Budget Committee - Regular Meeting

Morning. Calling the St. Paul City Council Finance and Budget Committee to order. We have a it looks like a light schedule but it's not. We've got our wonderful staff member Madeline Mitchell from OFS is going to offer us our twenty twenty five year end projections.

And then we also are having a conversation about the chair's budget and any budget amendments that are coming from my colleagues today. So even though it looks pretty light, we've got a lot to get through. So Madeline, to the best of your abilities, please give us your best timely presentation. I think what I will do is again kind of mischief, not mischief management but time management. So we'll be open to questions but kind of the moment we hit a critical point, I'm gonna make sure that Madeleine gets the rest of her presentation. So with that, I hand it over to you today. Hi, Madeline. Welcome.

Thank you. Good morning, council members. I'm Madeline Mitchell, budget manager in OFS. I'm here today to present the 2025 projected general fund spending and revenue. I I was asked to be brief, I will do my best. I'll talk quickly. I would like to start by thanking the budget team and all of our department partners. There's a ton of work and time that goes into making these projections, so thank you to all involved. If I could distill this presentation into two takeaways, they would be that this is an extraordinary year due to the cyber incident and a historic payment for a lawsuit, and that these projections are changing every day. We work really hard each year to provide the most accurate and information that we can, but there's still a lot that can change.

And really, the only thing that I can guarantee about these numbers is that they will change. So like I said, we have two extraordinary and unexpected costs that created immense pressure on the city budget this year, 2 and a half million in costs related to the cyber incident, 1.5 of which is in the general fund, and the 7 and a half million paid in September as a result of a recent lawsuit. This is the best information we have right now. Transactions and budget amendments will continue to process through the end of the year, and then revenue will continue to come in even into 2026 as some of our revenue lags a month or two behind. And then we have year end transfers and internal charges that occur well into 2026.

So this is a really busy time of year for city accountants as they continue to clean up entries and make final budget changes. On the whole, we are projecting that we will have a one time deficit of 8,400,000.0 for 2025. This number comes from comparing projected revenue to projected expenditures. Said another way, we expect to spend 8,400,000.0 than we will receive As you know, we do have a spending and hiring labor hiring freeze in place to help with this gap. We won't know the full impacts of this freeze until the books are closed on 2025, but we're hopeful that it will continue to help bring that 8,400,000.0 number down.

In OFS, we are actively working with departments to find creative solutions to close the gap for 2025, but it will be a significant challenge. So to start, here's a high level summary of our projections. I'll walk you through reading this table. The amended budget in the second column reflects the adopted budget plus any changes that have occurred in the last eleven months, including budget amendments and any carryforward needed for purchase orders that were opened at the 2024. The second the third column are projected actuals, and those are a combination of actual spending and revenue that has occurred and posted in our finance system and any anticipated additional spending and revenue for the remainder of the year.

The fourth column there is the projected variance. That's the difference between the projected actual spending and the amended budget. A positive number in the projected variance column is a good thing. On the spending side, it means a department has not overspent their budget. On the revenue side, it means we collected more revenue than budgeted.

And the last column shows the percent of the amended budget over or underspent or over or under revenue. We are expecting the 2025 general fund budget to be overspent by 8,900,000.0, which is balanced by additional projected revenue of 5,300,000.0 over budget. And if you're doing the math here, you may wonder why our deficit is 8.4 instead of the difference between 8.9 minus that 5.3 number. And this is because the number in the fourth column, that projected variance, are variance to budget. So if you look at the second column, you'll see that our amended spending budget is 419,000,000 and our amended revenue budget is only 414,000,000.

The majority of the difference between those two is due to our carry forward process where budget authority for open purchase orders is rolled forward into the next year. If we compare projections of actual revenue to actual spending, that's where we get the $8,400,000 number. I wanna highlight here that absent the cyber incident and the lawsuit payment, our projections would show us coming in very close to budget, 618,000 to the good. So that's that bottom number. Next, we have spending by department.

Oh, sorry. Yep. Sorry. Cruising my lung. Whose question was it? Oh, council president. Sorry. Council president.

Thanks, chair. So, Ms. Mitchell, just to make sure I understand because we were going kind of quickly through that. So, before the cyber incident costs and the suit payment costs, we would have been 8,400,000.0 below what we expected to be, or does that include those additional costs?

Council president, the before the 8,400,000.0 includes the cyber attack and the lawsuit. So were it not for those two items, we would be 617 to the good.

Okay. So you're showing them underneath Yep. Not as additional information, but pulling them above Okay. To illustrate

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Councilmember Johnson. Thank you. So that is really helpful. It's additional context. My question, I guess, is more of if we're projecting at a time, I guess, looking into November, December, we're in the final months of the year.

What is the can you just share a little bit more about what steps are being taken to curve that projected variance? I know we talked a little bit about the hiring freeze in the previous slide, but what exactly is taking place right now that is going to curve that? Because clearly that would be over budget and its finances that we don't seem to have. And even looking at just the next slide over and the department spending, I'm just curious as to what each department is doing when my understanding is that they were all instructed to give to basically see where they can make cuts. Some of these are going to be less in dollar amounts than others, and I'm just wondering what steps are being taken citywide.

Yeah. I'm Chair Kim, Councilmember Johnson. So I'll tell you a little bit about the methodology for the projections first. So the way the way that we projected these is we started with actuals, so what we have already spent this year, and then we looked at like recent history of payroll and salary expenses and projected that out for the remaining pay periods of the year. So, that's the the sort of salary expenses, which as we know is the bulk of our general fund spending.

And then, we worked with departments to get an understanding of what other costs they have remaining to pay through the end of the year. So, typically the way we do that is like a straight line spending. We base it on how much they've spent earlier in the year and continue it through the remaining months. This year, we started with that as a baseline, but knowing that we have a spending freeze in place, we asked departments to come back to that number and make adjustments accordingly knowing that there will be some things that may have been spent in prior years and will not be spent in this year. The hiring waiver the hiring and spending waiver process that we have in place means that departments we are we are putting additional scrutiny on any hiring decisions, and so they are essentially limited to positions that have urgent public safety needs, or that would otherwise cause like additional financial burden to the city.

And then on the spending side, for any purchase over 5,000, departments have to submit a spending waiver and it goes through a similar review process for us to understand what the impacts are of either foregoing that expense or delaying it until 2026. So, we we don't know we don't know what is not being submitted through that process and that's where the savings likely comes come from. So we'll we'll know more about that as we close the books on 2025. But I think it's it's gonna be very different from department to department, just knowing that the needs are gonna be different in each department. Alright.

Next, we have spending by department. So the majority of departments are coming in under spent in 2025, and that is largely due to the spending and hiring freeze that we have in place. There are a few ex exceptions largely related to public safety and cyber costs. Emergency management and OTC are projected to be overspent. That's all related to the cyber incident where we had emergency management and OTC staff operating out of the EOC for something like eighteen, twenty hours a day.

I don't think they slept at all. The fire department is projected to come in 3,900,000.0 over budget. This is driven by increased overtime costs, work comp, and higher than projected materials and supply spending related to utilities, medical supplies, vehicle repairs, and the second recruit academy. The general government line here is projected to be overspent by 6,300,000.0. This is where the lawsuit was paid from.

So but for that payment, we would have had savings in this department. And as a reminder, the general government accounts isn't really a department, but it more is more an account for activities that exist across the city but are not necessarily assignable to one specific department. So, we budget for things like city elections, outside legal services, district councils, the citywide audit, and tort liability costs there. The parks department is projected to be overspent by just under 3,000,000. A large chunk of that is driven by replacing and repairing lights hit by copper wire theft.

The remaining is due to unexpected costs related to summer storms and closing off caves. And, there are also increased costs for rec center and pool safety, which I believe director Rodriguez touched on in his recent presentation. The police department is projected to be $2,500,000 over spent, but I will note that this will be closer to 1,500,000.0 once a budget amendment is processed that recognizes additional spending and revenue. And, this is largely due to services and materials including computer software, maintenance supplies, and ammunition. There is underspending across departments, and like I said, related to the spending and hiring freezes that will thankfully help offset some of the higher costs in other areas.

Overall, I would say because of the pressures that we're facing this year, many departments have made changes to how they are operating. So we are treating this year as an outlier rather than an indication of future spending patterns.

Council president. Thanks, chair. I I know that we often have unavoidable things that come up, but I guess I'm curious about some of those reasons for the overspend that you're talking about, which are significant, especially in fire parks and police. I mean, for example, replacing copper wire lighting theft issues. We've frequently heard from public works, for example, that they don't have the money to replace the lights in certain areas. I'm trying to understand how a department is allowed to spend money that it doesn't have beyond its budget to make choices like that.

Chair Kim, Council President Maker, Laura, do you want

to jump in there? Sorry.

There we go. Yeah. Chair Kim and Council President Nacre. So in the case of the copper wire theft because of the public safety concerns related to lights being out across the city and the like pervasiveness of that issue earlier in the year, there was a decision made to proceed with doing as much replacement as we can and an understanding that like throughout the year OFS would be working to make sure that the city still kind of came in on balance. I know like in the slide where we can see our revenues are actually coming in better than budget, right?

So, I think we have 5,000,000 more revenue than we had budgeted for. So, in a typical year, we would see some overspending in parks to address that public safety need and we would still be coming in on budget because we have better revenues than expected. But this year because of the unplanned kind of one time spending that came up that is kind of adjusting. But OFS is still working to ensure that we do come in on budget on the whole. But basically there was a decision made earlier in the year to try to address that public safety need Parks was directed to do that.

Great. Councilmember Bowie. Councilmember Council Vice President Kim, thank you so much. I just wanna also just like piggyback off of Council President Acres question because I I just think in terms of being good stewards of our of our dollars and we go through an entire process right to adopt a budget and we go through an entire process to be able to approve whether it's transferring or certain emergencies and even all departments have the opportunity to go through a process whether it's like capital improvement budgets and all different type of other ways of being able to finance some of these initiatives and these emergencies, these public safety needs. I'm just wondering is are there guardrails, right?

Is there caps in terms of like where is alert systems I guess of when a department is going over budget and then how is that being conveyed to council members in advance?

Sure. Chair Kim and Councilmember Bui, thank you. I would say throughout the year the departments like in the budget presentations, departments are presenting kind of where they are in process. So, I think we all shared our budget to actuals at that point. So, in I think that was August, September, departments are sharing kind of where they are during the year with that budget to actual data.

And I would also add that there are a number of different guardrails in place. One of them is that departments hit budget restrictions. And then for certain categories, we don't have those on personnel because people need to get paid. But for services and materials, once the department is going to be over in that, it does trigger an alert to OFS. And so then that is when we look into it and see what is causing that.

Thank you. Councilmember Johnson.

Yeah, I appreciate that I won't elaborate a little bit more on, you know, I won't labor the points. However, what I will say is just that with the projected variance, like the projected variance from the budget is the gap that we would be looking for. And as the folks are going through like the budget or overspending the budget or being able to exceed their department budgets by the end of the year. That gap itself is above what the negative projected variance is and itself could problem solve if people would stick to their budgets in the departments that they have. And looking at just some of the, you know, I don't actually know if it's a I heard you say that we are projecting this kind of as a one off, but last year we also had similar issues where there was overspending in some of these same departments.

And I'm not actually sure if that's a one off situation or if that's a reoccurring one in instances for different reasons. But I remember having conversations in particular about overtime and overspending which actually warranted counsel decisions on the police department and having conversations similar in the fire department. And, you know, general government may be an exception because that's where the lawsuit was paid out from, and OTC because of the emergency management. But then, as we're heading into next year, we also are seeing and receiving memos that are addressing a need for additional funding on cybersecurity and addressing cyber attack needs into 2026. And I'm just wondering, instead of treating something like this as a one off, how we're planning ahead for future potential pending lawsuit litigation that we have to account for that can come and trajected higher, or even just additional emergency situations that come up?

Because it doesn't seem like that is something if we're treating the second anomaly, then I would expect to see the numbers or the variances as well. But we've seen those in 2024. We've seen those in 2025 as well prior to in the space of even talking about how to budget for the year. And as we head into next year, I'm not sure if we kind of allow for overspending in two of our largest departments, just doing quick math, of our overall, the projected expenditures, half of that is housed within two departments. And I just am wondering kind of looking at just the numbers at the end and even hearing from how we were responding and talking to departments about how they would be needing to think about their proportion of the overall budget.

If they're overspending their budget, I don't see how they're contributing to the $8,400,000 deficit that's there. And then some of these other departments or even the Housing Redevelopment Authority having to account for millions of that 8.4 deficit because they cannot doesn't seem appropriate for me. And it's actually quite concerning. So I guess my question really is like we're treating it like an anomaly but I don't necessarily know if it's a one off situation because we can't predict the future of litigation and pending lawsuits but we also can't predict the future of how to respond to crisis and emergencies without being able to budget for that or to plan for it in the future. So instead of like treating it like a one off, I'm just wondering what can be learned from this year because last year's numbers in some of these departments weren't all that different in overspending which thus required additional budget contingencies, additional action from counsel, additional reporting requirements this year for some of the departments that were overspending in their overtime budget by millions.

So that's not an anomaly and I'm just wondering how we're planning ahead for 2026.

Chair Kim, Councilmember Johnson, I should clarify that the piece of it that we are treating as a one time anomaly is the lawsuit in the cyber attack. The lawsuit was a historic payout. We've never had an amount even anywhere near that number. So it really was something very different than what we had before. We do have funds in place for lawsuits and how we, you know, work through those throughout the year.

But, this one was was far beyond anything that we've ever paid out. So, it really was something that was was an anomaly in in that way. And then, the cyber attack as well is, you know, not something that anybody expected. We have made investments and put new systems in place to prevent against that going forward. There are investments included in the 2026 budget to help protect against future attacks like that as well.

Anything else, Laura? Question

from the CP. Thanks, Chair. Just going back a second, Ms. Mitchell, to the previous slide because I think what I'm hearing some of my colleagues getting at is that there were obviously those unpredictable and extraordinary expenditures. And then there's the fact that with the amended budget, as you pointed out, we were already predicting $5,000,000 shortfall from revenues to compared to expenditures.

And so I guess I just want to understand that a little bit better. Is it that we adopt a budget, a balanced general fund budget when we adopt the budget? And then over the course of the year, all of those budget amendments that we see coming in front of us at the council week by week, that's how we got to a point where the amended budget overall showed a $5,000,000 shortfall. And I guess and my follow-up to that would be, as I think council member Bui said very, very well. I think it's important for this council to understand the impact of those budget amendments as we're making them because I think we're putting a lot of faith.

You you know, there's always the attachment that says, and the mayor certifies that there is money for this. Right? I don't I've never thought as we've been making those amendments that that means that we're gradually adding to a $5,000,000 or whatever the size is every year gap at the end of the year. And I think it's important for us to have that context as we're making those amendments. So am I understanding it right that that's how we got from a balanced budget to to this point over the course of the year?

Well, council council president, the main piece of that difference between the the 419 and expenditures and 414 is what we call carry forward. And that's when a department enters a purchase order in the prior year. It's which is attached to budget authority from a prior year, and then that purchase order is not closed or not completed, the purchase is not made, that authority from the prior year moves forward. So, it is essentially it's similar to like a use of fund balance. And this is just sort of like an accounting technical piece where we only added on the spending side.

The assumption is it's like we have savings from that in either the year before or the year before that that we are pulling from to make those purchases in the current year.

Okay. So, the 5,000,000 just to make sure I understand is all dollars we expected to have spent in the previous year that we had budgeted for that weren't spent, end up getting spent in this year, and we're showing it as a 5,000,000 loss, but we actually had 5,000,000 left over last year that wasn't spent?

Council president, yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. On the revenue side, we are coming in pretty close to budget overall, about 1.3% over our initial projections. The biggest driver here is in that third line. That's pension aids, paramedic fees, and interest earnings. We expect about 2,700,000.0 higher than budgeted revenue on interest earnings on Citi Investments. That's in part due to the higher interest rates in recent years. Do We expect this revenue source to decline in the future as the Federal Reserve is projecting cuts to interest rates.

Then we are projecting an additional 400,000 in paramedic fees and around 1,000,000 in additional police aid and police pension aid and disability insurance. Police pension aid is based on the car insurance premiums and also the number of police officers that we have. The amount we receive for fire and police disability insurance is based on the number of employees on duty disability under the age of 65 and the cost of health insurance. So, this increase is driven by more people going on duty disability and then paired with rising health care costs. Franchise fees are also coming in better than expected by about 1,000,000.

2024 was a five year low for both gas and electric franchise fees, and 2025 is more of a more of a return to normal. For many of these, we have already made appropriate adjustments in the 2026 proposed budget to reflect these increases. So we're continuing to work on finding solutions to end 2025 on budget. We're hopeful that we will continue to see further savings from the spending and hiring freeze. We have also started the process with the state of Minnesota for potential reimbursement of costs related to the cyber emergency.

Within our own budget, we are looking at all options, including grant funds that are expiring soon to see if we have any eligible expenses that have yet to shifted to those grants. We're looking at special funds with healthy balances that could provide support to the general fund on a one time basis. This includes evaluating some of our own internal charges to determine whether we can reduce or eliminate some of those expenses for this year. So, closing this gap will be it'll be a big challenge, but it's essential to maintaining the health of the general fund long term. And that is the end of my presentation.

Great. Cresson from the CP.

Thanks, Chair. Two questions. Can you say a little bit more about what you expect to be the potential reimbursement for the cyber incident? I know we were really proactive and smart about declaring it an emergency so that we would be potentially eligible for some of those reimbursements. So I'm just wondering what the scale of that is projected to be and when we would know. And then second of all, is OFS coming to this body asking for any amendments or changes to the current budget in order to fill this gap?

I'm going to defer that to Laura.

Sure. Thank you, Chair Kim and Council President. So, the first question related to the reimbursement request with the state, we're still in that process. I believe the and I know we have some emergency management folks here so they can check me if I'm wrong. I believe that we're currently waiting on the governor to declare the official emergency.

We had to work through we had to be told by the state that we should request an official emergency declaration and then we had to work through the county to do that. So, there's a lot of kind of bureaucratic steps. I So, believe that's on the governor's desk right now. And then, if they if he declares that this is an eligible emergency, then we would continue to move through the process to ensure that our expenses that we have coded to the incident are actually eligible. There's potential for us to be reimbursed for up to I think 75% of our costs, so it would not be the full amount.

But we've worked really diligently with all departments to ensure that we have coded all of our expenses that we know are related to the cyber incident in a way that it's easy for us to pull and share with the state when they start reviewing. They have really specific rules about what is deemed an eligible expense in emergencies. And so, what we deem as all of our incident related expenses may not actually be eligible. So, we're doing everything we can to make sure that we make the best case for why we should get reimbursed for that full 75% of our expenses. But at this point, it's not clear to us.

There's just a lot of steps that still have to flow through that we don't have control over. But we're doing everything we can and emergency management is leading that and has been doing really great work. So we're as prepared as we can be to get as much money as we can. Your second question, I just talked for so long I forgot what it was. Sorry.

Any asks to this body for amendments to cover the gap?

That's right. Thank you. You. Yes, thank you. At this point we're still working through exactly what is needed. We've started to do some outreach with Chair Johnson related to the HRA. I know that she just referenced that as well. So we're kind of in discussion on that. But I don't think we anticipate any other budget amendments. A lot of the solves that we're looking at would be looking at expenses currently in the general fund that are eligible to be paid for out of other sources that are already budgeted as well.

So like if there's a grant that's already budgeted that's underspend, can we move any current general fund expenses into that grant and out of the general fund? So, most of what we're looking at would not require budget amendments but yeah, that's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember Johnson. And I guess

just so I know that the piece of the 75% of the costs, is that of the $1,500,000 or is that of the I guess, what is our actual cyber cost looking like? So, looking here, we've heard many different numbers, so I'm just wondering.

For sure, Chair Kim and Councilmember Johnson. So, the numbers kind of continues to change because there's still ongoing work related to the cyber incident. Right now, we're at around 2.5 to 2,700,000.0. Some of that is for employee salaries that we would have already paid if not for the cyber incident. So, it's not 2,700,000 in addition over and above what was already budgeted.

Some of that is people's current salaries. But, there is overtime in there. There are contracts for support that we did not have in the budget already. So, some amount of that 2,700,000.0 is kind of over and above what was in the city's budget. We're hopeful to make the case that the full 2,700,000.0 is eligible and so that it'd be 75% of that. But, I doubt that the state would agree that that full amount is eligible because there are we included some folks like current salaries and there's just really specific rules related to current salaries and eligibility.

You. Councilmember Bowie. Thank you,

Vice Chair Kim. I do have a question. I just wanted to just get a quick refresher. I know you talked about it in third slide here. But in terms of like the lawsuit payment, can you just walk us through what is like also the source of it? From my understanding, I believe it just comes from the general fund, but it hasn't always historically been that way. I mean, if you can talk about a little bit about because that from my understanding there's like a tort fund, but once it exceeds that then it comes from the general fund. Has it always been that way or has there been some adjustments to to actually address some some of the loss of payments?

Chair Kim, council member Bui, it does come from the general fund. As far as I know, that is where we have always paid for things like this, and it's just exceptional in in that it's a much bigger number this time.

And then, can you speak to I guess, if you could just like reference the tort fund and how that's budgeted for and, you know, it seems like that's kind of like the mechanism we use to actually fund lawsuits, but it seems like historically it exceeds that. Am Council I

member, I believe the tort budget has around 720,000 in there. And it's been a mix. There have been many years where we don't meet that budget at all. There are years where we exceed it a little bit. And then there are years like this year where we exceed it by quite a bit. So, we do have an amount budgeted, and then, yeah, it's really highly dependent on the way that litigation flows through the city.

You. Thank Chair, if I could just add that $720,000 is also budgeted in the general fund. It's all it's not a separate fund. It's just general fund.

Councilmember Johnson.

Do we have when I guess it's we would have October year to date at this point. So now we have the projections, but would this be based off of October numbers or

Chair Kim, council member, these are based off October numbers.

Would we be able to get the October numbers by department? I'm just curious as to how we're tracking.

Chair Kim, council member, yes. The thing that I would add to that is that there is a lot of analysis that goes into those projections to make them what they are. There are quite a few accounting entries that have yet to be made. You know, departments doing journal entries to move costs between funds. So, the actuals may not reflect some of those changes that need to be made. So, they don't tell the full story and that's why we, you know, put the work in to do projections so that we can figure out some of that before you all see that.

Understood. And then, also I guess just to the piece of the projected spending in revenue and like the carryover from year to year. Do we anticipate like do we anticipate having carryover this year since we're like are there certain things that will show up next year in amended budget or projected actual variance that is money that is not being expended this year that we're anticipating for next year? And I'm just curious as to how that gets factored in as like what we continue year after year. Because for some of these, I'm just wondering like if we had $5,000,000 of unspent money that we moved into the year, we carry over consistently year to year.

I'm just wondering if not, like how do we have a chance to see like what is actually being carried over in the budget process every year that didn't get completed?

Councilmember, we are we're still working through that process right now. Given that we are in the situation that we're in in the general fund, we're reviewing how much, you know, if any, is appropriate to carry forward into into 2026. So more to come on that. And in general, would say over the last few years, we have been working on our carry forward process to make sure that we are really only carrying forward the funds that are needed and will be spent and that are available. So, we're continuing to refine that to make sure that that is that we're not doing that unnecessarily.

Chair, I would just add that we're also planning to connect the carry forward process next year with our spending waiver process this year. So, we would want to see from departments did we approve this spending? Did it go through the spending approval process in 2025? And if so, you know, that's like we already approved and the department could do that spending and so that would likely be allowed to carry forward. But if that was not, you know, kind of pre approved, that would have additional scrutiny. So we're trying to ensure that we connect those processes this year.

Councilmember Johnson.

And just as far as like the budget process itself, I think what is really interesting to me is like so many of those decisions are internally done and not communicated to counsel about what actual requests are coming in, like which positions are being approved, which ones are not being approved, which like things are being cut, which is not being cut. What does the communication look like to counsel about the carryforward and the things that like the decisions that are being made currently predominantly within the city of us administration, not necessarily being communicated back here to us?

Chair Kim and Councilmember Johnson, I think we're certainly open to continued communication on those items. I think the year end projection meeting, I know that Madeline did this presentation last year so I think this is a space where we're providing that information. I think a lot of these processes are administrative in nature So, certainly happy to like share information and share understanding. There's also just a level of administrative work that's happening based on our responsibilities in terms of managing the budget.

Yeah. I think it would be really helpful just to especially for some of the positions and like, for example, the hiring freeze. The positions that have been approved, not approved, those budget impacts, like those questions to me, like if they're going through a process, we have documentation of what that process entails. If they're going through the processes we head into 2026 to continue, there'd be an argument for why they would or rationale for why they would continue. But likewise would be for carryovers and things that would get into the 2026 budget. I'm assuming we would as council still see those projected on the time when we have budget proposals for next year or is that not right?

So Chair Kim and Council Member Johnson, I think the when we I'm just gonna make sure I'm understanding the question. When we're putting together like the gap for next year, you're asking if the carry forward is kind of considered as part of the gap?

And to what extent the council has the ability to weigh in on that?

Sure. So, when we I guess when we're putting together the gap, we're looking at the next year, so like the 2027 budget. And that the mayor's proposed budget is solving that future year gap. What we're facing this year is sort of extraordinary circumstances that have created a gap like in the current year. And so we're working through solutions to solve that gap like in real time.

And, some of them we can do administratively just because of the way that the budget is already set up and grants have already been accepted and so we can try to move expenses into those. But then, of the other potential solutions or things we do need to come to the council on. So, I think we're working through that process to the best of our ability of ensuring that we're partnering with council and you have the information that you need. And then in the areas where we can administratively move forward solutions, we're gonna do that. And then in the areas where we cannot move forward without counsel support, we need to work with you on those.

Sounds great. All right. Thank you so much for coming to Chambers and having such a great update. We appreciate all the time and energy that you put into all of our financial documents. So thank you so much. We are now going to transition. It's 10:45. We're sort of right on time. So we're right on time with still a lot to go. We are going to transition to just really briefly speak about the chair's 2026 proposed budget amendment to the mayor's proposed budget.

And then we will take time and we will I will time folks but whatever time remains after Sturteimei spiels, the amount that we'll have for amendments. It appears as of yesterday there were 12 and as of this morning there were 15. So I'm gonna just also briefly speak about process and what to expect moving forward. So since the mayor's proposed has proposed the 2026 budget, the city council's been in a very lengthy and deliberative process on the way our final budget vote on the way to our final budget vote on December 3. This process has included detailed presentations and briefings from every single department, community engagement across the city and every ward where we heard directly from residents about their priorities and concerns and a strong collaboration with our OFS partners.

The depth of input we've received reflects the shared values and concerns that we all share about St. Paul. As we present these proposed amendments, we do so with the weight of our fiscal reality in mind. The budget decisions before us require balancing, competing priorities with very limited resources. At the September, the council voted to approve a 5.3 maximum levy.

We understand that increases in property taxes are felt acutely by our residents. Our amendments are designed to strengthen our core city services our residents depend on most and we believe that these changes will strike the right balance between investing in what matters and exercising fiscal responsibility during these challenging times. Specifically, amendments include in no particular order, restoring the number of firefighters oh, I should use this one restoring our rec center hours, restoring our library hours in FTE, our firefighters, restoring our BLS night shift unit, restoring our CARES unit, our council communication staff restoring funding for audit committee and our children's collaborative, adding additional funding for our district councils, restoring our council's safety and security renovation, listening our listening houses work now program, and sustaining our commercial corridor funding at the level of 2025, which was proudly led by our H. H. R.

Johnson, and carrying forward our Reparations Commission funding. We also have identified key sources that help us balance the budget with our priorities. We're increasing our ambulance transportation fees. We're eliminating vacant positions, reducing money for mill and overlay, removing funding for robotic stripping, repurposing transfers from HRA and we are adjusting the timeline for hiring our unfulfilled hero director position. And this information will be posted to Legisstar but our total proposed uses is 4,100,000 and our total proposed sources is also 4,100,000.

So, I'm very proud of as the very interim budget chair with our budget chair, Chair Yang to offer a proposed amendment to the mayor's budget as a balanced one and one that has a very strong support of both our colleagues but also the residents that we represent. I'm going to potentially embarrass our budget officer. Is there anything that I missed that you'd want to just make sure that we emphasize?

Thank you, chair Kim. Yes, the proposed amendment shared with you all is I would share that it has the consensus, it has the broader support. We are still working through to provide a finalized version in the sense match to match. This is where the source is and this is what is going to how it is going to be paid for. And we appreciate your patience and engagement as we refine the amendment to ensure accuracy and alignment with the council priorities.

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. I'm now just very briefly going to very briefly talk about essentially how what this process will look like and what folks can expect moving forward. So we had asked folks to submit an idea to our budget officer by Friday, November 5.

Any idea that they had in terms of how they would like to amend the proposed chair's budget. And it's also the council member's responsibility to budget solve for it and we were asking for potential budget solves by this last Monday at five p. M. It was also very clear that budget solves for our amendments cannot include funds that we used for the chair's budget proposal and that we would be strongly discouraging our colleagues to provide or bring forward amendments that impact or alter the chair's budget as we have a very strong support through conversations with all of our colleagues. So, all of the amendments with a potential budget solve were distributed to Kamud yesterday by noon and for review and also a little bit of vetting.

So now moving forward, we will hear all of the amendments today and next week it is each office's responsibility to submit their amendment into Legistar with no less than four supporting members and to do so so that we can vote on it with our final adopt our final budget and max levy on December 3. And I'll put all this in writing for folks. So just for the millions of viewers at home, if you hear an amendment that you really love, please lobby your council member. So it is 10:50. We have forty minutes right until 11:30 and we have 15 amendments.

So whatever that is, it's like two Someone want do math

for me? Two minutes. Two minutes each.

Yeah. Transitions and

Okay.

Thank you. So we will Each minute will have Each minute Each person will have two minutes per amendment. And again what we're looking for is what it is, why you're interested, and if you have a potential budget solve for it. You don't have to be incredibly detailed, but we do have a list that our budget officer provided us if it's one time or ongoing. I am going to distribute the list that was existing for our budget officer within that timeline.

And then my understanding is that council member Bui, thank you, has also provided three, I see three additional potential amendments. I'm not sure if they have budget implications or not, but we will find out shortly. So we will prioritize the ones that were submitted within that timeline and then we'll take up the three that council Member Bui submitted this morning. So Council President. Yes, Council President.

Thanks, Chair. I'm happy to use my time to say this. But I just wanted to thank you for your leadership on this process. I think people throw the term unprecedented around a lot, not always in context where it's appropriate. And in this case, everything about this has been unprecedented. Right? We started by saying that we were going to have a transparent process for our budget, that we were going to talk about our budget publicly in a way that we never had before, and that we were going commit to a timeline and stick to that timeline in an inclusive process. And you and I have both been through enough budgets to know that it's easy to say that at the beginning of the process. It's much harder to actually lead through it. This conversation is unprecedented.

The fact that we're sitting here today talking about our amendments publicly so that everyone knows what we're thinking is unprecedented. The fact that we are proposing 13 amendments that we have consensus on as this council, I've never seen so many amendments that are that we have funded. And they are they are all responsive to the things that we've heard from our constituents specifically about frontline services and things that affect people's daily lives. And then we're going to continue and be on time and on budget on December 3 when we adopt our budget. So I just I don't want that to go without being said because it's been your leadership and yours also, chair, that's gotten us to this point and I'm really proud.

And we're gonna disagree, right, on some of the details of this. I know we will. But by and large, this process has been unprecedentedly good and transparent. So I wanted to say that. And if that took my time, it's fine.

I really appreciate that. Yeah. And I I just strong kudos to leadership team with you and council member Johnson. It's just been such an incredible partnership and a huge kudos to our budget officer and our operations director, Jay Wilms. It's the teamwork that gets us through the bulk of the work. And again, a huge shout out to the staff in OFS who've been incredible partners through this. So, all right, with that, now it's ten fifty three. So we're gonna still stick to the two minutes. And I think we're just gonna go from the top. So I will I'll be the kind of guinea pig in this exercise.

So I'm gonna start my two minutes. I do plan on bringing these together. I guess I could bring them separately but I'm in strong partnership with Cherry Yang and Councilmember Coleman on both of these items. So really quickly, the Immigration Defense Fund. St. Paul's home to roughly 70,000 migrants or about 20% of our population. The American Immigrant Council reports that detained migrants are 10.5 times more likely to succeed with representation than without. In Minnesota specifically, the Vera Institute for Justice estimates 51% of migrants facing deportation are without representation. Now more than ever with the federal administration intent on subverting our constitutional rights, we need to sustain funding for our own immigrant defense fund. St.

Paul partners with Minnesota Legal Aid, advocates for human rights and the Immigrant Law Center to provide representation to residents facing immigration action. The New American Loan Program or a naturalization support fund in a similar vein, the New American Loan Program is one of the package of programs the city has to support our migrant community. This program is particularly for permanent US residents going through the naturalization which is lengthy and incredibly expensive for new residents. This program offers an interest free loan to assist residents with the cost of naturalization. So, the amendment for both of those that Cherry Yang, Councilwoman Coleman and I plan on bringing forward is to amend the budget to the city attorney's office to increase by $300,000 The amendment allocates $300,000 in one time funding to support the Migrant Defense Fund and the New American Loan Program.

We have a budget solved that we will be using unspent special fund dollars $2.11 that were specifically budgeted for the police academy, they did not use any of their funds and they're planning on using salary savings to fund the twenty twenty six police academy. I have fifteen seconds left and I would yield to two of my colleagues if you want to speak for ten seconds about it. Okay. Thank you. I really appreciate this part from my colleagues. We look forward to earning your support. Can I ask a clarifying question?

Sure. So just to be clear, Chair, the funds the source for this would be from unspent funds for the police academy in '25, it wouldn't affect the department's ability to hold academies in '26?

The police based on their proposal, they are using salary savings to fund their 2026 academy. So, it does not impact their ability to host an academy next year. Thank for the All right. Going down the line, I did two in two minutes. We have retained two PEOs proposed to be cut in 2026. Whose amendment is that? Alright. Council president.

You've thrown down the gauntlet by doing two in two minutes. We'll see what I can do. As we all know, parking enforcement is a huge issue in our city. One of our basic promises to our constituents, our residents, our employees, our visitors is that we set our laws and we enforce our laws. And right now that's just not happening when it comes to parking enforcement, which means that accessible parking spaces are taken up.

We're not seeing the turnover that we need to support our businesses. And people get frustrated when they pay for permit parking districts every year and then they don't actually see that enforcement happening in their neighborhoods. The reason for that is that we have currently 10 parking enforcement officers citywide. That's three at any one time because they're divided into three shifts. And we're proposing, the mayor has proposed in this budget to cut two of those, so we would go down to eight parking enforcement officers citywide.

Parking enforcement officers not only pay for themselves with the ticket revenue that they collect, but also they're a critical pipeline into the police department, specifically for young people, specifically for young people of color. So this proposal is to retain the two PEOs who are being proposed to be cut and add six additional PEOs, which would bring us up to a total of 16 officers. We do need to have 25 to be fully staffed, so this doesn't get us there. But it is revenue neutral in that it is bringing in the amount of money and actually a slightly more through expected ticket revenue according to the department.

Great. We're at one minute, sixty seconds. Any questions or additions?

Wonderful. There's a whole forty five seconds for I

know, my final on through, this is great.

I

will lift up a single finger to show you your one minute mark and then I'll maybe give you one of these at your two minutes. All right, next up we've got hire community prosecutor and the city attorney's office. Thanks, Chair.

This is also me. This is a revenue neutral or budget neutral proposal. The Downtown Alliance has proposed hiring a community prosecutor that would live in the city attorney's office. They have

the budget for this, so this

would not be coming out of our general fund, but the idea is to budget for it and then take the dollars from the Downtown Alliance. A community prosecutor offers benefits such as reduced crime through stronger relationships with the community and proactive partnerships that try to get at the root causes of some of the quality of life crimes we see in our neighborhoods. Drug use, vandalism, retail theft, which I know we've seen in many areas, both downtown and in the Midway. And these are folks who can actually get a little bit more proactive and more relational about solving these problems rather than taking everything through a justice system that is frankly already overloaded and is not going to take those crimes as seriously. These are folks who can actually get people into the treatment they need, get people connected to the services that they need.

And kind of like familiar faces, be the prosecutor who's more familiar with the individuals who are regularly committing these kinds of crimes so that they actually get the help that they need. So this is a model that's been proven in many other jurisdictions. And again, we would not be paying for it. This would simply be accepting the grant from the Downtown Alliance.

Great. Any thoughts or questions for the council president on that amendment? Wonderful. Moving right along, like lighting on Shepherd Road.

That's what I get for submitting them all one after another. My last one is lighting Shepherd Road. So as we all know, we have lost lighting throughout the city due to copper wire theft. And it is the most both used but also sort of most remote stretches where we have lost lighting that are the most dangerous, both to pedestrians, to cyclists, and to motorists. And they're also the areas that there are public spaces that we've invested in and when they're not lit, they don't feel safe and then people don't use them.

So we are losing all of the investments that we've made in these spaces because people don't traverse them because they're afraid. And we've been hearing from many of our constituents, both Councilmember Joseph and I, about Shepherd Road. The cost for lighting Shepherd Road is extremely high because the lights actually need to be replaced with new lights that are harder to steal from. The whole idea here is not just to replace the wiring and have it stolen get again, but to replace the lights with lights that will prevent that theft. The $750,000 I'm proposing is only for the stretch from downtown from Sibley to Eagle Street.

This is the stretch that public works recommended starting with because it's the most traversed and has the most potential for conflicts. The proposed source is from the CIB fund for lighting. And actually I was originally proposing 500,000 from the lighting fund and $250,000 from the Street Alley, Sewer, and Lighting Program. But we've now seen from OFS that there are balances in those accounts. And actually, there's about $1,100,000 in the Lighting Fund.

So I'm going to revise my proposal and suggest that we take all of that 750 from the lighting fund, which will still have several $100,000 left over after that for lighting in the rest of the city. This does just come down to where we think we need to replace lights. And I know that we might argue about that, but I think Shepherd Road is worthy of your consideration. We've received 54 emails, 53 in support, one a post.

Perfect timing. Six seconds to go. Six seconds to go. And we are cruising right now actually. So this is fantastic. All right. Next up we have EV Carshare.

Oh, okay.

Yes. I can also be of assistance too.

I think multiple folks had had this on their on their list of amendments. The EV car share program is something that we, you know, utilize throughout the whole city. And right now, we're in a really challenging situation. This came in kinda last minute that we did not have the the the funds that we needed for this item, a lot of it due to, you know, the federal government and other pressures on our city. So what we're asking is for the city to kick in $200,000 to be able to restore part of that.

We're also hoping to get some support from Minneapolis and through regional solicitation, but this is just a program that is so important for accessibility to transportation and as well as transportation that is better for our environment and that I think a of our wards really care a lot about because we do still have areas throughout the city on the East Side and some parts of my ward too that don't have access to this yet. We would like to continue to maintain what we have and expand the program.

Thank you. I will just I will add on to that and strongly second everything that council member just shared. I will also add that I think in this moment, as we are thinking about the need for new investments in both our multimodal transportation infrastructure and our climate resiliency work. Making sure that we are not losing or backtracking on investments we've already made is very critical. And so when we identify a gap like this, I think it's quite important that we work to fill it knowing that we won't be able to make all of the new investments that we might want to see, but that, hopefully at a minimum we are able to maintain the work that has been put in place up until now to address both transportation and climate.

Awesome. Thank you. And with the last ten seconds, I'll add my understanding is that they're using the decertified funds to allocate the $200,000 Thank you so much for the time. Perfect timing. All right. St. Paul Port Authority increased staffing capacity. Chair Yang. Thanks, Chair Kim. Yeah, this

is a budget request that came from the St. Paul Port Authority. Our budget committees were very filled and so we couldn't fit them in, but they're going to be coming in later today at the council meeting to present. They originally asked for a $500,000 increase and in the mayor's proposal wasn't granted any increase but they're asked the revised ask is an increase of $250,000 for inflationary costs and to increase their staffing capacity. And as you all know they are a very important partner to our city especially and so this is why I've added them to our list.

And the you'll all hear a bit about 900 over $900,000 in excess TIF coming back to the city. And so that is where the money for this would be. However, if this is an ongoing cost, then we'll have to definitely think ahead about what we want to do

for future years too. That sounds great. You. All right. Oh, question from Councilmember Johnson.

Not necessarily a question, just wanted to add as another as the treasurer of the Singapore Port Authority. They have also been operating a net neutral budget for years now. So this is actually an increase that they have asked for after not receiving an increase for several years in accounting in a row. And so some of the staffing pieces that they're asking for, like while we've kept up with other inflation costs throughout the city regarding salaries and other staffing capacities, the St. Paul Port Authority hasn't received an increase from the city.

And so this is something that I think just when we were hearing about what their rationale was for and asking for it, we have obviously adjusted salaries and staffing capacity in the meantime on the port in the last few years, but the actual increase has not been reflected in the budget. Great. Thank you,

treasurer of the port, Councilmember Johnson. Moving right along, we have Fund VII FTE public safety specialists. Whose item was that?

That was I think also over here.

Oh yeah. I believe it's already resolved though. Oh, okay.

Oh, perfect. Okay. Great. Thank

Everybody else gets a break.

I have

a couple of things on in my email that I didn't see on the list, I'd be happy to just skim over it if we have time later on.

Yeah, yeah. I think at this point we are cruising. So the next one is funny for I-ninety four study. I believe I'll just offer I think there might be a typo, but I'll let Councilmember Coleman address that in your two minutes.

Thank you, Chair. There is a typo. It is one tenth of the amount of money listed here. So the ask is for $50,000 The total cost of the study is $500,000 But fortunately, we are not being asked to fund all of that. So I will just say quickly, you know, coming into the council much more recently than other folks here, working very quickly to get up to speed on top priorities from folks in Ward 4 for what they wanted to see in the budget this year.

This was one of the first asks that came to my office. Within weeks of being seated on the council, I had heard from multiple district councils asking to sit down and have a meeting about the I-ninety four study that is listed here. So, we know that the rethinking I-ninety four process has been going on at MnDOT for many, many years. It was initially seen as an opportunity to reimagine not only a major transportation through fair thoroughfare, but also the land use around it. It has tremendous implications for public health, environmental equity, climate change, taxable land value, and general quality of life for folks in Midway, St.

Anthony Park, Union Park, and that's just a word for not to even get into Ward 1 in other parts of the city. MnDOT has been, know, I think in many ways, frustrated the community and felt like they were not being responsive to those most impacted. And so this effort is a collaboration with the city of Minneapolis, Hennepin County, the University of Minnesota to better understand what more expansive visions of this project of Rethinking '94 and of how we conceptualize urban freeways, what that could mean for our city. So supporting the study, while it does, you know, it is in part about I-ninety four, it's also an effort over the next two years to identify, model, and apply a full cost benefit analysis to urban freeway capital projects. So it would include other urban freeways that are impacting our city and help us develop a fuller understanding of the impacts of these projects and allow us to make data decisions, data driven decisions going forward.

I think it's an important way to show that we're serious about equitable transportation, land use development, and community need.

Great. What's sort of the proposed budget solved that you're thinking through?

And so for the proposed budget solved with that DEEP certified TIF district coming in right at about $950,000 we are looking at that as a source of the $50,000 Okay. Thank you.

Is there time for a question?

Sure. Just for clarity,

is that a city study or a council study?

So the study itself would be commissioned by the City of Minneapolis with the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota with funding from multiple sources.

So would we be funding the City of Minneapolis?

So yeah, would well, it would not go to the City of Minneapolis. It would go towards the full cost of the contracted study, but they would be the one holding the contract. And executing the study? The Center for Transportation Studies would be executing the study.

Would it be a joint study between so it's a joint study between Minneapolis and the City of St. Paul

And head of

orchestrated through the center.

What's the name of the center again?

The Center for Transportation Studies.

Great. Where are they based?

The University of Minnesota. Okay. Yep.

Is that the full totality of 94 or is there a corridor that you're looking at specifically or would this be worldwide? I'm mostly asking because obviously I-ninety 4 goes through multiple wards.

Yeah. So no, would be worldwide and metro area wide looking at the impact throughout both the Twin Cities.

Okay. Thank you.

And then also just to add going beyond just 94 and so looking at urban freeways within the metro area generally.

Okay. And is that 50,000 quoted from like somewhere or is that?

So that's the ask that we've received from community. 50,000 $500,000 is the full amount, but with the amount that's anticipated from other governmental entities, they ask for Saint Paul is $50,000.

Thank you.

Perfect. Yes. Go for it. Council president.

You may have said this, miss Coleman, but is Ramsey County being

asked to participate as well?

They have been asked at this point. I it's unclear to me. We don't know for sure if they will. Obviously, they are dealing with their own bunch of challenges of their own. So while we're hopeful that they'll be contributing, we don't yet know that. Thanks.

Okay. Wonderful.

I think we're going to keep it moving.

I got a question. Well, this is definitely award winning related.

Yeah. That's fine. We have twenty minutes left. So it is just to say we've got one, three, four, five. Oh, I'm sorry. We have at least five more and then it sounds like Choyang had a few that didn't make it onto the list. I'm just you can ask the question. I'm just saying we have now we got twenty minutes left.

Yeah, I totally understand. I just was we couldn't talk offline about it, but particularly I'm just wondering to the degree that Chief Resiliency Officer, Chief Climate Officer Russ Stark is brought into this because I know he's still hitting the MnDOT PACS process.

Yeah. So, we've been in touch with Russ Stark about this. He's aware of the study and of the ask and how it might play into kind of future decision making for the city.

Is he in support of it?

My understanding is yes, although I don't

think you have. I don't want to

totally speak for understanding is yes.

Okay. You got commitment from him?

That that he thinks that understanding this further is a good option.

Yeah. I definitely will talk offline. I think it's really important that reconnect rentals engaging it. If you're talking about people's impacted the Rondo community definitely have been impacted and experienced harm from the freeway. So, think to the extent that that community group is engaged will be really important.

Strongly agree. Thank you. Great.

Thank you for those comments. All right. Moving right along. Restore Public Works Robotic Painter.

So I'm gonna combine those. Oh, perfect. That sounds great.

Are you gonna bring them forward as one then?

They're they're separate amendments technically, but when I talk about them, I'm gonna talk about them together. So thanks, Cher. So this item, restoring the public works robotic painter and restoring the public works mill and overlay fund, is an amendment that I'm bringing basically to restore two of the proposed funding sources from the council's amendment that was presented earlier. So the robotics print machine's about $450,000 The mill and overlay money is about almost $319,000 So I think these two investments, were originally part of the mayor's proposed budget are about public safety and about investments in our infrastructure. Our roadway quality and safety is a core function of our city that our residents expect.

The mill and overlay money is important for keeping up with our street maintenance. It's important to the resilience of our roads and as well as a lot of the deferred maintenance on our roads that only gets more expensive if we don't continue to maintain those investments. I'm gonna spend a little bit more time talking about the Robotic Prince Machine, Road Prince, which I think maybe not everyone is familiar with the people listening. So this was presented to us by Public Works when Director Kershaw came in with those giant life size stencils. This is a modernization of what's almost a 100 year old practice for how we lay down street markings.

So right now, it requires three workers to lay those markings down. This is for crosswalks, turn arrows, school markings, bike lanes. We use about 4,200 gallons of paint per year for those markings. With this prints machine that would only require possibly two workers and would take workers out of the street. So this would significantly increase our efficiency in this process, and we'd be able to reallocate staff to other critical public work services, and this would pay for itself over seven years.

I think this is about two things. This is, I mentioned road safety, but it's about pedestrian safety, which is a priority that our council shares and that our city shares. We are currently behind in our printed markings. You can see them in our roads when you drive through them. I saw dozens of them on our way here that you can't even see anymore.

It's absolutely critical that we catch up on those printed markings. These need to be visible for the safety of our streets, and the markings, for example, I had some markings installed through public works in Ward 3 nearby a school last year in the 2024. Today you can barely see them and they need to be repainted. I think this is a top issue that I hear about in our city, about pedestrian safety, especially kids being able to get to schools, road safety. We get so many requests for traffic improvements all throughout our ward and I think throughout our city.

This increases safety for all road users with these, with more effective and more efficiently placed visual street markings. It's more affordable and more accessible and safer to apply. I'll also talk about worker safety really briefly. Just as I mentioned, the more that we can get road workers off the streets, the safer that it is. Fewer injuries and accidents for cars.

Roadway safety, these wouldn't be used on highways, but when you combine roadway safety with highway worker safety, that is one of the top most dangerous kind of fatalities that we see for our workers. So I think that these two, just to wrap up, this millen overlay, the restoration of millen overlay and road prints are about our shared commitment to safety in our city on the job site and on all of our roads no matter how you travel, if you're a pedestrian, a biker, if you're in a car, or taking transit. The source for this right now would be decertification, which we think is gonna be about $950,000 If you do add up the, let's see, one, two, three, four or so items that folks are proposing for that money, We're proposing over $950,000 so I do actually have a couple other potential sources that I'm gonna look into too if needed, but that's where those would come from.

Great. Perfect timing. Thank you, Council Member Jost. And we are moving right along. Okay, so now we've got four minutes or no, we've got I'm not doing math. We have six more. It's 11:16. Everyone still gets two minutes. Okay, so the first one up, we've got oversight of opioid, which was something that councilmember we brought in this morning. Yeah.

Do you

mind if I just do back to back I could just do all three of them. Yeah. And one that's how I'll prepare to get it out the way.

Yeah. That's totally. That works with me. Hold on one second. Let me set this timer for you so you

can see. So I'll start I have three. So the first one is opioids and well, actually, if you don't mind. The first one's gonna be the Rondo Library and then the second one is Ujama Place. Okay.

And the third one is the opioid settlement funds. So with the Rondo Library, this particularly is just making sure that there's guardrails to make sure that council is in collaboration with this new administration. The real reality is that we're preparing for a budget for a different mayor and for a new transition and a new administration. It's really, really important that we have some guardrails put in place to protect our most critical public asset and that these guardrails help us move forward together with clarity and accountability. What's really important as you all know as award winning representative of the Rondo Library is really, really truly the heartbeat of this neighborhood and closing it is going to cause some harm to that neighborhood.

This amendment simply ensures that there's clear guidelines and clear deliverables particularly ensuring that there's a firm reopening date for the Rondo Library, a contractor selection timeline, a community input process regarding the design programming safety and services, and ensuring that there's monthly updates in the future from the library directors and also a joint department approach particularly around safety issues on that corner and not just the library, but that surrounding areas. So this actually doesn't require a budget solve. It pays for itself. It's going to be utilizing the existing library budget funds. This is pretty much just putting conditions on the funds in terms of how the funds will be rolled out and how the renovation projects will be managed in the future.

There's going to be a lot of transition and I think it's really important to make sure that you know for the community who have uncertainty that this is clear guidelines and making sure people know every step in the process. So, if that's any questions for that? Okay. The second one is Ujama Place, the second chance housing allocation for the last if you were here at the last Public Safety and Community Wellness Committee meeting, we had Minnesota Justice Research Center come and present about the Returning Home Program that existed in the Office of Financial Empowerment about three years ago. That work was incredible.

It was done under the pandemic and really didn't get a chance to really see the day of light. We have heard from many community organizations such as Ujama Place who has been great partners with the city in terms of delivering the community ambassadors program. This program is more so to provide funding so we can ensure that people with backgrounds have access to housing. We know that they face severely barriers to housing, a lot of stigma. So, is more so of a crime prevention and public safety investment to ensure that our most vulnerable has access to housing, reduces recidivism and strengthens our public safety.

And these are just proven strong partners. I anticipate on actually solving for this budget by looking at three different budget sources. I don't want to share it now just because you know I still need to get more information and clarity about it, but I do appreciate your all support particularly not only hearing it in the public safety committee meeting, but also like actually investing into fair housing in the future. Any questions moving forward?

No. I

have a question. Yes. Very quick. Cherry Hill. Thanks, Cherry Hill.

Yes. I just want a

quick clarification. Are we already making this investment into a program like this already, like to Ujama?

There has been. So, of the sources was Office of Financial Empowerment. It was the city has had one time investment in it, so it just would be a reoccurring investment from about three years ago. So it will still be through the Office of Financial Empowerment and or it could also be from OFS. There is a fund through OFS that they can just directly appropriate these dollars to to that organization.

Okay. And the next one. K. Last but not least, this one has been has been a really clear pathway forward in ensuring that we have strong counsel oversight and controls over the big conversation that we've been all wanting to have as a counsel regarding the opioid settlement dollars. You know it was some months ago, I do want to appreciate our budget chair ensuring that we hear from Ramsey County Public Health Director regarding the settlement of approximately $14,000,000 that is going to be going through the city, but there hasn't been really a consistent coordinated centralized plan.

And that is just really what we have experienced. We have been really excited to see what the departments and what the city has in mind to actually address fentanyl crisis. We have attended a budget address where there was an announcement of a million dollars to go to fentanyl intervention. I have requested on multiple occasions for them to come and present about how that $1,000,000 should be invested into the community and we have not heard anything. I think giving the authority that we have moving into the future, we should have strong controls in ensuring that these dollars are secured and ensuring that the departments in going into a new administration the opportunity to actually collaborate.

And the opportunity for us to make sure our residents have the funds so we can continue saving lives, so we continue supporting recovery, so we can continue expanding our services, and most importantly stabilizing our neighborhoods. This amendment is a simple commitment. Before we go out to spend millions of dollars that has not actually had came to counsel, we need to have a plan, a real plan, a shared plan. So this I'm asking my colleagues to support me into ensuring that there is counsel oversight. I'm gonna be continuously working with our central staff to make sure that we have the proper, excuse me, the proper account mechanism for it.

But if there's any questions, I could definitely answer that.

Sounds great. I don't see any questions and we're at eleven twenty four which leaves I think the perfect amount for the last three. Thank you so much for the incredible detail and I think the strong amendments that you're bringing forward, council member of Bui. So, Cheryeng, you have three and your six minutes. I'll just keep it rolling in and pause for questions, but you get the remainder of our time. Thanks, Chair Kim.

Well, I just want to give

you all a heads up that I will be making rounds with everybody to talk more about further eliminations of vacant positions. As I look at the list from HR, there are some positions that have been vacant since 2023. And I'm just doing that based off of the things that we've been hearing from community members and even our city staff too, which is we want more frontline staff members, less supervisors. We've always in the council here talked a lot about wanting to have a one year mark. And I think if a position goes open for longer, there really should be an evaluation about what are we doing with that position and are we needed to make some adjustments for example, like wage adjustments so that it's competitive.

There's also some positions that have been open since 2022 as well. And then the second thing I have on my list is that I am in favor of fully funding our council office renovation project to make sure that our spaces are safe for our staff and the public too. The amount that we see on the amendment list here, I don't believe that is the full amount, but I would be interested in filling the full gap for that. And I'll connect more with you about that. And then lastly, I am still very committed to lowering the levy even more. So I want to let you all know that if there are unused dollars or let's say, we know there's new revenue coming in next year, I am very interested in using that to lower the levy more and would love your support on that.

Cruising, awesome. Yeah. Wonderful. $11.25. So again, I'm just going to thank you first I think just to all of my colleagues in the incredible budget work that we've been doing and I kind of listening and hearing of all these great ideas.

I think it's just really a testament of the big body of work that is the best group project but the chairs proposed budget, chairs proposed budget but oh I can't speak today. And then also the incredible ideas and the ways that we're really just kind of looking at the guts of the city And I just really appreciate the level of detail and the thoughtfulness throughout this entirety of our budget process. And so a very brief and friendly reminder, please work with Kamud and our office. We are expecting each council office to submit their resolutions into Legistar. We will provide a format to do that.

They will need to be entered into Legistar with no less than foreign support. And we will take on we will take up voting on them on December 3 with our finalizing our levy, our max levy and also finalizing our budget. Any other lasting thoughts, questions or concerns for my colleagues? Yes, Chair Johnson.

Thank you. I just wanted to I had a clarifying question going back to the to what's required for the Rondo Library renovations and the oversight of the opioid dollars. These don't have budgetary changes, correct? They're just No changes. The reporting resolutions.

Yeah. Great. And then but OJama placed with the new additional funding that And then I think along that vein, just something that I'll flag for our colleagues, we will be at along the lines of reporting, have asked for commute to include language in the housing redevelopment authority's budget. The overall resolution that would require quarterly year year, year to to date budget to actual reporting. That same language is my intention to also make sure that it's embedded in the city's budget and part of really getting to a place where we are seeing quarterly reports of our budget to actuals.

And so that's just something that didn't, it's not an amendment, it's similar to like the reporting mechanisms of what's presented here by Councilor Rubooy and better ways to ensure that there's like oversight but also transparency just because the way that we're doing our budget to actuals currently when it comes to reporting at least, We hear about them like in the middle of the year and then we hear about them again after the budget is already passed for the next year moving forward in a public way, this would change that to be quarterly in both the city and the HRA budgets. So that language isn't coming as like a separate resolution, it'll be a clause within the overall budget resolution that's approved.

That sounds great. Thank you so much. And again, a friendly reminder to all of our millions of viewers at home. If you heard an amendment that you particularly love and would like to cheer on, lobby us for those interests. All right, with nothing else before us, we're adjourned.