and the tax dollars that they pay in order for us to run our cities. So yeah, I just wanted to make sure that you that's fair.

I feel warm and fuzzy.

I hope so.

I think one thing I'd just add too and I think community advisor Dilworth's point is really well taken that this is not necessarily adversarial. I think the systems that get set up are a little adversarial because it's retrospective and you want to make sure things are functioning well. Something that I have in just the six weeks we've been here really noticed is that the city and you're all aware of it too are doing a lot of really great things and we can lift up some of the good positive things while also wanting that consistent improvement too. And to me, you know, it's very important to be able to do both. I think just in whatever function it makes sense.

For instance, I've been I have OFS as one of the departments under my jurisdiction. I've been extremely impressed by our grants team, just for instance, kinda consolidating, making sure that, you know, both we are applying for really good funding opportunities and then we're doing the compliance on the back end and kinda staying on it. I've been extremely impressed having seen a couple other systems and other entities that I will not name of how that goes. And so I think it's both and of making sure that we're making the process improvements where things are not maybe working as well as they could be. Then also lifting up the good work that is happening because sometimes we're a complaint based system overall, but praise and encouraging and positive reinforcement is also super important to us too.

And I will shout out to Wilder Research, our on retainer partner in doing our audit work. I think that they've I'm sure, I hope my fellow committee members would agree, feel free to disagree, that they do a great job making sure that all the interview subjects, all the department staff feel really bought in and like they are being approached in a spirit partnership. Yeah. Because otherwise we're not going to get any helpful data. So far we have, so. We have about three minutes left for the conversation before we have to shift gears and do our interviews for our new community advisor. So I want to just open it up to any thoughts, ideas, or comments that haven't been said yet. Are you also throwing out ideas right now that

Yes, Mr. President things you would like to have people do?

We'd love to have ideas. We're currently in the so I should say the data practices audit is likely going to wrap up in the next couple of months. So we have some time before we choose our next topic, but we're very much in active data collection, topic selection mode. And we put a pause on our normal process for that because your administration was coming in. We didn't want to choose a topic when we had the opportunity to do that in partnership.

Could I ask about, like, general processes, like and not maybe like a specific program or a specific thing? Of course. Because, like, for me, what I would think would be really great to look at is, when we pass certain and this is the thing I at the legislature, was really important for me as well when I was there, that the idea of passing something but the idea of implementing it are two very, very different things. Right? What are the ways in which, like, when we are going to pass something, what

is the ways in which

we are vetting that thing as the ability to execute? Is it executable? Is it enforceable? Is it like, I feel like what are how do we work these processes so that even though we might have a really great idea about something, it's really impossible to execute on that thing? And then and then we

find out later that in the trying

to do it, we've we've invested a lot of resources, time and money into that, right? So like, should we have more clear processes for certain things

that we do? Like, so it's

not just us, we're critically looking critically at a process that already exists, but are there ways in which we should be creating process for some of the things

that we're doing, right, to make it more efficient and to make it

work better? I often would argue with legislators who said, look, we passed these bills.

And I said, yeah, but you didn't look to see if you were ever able to implement it. And now the department is stuck with having to implement, and they had a really tough time. And they're the ones that have to deal with fraud afterwards, or they're the ones that have to deal with inefficiencies, or they're the ones that have to deal with not being able to execute within a time frame because, you know, as a legislator, we didn't I didn't pass we didn't give them the things they needed to do their jobs well. So like, can we look at some of these processes as well? That's one if you want to point out that. And you should definitely look at college savings account and see if like, you know, is it sustainable? Can we do that? I do really support that idea Yes. As

Well, I will just say I know this is not the last conversation we're going to have and where I began. Mayor it means a whole lot to us that not only are you here but your entire administrative team all of your assistant mayors including assistant Mayor Farr who joined us remotely could be here with us. That says a lot. So we're really excited to work in partnership with you. And we will be following up about these ideas and more. Thank you for

inviting us. And did any of the assistant mayors have anything you wanted

to say really quick before

because I think we're out of minutes now.

We said wonderfully smart things before you showed up.

They were very articulate.

Wonderful. Knew that.

Very insightful.

Well, thank you all. Thank you for inviting us and letting us be a part of this too. It means a lot to us.

Thank you

very much.

Thank you

for being here. Thank you.

Thank you

for having us.

Anytime. Yeah. Yeah. Of course.

Please connect you. Nice to meet you.

It's good to

be here. I'm shining a light on this front. Stay happy with us.

But it is fun stuff. That's why you're here. It's you guys.

You think it's fun too.

Nice to meet you. So I had a meeting. Jeremy is here. No.

Thank you. So look forward to working with you.

Thanks, assistant mayor Farr. Looking forward to meeting you soon.

Meet you. Thanks for coming.

Good to see you, counsel.

We'll see you.

Thank you.

Okay. I'm gonna look to Nia. We're gonna do a hard pivot and call our first okay. I think several of our interviews are here actually. So I guess I would just say, if you are here to be interviewed, who is our first person here?

I believe it is Sharon.

Sharon. Okay. Awesome. I see I know Dylan is here. Then Hi.

Join us over there.

Not sure if the other person who's here is also here to be interviewed. But I think we want folks to follow Mel, who's standing right outside the door, that until your interview you have another place to be. So right outside the door is Mel and she will show you where the council reception area is and then she'll tell you when it's time for your interview. Sorry for the awkwardness. And are you here to be interviewed too? No, you're just here. I'm just here. Oh, wonderful. Feel free to stay. We're just interviewing Ken.

I'm so glad you're here and you are welcome and this is your space. I just wanted to make sure if you were interviewing for the role you weren't awkwardly here while someone else was interviewing. Yes. Okay. Welcome. We have not prepared except that we have questions in front of us and we are going to in no particular order except that Ms. Zilworth is going to start, ask them of you. We are so excited that you are interested in this position and as you hopefully just saw, we're a great bunch and we're going be working in great partnership with the administration. So we have four questions for you and then we'll stop and see if you have any questions for us. This will take about fifteen minutes total.

That's fine. Thank you.

So again, welcome and we'll start with Ms. Dilworth. And maybe just introduce yourself when you ask the question. That way all of us are introduced.

Right. Stephanie Dilworth. Yes. Welcome. Can

you tell us about yourself, your experience with city government, and

why you want to serve in the Audit Committee?

Alright, in all candor, apart from supporting initiatives in the city over a long, long period of time, I am not conversant with the processes in city government. However, my background is in federal government and I have a long, long history of being conversant with government wide rules and regulations. I'm very fond of digging down and digging deep on those things. It's a passion of mine and it's a conviction of mine that we need to be efficient, we need to have an economic solvency, we need to have things that this committee and the reason for my wanting to be here is because the work of this committee is an essential extension of anything I have ever done in my life. Because it is interesting that there are all of these people done doing things collegially toward public service.

Many years ago, I had to be fingerprinted and promised that I would be a good public servant. I would serve the constitution. I have read the city charter. I understand, I believe that this is so, so essential to our citizens at a time when, let's be truthful, the faith in our institutions is eroding. And why I wanna be here really is because an extension of trying to put my little fingerprint, and I don't mean mine, mine collegially, collectively, and in cooperation with all of you, my little dent on that as a contributor toward restoring faith in public service.

That is such a need, and I think this service, this committee is essential in that regard. So city government, no. Can I read those statutes and have I done that? My experience goes to serving diversity in this sense that I did advocacy work for many, many years inside federal government successfully. So I don't know if that really addresses what you're saying, but, and there's more to that about an evolution on my part that leads me to this committee. Thank you for the question.

So I know we talked a little bit already out in the hall, Sharon, but just introducing myself again, I'm Noah McVeigh. I'm one of the other community advisors here. Our work as the audit committee involves performance auditing and not financial auditing. Our friends at the state auditor's office do all of our financial audits here at City Hall. What is the extent of your knowledge of your experience with performance audits?

Okay, again, I don't know if you use Gaga's. I don't know if that is the generally accepted government systems. Is that what your ground is? I'm familiar with some of that. I've never conducted performance audits, although my education leads me to be able to drill down on data big time. I have a degree in experimental psychology and so I'm conversant with data collection and using it to a purpose. So, well performance audits per se, no. But I did familiarize myself with Gaga's in my past.

Yeah, great. Molly Coleman, I'm one of our St. Paul City Council members representing Ward 4. Could you tell us a bit about your experience, any experiences serving on a committee or engaging with community members and what skills, qualities, or experiences you would bring as an audit committee member?

So, to experience? Yes. I've worked, I think, successfully through certain barriers that I think that are presupposed of initiatives that were well meaning, well intentioned, but perhaps not well executed or well, I suppose, conceived. My experience is deep and digging into systems that sometimes conflict with one another. And my interest in being on the committee is that this experience leads me to think that what your work here is a prism.

You may select a particular, say for example, TIFF or something like that that you want to examine. But these are not unique. They sometimes overlap, they duplicate, they don't serve, they conflict, and I think the work of this committee that I'm attracted to is to see how we can bring a unifying characteristic to public service. We have a wonderful population of people in Saint Paul. They deserve the best of us.

I think the best is on this committee. And I think the fact that I am uniquely persistent in the experience as reported by people that I have acted to oppose in the past, who have consistently told me they don't understand who I am. And I said it's because you've forgotten your purpose. You used to be mean and then years ago, you changed that. And that was a period in my life where I did litigious things because I had no other choice.

Rights orientation is not solutions orientation. I'm very solutions oriented, so I have a background in mediation. I believe that we are stronger by the values that we place in each other. The other piece apart from efficiency and economy and all the things that you do that's very dear to my heart is equity. And I've successfully prosecuted cases, had to prosecute because there there was no resolution short of that.

And each and every time I step before any third party, I always asked for a solution. Not having that, I was able to prevail in cases before EEOC where intention needs to be proven in order to retrieve the civil rights of people that I represented. And that is very dear to me. So the other piece that I bring is a respect for equity. Beyond all of the numbers, there has to be some sense in which we direct our attention to fairness for everyone. So, don't know if that helps you.

Yes, thank you. I'm Jeremy Lostetter. I'm another community advisor on the committee. Nice to meet you. The last question is are there any particular aspects of city government that you think would be good topics for an audit?

I do. Thank you for asking.

Yes.

In the past year, I've become recently acquainted with the TIF initiatives. That's a very big interest of mine. Digging down on that, I would love the work of the committee to direct itself in that regard. What we heard before Mayor Her, Greystar City as mayor, was a common problem relative to property taxes and how people are moved out of their homes. I presently serve on the Summit University Planning Council, so I'm up on District 8 and there are people that are really in danger because of that, of losing their homes, who have invested in a community for years that was devastated for years and are now perhaps on the wire.

So the other interest I have, and I think that this bears on what we look at if we looked at TIFF, is to see how it compromises affordable housing. So I think there is a carryover there when funds are disposed against some of the interests that make our community whole. And so that is a specific interest. And I have done a lot of research on that subject. Great, thank you for the question.

Well, that brings us to our last question. I'm Rebecca Nacre. I represent Ward 2 on the council. I chair this committee. What questions do you have for us?

What would you like from me you haven't heard?

Any follow ups that people have that they haven't heard?

I'd be happy to pass on anything that you would want to raise. I'm not as young as you are, but I'm fierce. And I thank you for the privilege of being with you today. I'm so grateful. I'm so happy to have been able to sit and listen to you listening to each other.

It's so powerful, you know, to be engaged with people who are as you are. And I was extremely excited to see me or her, you know. She's paying close attention to the work, this good work of this committee that I think uniquely specifies what we owe the people that are outside this room today and that you so eloquently speak for. So, I'm privileged to be here. I'm honored to be here. And I thank you. And I don't want to take I know you have business to do. But I thank you again for the privilege and the honor of being with you.

We send that thanks right back to you. We really appreciate your interest in serving on this committee and just want you to know that first of all, you're always welcome to our committee meetings no matter if you're at the table or not. You're always welcome to give input no matter what happens with this decision. And then we always say, will always follow-up with, regardless of whether or not you're selected to serve on the committee, we want folks like you engaged in the city of St. Paul. And there are dozens of boards and committees that could use your help. So, if the answer here is not right now, we will follow-up with other opportunities because we can tell you're someone who wants to be engaged and we want you engaged. So thank you for your interest in this. We will be following up within the next two weeks on the verdict here. And again, we appreciate your time and your interest.

I thank you again. Thank you. I wish you all well.

You too. We'll be in touch. And Mel, you'll bring in our next person. Awesome. And do you have new sheets for us too? Okay. I was hoping that I didn't have to fit everybody on one, I wasn't sure.

Thank you. I have Zonia make extra copies.

I'm actually okay. Yeah. Oh, you did a thing? Okay.

All right.

Well, I

can make fine work too.

Okay. Do you need an extra Molly?

No, I'm good. I've got my little boxes and Herzi

is coming. She's just going

to go

grab. She's in the house reception.

Okay.

Did that go okay in terms of who asked?

We're good on time.

Yeah. I have to leave at 05:15. I'm not sure if you heard me say that. No.

It's

okay. Yeah. Quarter two.

Yeah. So we got two more.

Fifteen minutes for each.

Right. Yeah. So we should

be just have to keep the transition not taking too long. There we go.

Do we have a vice chair?

We don't have a vice chair. Our problem is we lose corn if

I leave.

Oh, delightful. Yes. Hi, welcome. Gonna welcome you right up and jump right in. Thank you so much for your interest. You can sit in either of these two chairs. Take a moment to get yourself situated. Really appreciate your interest in the committee. We have four questions for you and then we have a question we'll ask if you have any questions for us. And we'll introduce ourselves as we ask our questions so you get to know who we are. We have about fifteen minutes for the conversation. So we'll dive right in. Thank you.

I'm Stephanie Dilworth, Community Advisor and welcome. Thank you. Tell us about yourself, your experience with city government

and why you want to serve on

the audit committee. Alright. My name is Herxia and admittedly I don't know much about city council or city government. One reason I want to do this is to learn. And why do I want well like I said I want to learn and also I want to help out St. Paul. I grew up here, born here and in my opinion St. Paul is one of the best cities.

You're not wrong.

Correct. I

move that motion. So, hi. I want to thank you for coming and attending tonight's meeting. My name is Noah McPham, another one of the community advisors on the committee. Our work as a committee involves performance auditing. We don't do financial audits. The folks at the office of the auditor do our financial audits every year. What is the extent of your knowledge of or experience with performance auditing?

Again, admittedly limited to none. At the same time, I look at performance as oftentimes a series of metrics, and it's a question of can we get to these metrics or not, and how close did we get to them, which in a sense is similar to financial.

Great. My name is Molly Coleman. I am one of our council representatives. I am the St. Paul City Council Member for Ward 4. Could you tell us a bit about your experiences serving on a committee or engaging with community members and then what skills, qualities or experiences you would bring to the as an audit committee member?

Sure. As far experience, I was a board member of Minnesota Atheists for several years both as an at large member and as an officer. Working with that was working with our members as far as how did we want to grow the organization or what kind of things did we want to look at and pursue as far as goals. I've also done work as far as things like reception, retail when I was a kid, dealing with community and people is fairly normal. Skills, I'm not entirely sure to be fair.

I enjoy working with people. I enjoy looking at data. I enjoy seeing what can be basically sussed out from that data. My job with the state of Minnesota is actually budget analysis. So working out, backtracking where changes are and why those changes are is something that I do regularly.

Okay, thank you. I'm Jeremy Lostetter, one of the community advisors on the committee. Thank you for being here. Are there any particular aspects of city government that you would think would be good topics for an audit?

I would say what people see. A lot of times you hear complaints about specific things and it's one of those it's like bringing those to the forefront I think would be good. For example, everybody's got an opinion about plowing. But if we actually could say this is how our plowing is and this is how Minneapolis is and Rochester is and all of this, it's like in comparison where are we?

Great. Well, that brings us to the end of our questions for you. What questions might you have for us? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Rebecca Nacre. I represent Ward 2 on the City Council.

Thank you. My first question is, what kind of metrics do we have outside of an audit? Like, is there something already set up for that or is the audit really the biggest set of metrics that we have?

I can take a crack at that and others should jump in. I think it really depends on the program. Some programs do have their own goals and metrics that they've established. Others don't. We were talking earlier about the difference between programs and processes. And I think it's more likely for a program to have specific goals and metrics than for a process. So for example, how quickly do we process permit applications in our Department of Safety and Inspections, building permits? That seems like sometimes a harder sell than we're starting a new program with college savings accounts and we want to make sure x number of kids go on to college as a result of that. So I guess I would say it depends. And we only have the capacity to audit about two programs or processes a year.

So we definitely depend on programs and processes having metrics outside of the audit. Others want add to that answer?

All right. And what would your description be of the perfect committee member for this?

Maybe a community advisor.

An open mind. Someone that's willing to learn.

Collaborative spirit, like we had Mayor Her here and her administration and just knowing that successful audit is a partnership approach that it's not adversarial that we're trying to call people out or play gotcha or things like that.

It's information gathering.

Yeah, yep.

Alright, and what was the last book you read?

Well, I'm almost done with it, so I'm gonna consider this to be done. The Shakespeare riots, which I got interested in it because it was one of the first times that troops were called out to a city in The United States. So I don't know why I was interested in that recently. And it's about the riots when two different Shakespearean actors went up against each other in New York in the nineteenth century and the class conflict that ensued. One was British, one was American.

It's a great book.

The last book that I finished was so embarrassingly long ago that I'm just gonna pretend that I finished the book that in fact I started this weekend, which I just started Middlesex, which is interesting thus far.

What's it called? Middlesex? Oh, Middlesex. Oh. Yeah. Nice.

Yeah. I'm twenty five years late to it, but here we are.

I'll take a stab at it. The Diversity of Life, EO Wilson, he was a brilliant entomologist. I just finished reading that for a second time two weeks ago now and gets into biogeography and ecology with smaller organisms. So not megafauna, not mammals or anything like that, but like really focuses on insects, but also plants and fungi, which my background when I was an undergraduate student was actually in botany. So it was nice catching up on that book. It's very thick. It's like 500 pages. E. O. Wilson was a brilliant entomologist as well as an ethologist.

So he studied ants in particular.

Yeah, and I'm gonna be yeah, I don't remember the title actually, so that's kind of a but the author is Suleika, and she put together a she asked people to all contribute and it's about journaling and yeah. It's a very interesting read but I'm in the middle of it so I don't know how it's gonna end but

Yeah, I'm in the middle of a class on spiritual gifts. So I'm reading a book on spiritual gifts.

We should ask each other this question more often. That's a great question.

Thank you.

Well, thank you so much for your time and for your interest. We'll be back in touch in the next couple of weeks about the decision here. But mostly we just wanted to say, first of all, you're always welcome to come to our meetings. They're open to the public and you're always welcome to give input into our work. And also we have about 20 different boards and commissions in the City Of St. Paul that are always looking for interested engaged folks like you. So regardless of what the decision is about this particular position, we will reach out with links to those others in case those are of interest because we just really appreciate that you took the time and are interested in being part of the city work. We need people like you. So thanks for your time, and we will be in touch.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Take care.

I actually can make do with one piece of paper. It's amazing. Not as neatly as you did it. Your handwriting is a fortunate nature.

Next guy's name? Dylan.

Dylan. Dylan. Dylan. Donnelly. Irish. It's you. Better. My name is actually Scottish, so. McVeigh Scottish.

Yes, it is. But my mother's family is Irish.

That's it.

So very Goidelic.

Yes. I was like as aspie as it comes.

Very. Are you also a Protestant? I'm Episcopalian. Okay. Not quite though. It's Protestant.

It's like In the words

of Robin Williams. Catholic put all the guilt. No disrespect to our Catholic friends.

Book of Alchemy.

There we go. Go shared girlfriend.

Those handouts, right?

Absolutely. As you're taking time to hand out your handouts and get seated, we have about fifteen minutes for this conversation. We have four questions for you and then we want to see what questions you might have for us. We want to thank you so much for taking time to interview with us and for your interest in this position. And we are going to for the sake of time introduce ourselves as we ask the question so that you get to meet us but also Sure. We are efficient. So with that, I'll turn it over to Ms. Dilworth. Ms. Welcome, Dylan. Thanks.

And I'm Stephanie Dilworth. Can you tell us about yourself, your experience with city government,

and why you want to serve on the audit committee?

I will. First, thank you for doing this. Councilman Ranker is so important. Auditing, it's continuous improvement. It makes this whole thing work better for so many people. So I appreciate that. And thank you to Noah who posted on the St. Paul subreddit about this opportunity. And that's just rare to see someone show up in a page like that. So that was really cool. Before I came here, was helping two e siders get a job in a warehouse. And it's like, that's who we're helping in the system. And at the end of all these systems and processes, it's people who are impacted by it. So that's why I'm here. Those are those are my constituents, people in Saint Paul that need help.

My experience, I'm from Saint Paul. I live in Saint Paul. I've got two kids. I started on the second shift in the factory. I own a business and I have a BA, political science and MBA, and I've done coursework at Humphrey including an auditing course as well. So I like to figure things out and help people.

Thank you.

Dylan, I want to thank you for coming tonight. I have extended that to all of our candidates here and so we've had I'm really pleased with all the candidates we've had actually. Our work as a committee you may have gathered this from our website, we don't do financial audits. Our friends at the office of the state auditor, they audit us every year. They examine our financial statements. We do performance auditing. So what is the extent of your knowledge of your experience with performance audits?

Strong. So, okay, so my background is in manufacturing. And in manufacturing, making parts is the easy part, but everything else is the challenging part. And the only way you stay in business is by improving. And so, we had a deep culture of continuous improvement and specifically And lean manufacturing has two tenets.

The first part is iterative, which is closer to like an agile system where you're just constantly improving, which is really important. And the second part are lean events, which are extremely close to performative audits. What the difference is, is like when you do it I know you don't you're not in charge of implementation, but a lean event is basically the exact same thing. But then you of those findings, you pick one or two of the findings and actually implement it. So, I've led lean events, I participated in lean events, I've been trained in lean events.

So, have a pretty deep experience in that work. Also, I do public policy research for fun. After my kids go to bed, I open up 500 page PDFs with highlighters and read through them. So, if you read one of my op eds, you can tell it's pretty tedious but I really enjoyed digging into the systems of public policy.

Excellent. Hi Dylan, Molly Coleman, St. Paul City Council Member from Ward 4. Can you tell us about your experiences serving on a committee or engaging with community members and what skills, quality or experiences you would bring as an audit committee member?

Yeah. In terms of community, I mean, workforce, you don't have to try and be engaged. You're just engaged. I mean, so in terms of in St. Paul, I work with Eastsiders. Yesterday, was helping an individual with a disability get a job at Pizza Ranch. We help job fairs at Goodwill, DOC. I work closely with DOC. I do mock interviews with the International Institute, KOM, HAP. So just I'm in community as much as you can be.

And in terms of sort of civic engagement, I was a member of the Ramsey County Workforce Innovation Board, Vice Chair of the St. Paul Business Review Council, Citizens League, other Montessori Board, I mean just boards, a lot of board work too. So, a lot of experience working at the grassroots level of people, but also at this kind of engagement as well. In terms of skills, kind of mentioned my professional background and research. I read OLA audits for fun too. So, if you're looking for someone that has that skill, that's me.

Thank you. I'm Jeremy Lostetter, one of the community advisors. Welcome. Are particular aspects of city government that you think would be good topics for an audit?

Yeah. Okay. Two things. First, this is like a little off topic, but as much as I appreciate the Legislature website, you should put this on YouTube. Like all your videos from the audit committee and the findings. The presentations on YouTube would be really helpful for transparency and you can share them with people and it's easier to share with subcommittees and district councils. The state does a great job with the legislature. All their videos and subcommittees are on the web on YouTube and so, it's just a really good way to share that. So, okay. In terms of topics, there were two.

Now, I'd say your biggest bang for your buck would be facility services. You look at the city of St. Paul, our budget is $887,000,000 Our backlog, if you count the hockey arena, public works, parks and rec, it's easily over $1,000,000,000 if not more. And the reality is if you live in an area of concentrated poverty, you can't afford St. Paul anymore and we can't continue to pay for all these things and expect people to keep up with their incomes.

So, having some understanding of what we can afford from a facility services perspective, it's not a financial audit, but that would be sort of where your biggest bang for your buck. The second one and I've sort of labored the point is college bound, but it's not just college bound, it's when the municipality is taking on programs. So, when we sort of engage in things that aren't permitting, you know, public thing, permitting, policing, paving and we start going into programs, that's dipping outside of the traditional norms of municipality and what I'm seeing is we're not seeing ROI in some of those programs or we should at least understand what the ROI is on some of those programs. So that at least if we're going to do it, we know that it's helping those people that are looking for those warehouse jobs.

Great.

Thank you.

What questions might you have for us?

How often do you meet?

Excellent question. Roughly once a month. Sometimes we cancel depending on the nature of the work. We have a regular contract with Wilder Research. So if they're in the midst of an audit and we don't have anything to we don't have any community advisors to hire, we don't have any updates from them, we might skip

a month.

Why don't we have a city auditor?

That is a great question, Dylan. It's largely a matter of resources at this time. That has been a question that we've had in some discussions about before. I personally would love us to have audit staff working

on this Me too.

Me too. But there that's a matter that will have to be that's something I think this committee may be discussing later this year. I don't want to speak for the committee because I defer to you, Madam Chair.

So I think it's slated for next month, in fact. Noah's asked some great questions about that, which is

why I

was saying. Oh, okay.

Listened to like a municipal auditing podcast and the city auditors, you know, it's hard work, but it's so important and it pays for itself, you know, a thousand times over. So, I think it'd be a good thing for St. Paul.

I mean, we'd all be out of a job, so that's the problem.

There's always room for improvement.

Thank you, Dylan. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your interest. One of the things that I've been saying consistently today is we really appreciate your interest in being part of this committee. We'll be back in touch within the next couple of weeks if the answer is not yet or not right now for this opportunity, we will share links to the many other boards and commissions, which I know you're familiar with, because we want you involved in the city and we appreciate your interest. Right on. Thank

No, thank you. Cool.

We'll talk to you soon. And with that, I think thank you. Noah was just saying, we do or as I was just saying to Noah, we do have our March meeting. This thing, maybe you could give us a sense of what's on the docket and maybe a little bit about our current audit and also next steps for the interviews we just conducted.

Let me pull up my email.

I guess maybe we should start with that. When do you want us tell us what you want us to do. Will

next meet on March 17.

As soon Coming your green. A week

and you have narrowed down your top candidate, please email only me and then I will share with Chair Maker the by majority consensus who that candidate will be.

Can we do that by Friday at five Can we do that by the end of the week? Just your top choice, Tania.

By this Friday? Yeah.

Think does anyone feel like we need more time? Okay.

Okay. And then the next step after that is that I will be drafting a resolution for council consideration to vote and support the audit committee's recommendation. And then hopefully the candidate will be seated for our first meeting with them in March. And also at this meeting we will have Doctor. Britt from Welder present us the initial report of the data practices study.

I guess I would and then we're hoping also to have Noah had sent a very I think we should make sure the whole committee did we share your email with the whole committee?

Of the

The suggestions for sort of the broader systemic changes to this?

Sure. We'll pull it

up. Okay.

Let's make sure.

Yeah. I'll work with Sonia to pull that up.

And I will give a report on all matters of civic engagement Excellent.

So Bart's just going to be busy. And then we should probably also I guess I would just say to everyone maybe think about the conversation with the mayor and her administration today. That was really cool to have every single I don't think we've ever I've never had every single assistant mayor and the mayor in one place at all. So this is really neat. That shows I think the value she places on this. But think through what you heard, what you heard from our candidates, if there are new topics that come to mind because I think we're going to want to engage with come up with our shortlist relatively quickly and engage with her administration on that. So think about that for March. Noah, did you want to you looked like you were ready to Oh, I

was just going to say that I was so giddy. Yeah. I can't I could barely contain my excitement, so.

Great. Well then if there's nothing else to come before us, thank you all as always. And we are adjourned. We'll see you on St. Patty's Day.

Thank you.