Good morning.

My name is Aisha Chugtai, and I'm the chair of the budget committee.

I'm going to call to order our adjourned meeting from Monday, September 15th, 2025.

Before we begin the meeting, I want to offer a friendly reminder to all members, staff, and the public that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation.

These broadcasts include real-time captioning as a further method to increase the accessibility of our proceedings to the community.

Therefore, all speakers need to be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments for the broadcast.

We ask all speakers to moderate the speed and clarity of their comments.

At this time, allows the clerk to call the roles.

We can verify the presence of a quorum.

Councilmember Payne is absent.

Wonsley?

Present.

Rainville.

Present.

Vita?

Present.

Ellison is absent.

Osman is absent.

Cashman.

Present.

Jenkins is absent.

Chamba's present.

Chowdry is absent.

Paul Masano is absent.

Vice Chair Koske.

Present.

Chair Chotai.

Present.

We have seven present.

Let the record reflect that we have a quorum.

I will also remind my colleagues that we are using speaker management today, so please make sure to sign in.

Colleagues, today we have two presentations related to the mayor's recommended 2026 budget, one from the Minneapolis Emergency Communications Center or 911, and one from the police department.

We'll first begin with the presentation from 911.

And for that, I will now invite Joni Hodney, Emergency Communications Center Director to begin the first presentation.

I'll also note that we've been joined by Councilmember Palmasano in this committee meeting.

Gotcha.

Welcome, good morning.

Good morning, Chair Chucktai and Council members.

I am Joni Hodney, the director of Minneapolis Emergency Communications Center.

I'm here to present the proposed budget for MECC for 2026, and I'm happy to be here to launch our budget presentations.

All right, I'm going to start with describing where MECC falls into the structure of the Office of Community Safety.

We are one of the departments that reports directly to the Commissioner.

And of course, the commissioner reporting up to the mayor.

We also have engagement with the public and the mayor during the decisions for our budget.

For the MECC organization chart for the department over here overview, our internal MECC organization chart shows that the radio shop, the training department, and data collection fall directly under the director.

The operations and floor staff fall directly under the assistant director.

The rest of the management staff has uh supervisors and floor staff that report directly up to them.

Starting with our mission goals and priority objectives in MECC.

Our staff of Minneapolis Emergency Communications Center helps save lives, protect property, and assist the public in their time of need.

We achieve this by providing the critical link between public safety responders and the communities we serve by being efficient, courteous, and compassionate.

To provide transparency for this mission, we continue to build our Outcomes Minneapolis framework database used to demonstrate the work goals and accomplishments in MECC.

Some of our priority objectives are to provide professional customer service to everyone we engage with in the public and those we serve in the community safety responders.

We ensure that we're connecting anyone who lives, works, or visits the city of Minneapolis with services needed through direct engagement or through making sure our radio communications is keeping the city responders in communication.

We work in full support of the City of Minneapolis racial and equity impact analysis, providing caring support during crisis for Minneapolis communities, demonstrating understanding, commitment to equality regardless of age, gender, race, sex, or economic status.

This QR code will link you to the Outcomes Minneapolis dashboards that we have set up in the for the 911 call center.

Using Outcomes Minneapolis dashboards, we track call volumes, call answer times, and quality assurance scores.

So far in 2025, we have processed nearly 400,000 emergency and non-emergency calls.

We strive to meet the National Emergency Number Association, otherwise known as NINA, standard for answering calls 90% of the time within 15 seconds.

These dashboards will demonstrate to you where we fall in the answering times.

As of right now, we are back to showing that we're getting back to that 95%, 90% of the time, summer months with the heavier call volume.

We tend to dip below that a little bit.

This scoring not only helps us to ensure people of the city of Minneapolis are getting the best possible services from MECC, but also shows us areas for improvement and for training of staff.

Just a few of our 2025 achievements.

We launched the first embedded social worker in MECC beginning the start of this month.

Currently, she's completing her training and will begin taking calls the first of October.

We're excited to provide more services that benefit the residents and the overall ecosystem described in the Safe and Thriving Communities report.

One of the results of this was a significant reduction in calls to 911 over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

We received the fewest number of calls over the 4th of July holiday weekend that we've received in years.

Future goals will be to integrate this education with additional services such as 211 and 911 and continuing to get that out to the public on when each of these services are available.

We have achieved near full staffing for the first time in several years, and the radio shop successfully completed its transition to MECC in 2025.

Some of the risks in the 911 Center.

To keep up with the quick changing technology, security to our systems needs to be regularly evaluated and monitored.

We are acutely aware and watching for cybersecurity risks in the 911 system.

We work closely with our IT department to ensure that we have a safe working platform.

Maintaining well-being and avoiding burnout are key factors to successfully managing the dispatch center staff.

One of the biggest lessons learned for us is as a city we've been striving to provide alternate services for those in the city of Minneapolis.

While MECC is 247 365, it often seems to be a good fit for occurrences overnight and on the weekends.

While we approach new projects with enthusiasm, we need to use caution that we don't exceed capacity and stray from the mission of what we are here for, emergencies.

Demonstrated in this slide shows that the majority of our expenses are wages and fringes.

A much smaller portion of our budget goes to maintaining operating costs, equipment, and contractual services.

Integrated into MECC is the radio shop.

The operating expenses of the radio shop is just over 2 million dollars, a small portion of the overall MECC budget.

MECSC is not a revenue generating department, whereas the radio shop does have approximately 400,000 worth of revenue generated from services provided.

Our adopted budget for 2025 had us at 93 full-time employees for the radio shop and 911 combined.

The recommended budget for 2026 reduces that FTE by one vacant position in 911.

While this is not ideal and is uncomfortable, all administration and every department was asked to look for ways to reduce the budget without any layoffs.

Therefore, our attention was directed to vacant positions.

Currently, MECC has five vacancies.

Four of those currently have had background checks and are in the process of background checks and ready to start class in October.

One vacant position is currently not being filled to allow for the proposed reduction in 2026.

Some of our program updates and the objectives, key projects is providing the best service to our stakeholders through training, technology, and compassion.

MECC is continually working to streamline processes with the department that we dispatch for animal control, BCR, traffic control, MPD, and MFD are all departments that we work with within our center.

Key components to making this successful is aligning with new technology and retaining staff so we can develop growth to new levels.

Not only do our dashboards reflect successful key factors, but our relationships built with other city departments throughout the city of Minneapolis.

The radio shop, as I stated earlier, reflects about two million, a little over two million dollars of our budget.

They provide reliable, secure, and cutting edge communications to ensure that mission critical radio systems for the safety responders and effectiveness of the safety responder personnel.

Our technicians possess expertise in radio communications technologies, provide timely diagnosis, repairs, and installations.

Clearing tickets for service quickly, ensuring projects adhere to timelines, and upgrading equipment swiftly with no break in communications.

Adjustments done to the proposed 2026 budget include reducing expenses of administrative costs, imprinting, food and beverage expenses for open houses, outside contractual and professional services, and miscellaneous repairs.

We continue to assess ongoing projects to align with spending and organizational goals.

Using our budget wisely has allowed us to stay within our allotted annual budget over the past several years.

Some of the budget changes and reductions.

While the number of calls has dropped slightly in 2025, the need for staffing numbers remains consistent.

As we continue to grow closer to our allotted FTEs, call processing for our telecommunicators has increased in complexity, and as it changes what the safety and alternative responses look like.

Investing in tools and technologies that drive efficiency would help to minimize labor and reduce overhead costs.

These tools could help us in streamlining the data collection, increased quality assurance methods, and provide call handling assistance tools.

In turn, this would allow us to shift workloads around, eliminate unnecessary costs of overlapping activities, and prioritize in new areas.

During during the next administration oversight committee on September 29th, I'll be presenting to you some software that can add to our ability to enhance quality assurance and assist in call handling automated tools, similar to some of the technology I'm talking about on this slide.

Supplemental information related to budget changes to ensure optimal utilization of the current budget will focus on streamlining expenditures by prioritizing high impact initiatives, eliminating redundancies and seeking cost effective alternatives.

By strategically reallocating funds, improving processes, and seeking alternative solutions, we can maximize the impact of our existing budget and ensure long-term financial sustainability.

We've been effectively reducing the overtime time costs over the past couple of months.

Well, MUCC will never completely be without overtime expenses.

Achieving staffing levels that correspond well throughout our schedule contributes to the reduction.

And with that, I will stand for questions.

Thank you for that presentation, Director Hodney.

I will note first that we have been joined by council members Jenkins and Council President Payne in this meeting.

As a reminder, we're using speaker management today to manage our discussion.

I will see if any of my colleagues have any questions or discussion items.

First I'll recognize Council President Payne, followed by Vice Chair Koskey.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I was curious about the radio shop.

I see that in 2024, we didn't have any staff in the radio shop, and then it jumped up to eight.

And I was just wondering, like what the programmatic reason was for that.

Oh, you know, that may be uh just because they just moved under us into MECC.

They've had eight people in the radio shop for some time.

Comparing last year's budget and this year's budget with them has been a little complicated because they haven't been in our department to pull those historical numbers.

Thank you.

Wonderful Vice Chair Koske.

Uh thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much, Director, for being here, and thank you for all of the work that your team does.

I've had the honor to do a couple sit-alongs with your team and hope to do another one here in the future as well.

Um, it is in it is incredible work of what they do and how quickly they need to think and um and act, and I know that that has it's a tremendous you know toll on them, and I'm so I'm grateful to hear about the embedded social worker.

Um, I'm grateful to hear about the other wellness programs as well.

So it's really great to hear about some of the work that you're doing.

Um, and so mostly this is just, you know, a kudos to all of all that you do because you really are our first responder, and the rest of our first responders couldn't do the other amazing work without all of you, and want you to know that, and my deepest gratitude for what you do.

Um just I had one question about the role that's being uh eliminated.

Do how long was it vacant prior to its elimination?

Chair Chuck Taivas, Vice Chair Koski, thank you for those wonderful comments for our department.

It's appreciated.

The attrition rate at MECC, it kind of revolves around having vacancies pretty regular, mainly because people come in through classroom, they decide that this isn't what they thought it was going to be.

So it's more or less an ongoing vacant position that we try to fill.

We may get up to the full 69 uh floor staff numbers, but then generally we have a retirement or we have someone that's not making it through classrooms successfully.

So in many ways it's a long-term vacancy.

Okay, thank you.

How will this elimination affect the 69-floor ratio that you or I don't not ratio but number that you like to keep at?

You know, it's really important that we maintain a schedule that allows for people to have time off, time for well-being.

Um, so as I said in my earlier slide, while this is not ideal circumstances, um, we are looking as a community at the Office of Community Safety Community in the ways that we can help better serve the or continue to serve the city without having strong impacts on other departments as well.

So the impacts of MECC are going to be possibly a little more overtime that could be posted, especially during the summer months.

Okay, thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Next, I'll recognize Councilmember Palmasano, followed by Councilmember Cashman.

Thank you, Director Hodney for this presentation.

I'm looking forward to hearing about the embedded social worker.

Can you give us an update on that position as it comes online at your regular quarterly updates at public safety committee?

Chair Check Tai, Councilmember Palmazano, absolutely.

We will be uh continuing to update you.

We're excited about this program and looking forward to seeing what she can bring to helping with the mental health calls specifically that we get down there at 911, which tie up the call takers for a longer time period and being able to provide some resources.

So, yes, it will be in our quarterly presentations in the future.

Thank you.

And then on slide seven, one of your last sentences I thought was interesting.

You said while we can approach new projects with enthusiasm, we cannot exceed capacity and stray from the mission of what we are here for, emergencies.

Do you feel that you've reached that limit?

Like have you had to turn down a request that would have stretched your resources too thin?

Chair Tech, Councilmember Palmasano.

I think we are at that limit or very close to that limit.

I think it's difficult for us to continue to add outside services or outside requests when we don't have companion partners, such as 311 being open only until 7 o'clock at night, or some of the other departments that aren't open 24 hours a day.

In reality, we could probably keep five more people busy or 10 more people busy to be able to continue to take on some of those programs.

Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

In terms of the reductions, those were asked a little bit earlier, but how do you see those changes implemented on a day-to-day basis?

The reductions that are shown in your budget.

So as technology has changed, so has our need for, we've had an allotted amount of expense for copying for printing.

A lot of that can be done through technology now, and it's put onto our websites through a home page that we have where we can communicate out information.

Some of the contractual services may be us looking at some different services to help with more of the deep cleaning in the center using um the MBC services a little bit more to help do some of the cleaning.

We've hosted open houses every year for several years, just taking a look at some other ways or alternative ways that we can welcome in the community to take a look at our center and maybe reduce some of the expenses that we put into that.

I see.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, and Councilmember Cashman.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Director Hodney.

Yeah, you've done an amazing job this year staffing up and moving into the new office space, and I'm really grateful for that and really grateful for everyone in your department.

Like Vice Chair Koskey said, you really are the first responders, and it's such a relief to live in a city where we can call 911 and have someone pick up so quickly and and get our call into the right into the right hands.

I just had a couple questions about slide 14 on uh investing in tools and technologies that drive efficiency, minimize labor, reduce overhead costs.

So I think you know, Councilman.

Chair Chekhtai, Councilmember Palmasano had asked this a little bit too about what investments in technology are we already making, thank you.

So I'll start with going back a couple of years when we installed what was known as ASAP to PSAP, which is the alarm companies having the ability to directly key in their information right into our dispatch our dispatch center to a dispatcher.

That right there has already eliminated about 25,000 calls a year that call takers have to actually pick up the phone and take because it's a direct impact input.

Also, our automated abandoned callback system that we installed last year has helped tremendously.

We get a phenomenal amount of pocket dials, and this system will call people back and give them the option to let us know yes, this is an emergency.

Some of the other tools, and some of this I'll be presenting, as I said at the AEO on the 29th.

We have some tools that are available to us to help with translation services, training.

It can help with quality assurance and help to speed up that process.

Right now, every quality assurance piece is done manually, and all the pieces are pulled together by one person from different systems.

This system will allow us to be able to do that in a more automated manner.

So there are a lot of the technology is moving quickly, even for 911.

That's great to hear.

Um yeah, looking forward to hearing more about that in AEO committee.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Um last call for any additional questions or comments.

Not seeing any.

Thank you so much for coming in.

Um you completed, you were our last presentation last year and the first one this year.

Um so I will direct the clerk to um receive and file that presentation, and with that, um, we will welcome the police department next.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

So our next presentation is from the police department, and for that I will invite uh Chief Brian O'Hara and Director Troswick to begin that presentation.

Good morning, uh Vice President.

Thank you.

Okay.

Good good morning.

So um the uh we're using the obviously the standard format uh that we have for all of the departments.

Uh the first slide is showing uh basically that we report through the we're one of the five departments that report through the Office of Community Safety to the Mayor and ultimately to the people of the city.

This is the table of organization for the police department.

It was revised um August of 23 when the council uh approves certain structural changes.

The department has two branches.

Uh an assistant chief is in charge of each branch.

The operations branch is uh commanded by assistant chief Katie Blackwell.

The community trust and engagement branch is commanded by assistant chief Chris Gators.

Underneath each branch are the bureaus.

Uh so three bureaus are overseen by sworn deputy chiefs, and two bureaus are overseen by civilian uh deputy chiefs of the police department.

So the Patrol Bureau investigations and professional standards bureau are each overseen by a sworn member, and the constitutional policing bureau and the internal affairs bureau are overseen by civilian deputy chiefs.

Within the uh constitutional policing bureau, that's a new bureau from last year.

We have the implementations unit, the inspections unit, policy and research, and U visa.

Under the Internal Affairs Bureau, which is also new, having internal affairs structured as a bureau, the candidate investigation section, force investigations, and the internal complaint investigations.

Under the professional standards bureau, you have the Administrative Services Division, community Outreach, procedural justice, and our training division.

Next slide.

So just for purposes of purposes of the budget.

Actually, can you go back one, please?

For purposes of the budget, the budget is divided into four budgetary programs.

Investigations is one, public safety, which includes patrol and special operations, constitutional policing, which includes implementation, procedural justice, and then professional standards, which includes IA training, administration for fleet, IT, and records.

Thank you.

So this is an overview of the mission vision values and goals that was approved by MDHR and Alifa after some extensive community feedback.

Essentially, you know, breaking down the purpose of the police department to reduce serious to reduce serious crime while earning community trust and uh and restoring uh rebuilding the police department.

The goals to deliver excellent services, reduce crime, build trust, provide safe and healthy environment for our employees.

The vision uh that we're rooted uh in transparency, accountability, trust, and an unwavering commitment to serve all people fairly.

Our values are grounded in the foundational belief in the sanctity of human life, that all human life is inherently sacred, valuable, and must be protected.

So the outcomes Minneapolis objectives, this is a standard um kind of format that we had to fit what the police department does into this.

Um the objectives that we chose to fit into this structure as best we could.

Provide emergency response to criminal activity and 911 calls to create a safe community for everyone, create an environment of trust, provide justice to victims and hold offenders accountable.

Process crime scenes and evidence, investigate criminal activity in support of effective prosecutions, and provide outreach to the most vulnerable community members.

Recruit qualified individuals who reflect the makeup of the city, conduct outreach to building trusting relationships with all we serve, and adhere to the settlement agreement and MDHR reform requirements.

Provide public safety without bias, ensure resources are used effectively, and ensure officers are healthy, well-trained, accountable, and professional.

Thank you.

So the next slide is uh this is the median uh police response time, and this is for priority one calls for service.

Uh priority one is uh generally a serious crime in progress or a life-threatening emergency.

The goal uh for priority one calls for service everywhere in the city is to respond uh at or under seven minutes, and you can see the median is eight minutes and twenty nine seconds, which is the same as it was last year, slightly less than 22 and 23, but still significantly above uh what have been normal prior to 2020.

Uh it's not on here, but the uh the goal for other calls, priority two calls, which are generally reports, uh, is at or under 20 minutes or less, and then the lowest priority that we have is 90 minutes or less.

Next slide.

So the outcomes measures for the investigations and forensics.

This is just listing basically every piece of evidence that our investigators and forensics division process.

Uh you can see it's a lot of cell phones, DCCs are uh discharged uh shell casings, ballistics, e-traces are traces of either firearms or the shell casings that we recover from seeing.

We do that through uh the ATF, firearms processed or recovered, whether it's through an arrest or at a crime scene, the number of scenes responded to, the number of vehicles processed, and the number of video recoveries conducted.

This is a measure of uh the number of firearms recovered by the MPD.

Uh as you can see, it it uh it's generally uh hovering around a thousand for the last uh last few years.

And so, in relation to the goal of having a healthy workforce, this is the uh the measurement that we have is a survey uh from employees that our health and wellness unit conducted.

Health and wellness is staffed by a psychologist and two sworn members currently, and we had 242 respondents to the survey over a 14-day period, representing a diverse cross-section of sworn and civilian employees within the police department.

And this is just uh their awareness of the various health and wellness services available.

Next slide is uh showing the current sworn staffing.

So this is everybody, this isn't just new hires.

Uh prior to 2020, the department uh was 75% white and 25% uh people of color.

Uh as of 2025 today, it is two-thirds white and a little over a third uh people of color.

And you'll see that's because of uh that's because of who the people are that we're hiring.

Uh management decisions and equity impacts uh training.

Uh so that this is just to maximize the existing budget training.

Uh there's a focus now on trying to stay local, doing things online and in-house with partner agencies, which again is difficult because there's about 152 hours of additional training that's required uh for personnel under the state settlement agreement as well as the consent decree.

We're using our crime pattern response protocol to try and uh be as effective as we can with our resources, particularly when we have these crime sprees.

Last year we had difficulties with uh groups of juveniles committing armed robbery sprees, which were many, several armed robberies being committed around the city in a short period of time.

This year, the challenge uh most recently has been uh these sprees of property damage, uh, you know, car windows being broken and some uh some thefts from vehicles.

Those are a little bit more challenging.

Obviously, it's less serious of a crime than a person being robbed, uh, but it's more challenging to respond to because we don't necessarily know uh when these cars are being damaged.

If a person isn't there, they report it to us several hours later.

It's it's a bit more difficult to use this response.

We have the public safety partnership, which is not a grant per se, but it's something we applied to, we were awarded from the Department of Justice, where the Department of Justice uh has a group of folks we meet with every two weeks, and they are able to provide certain uh services for the city, whether it's uh exchange, peer exchange programs with other cities or and uh some technical assistance in terms of uh experts that can come in and assist the police department.

Utilizing grant funding to purchase forensic lab equipment.

Uh we've utilized the JAG fund for evidence boxes, security cameras, uh evidence drying chamber, and uh the Paul Coverdale Forensic Science Grant uh for equipment uh to triage discharge cell casings.

We're utilizing virtual reality equipment to reduce the cost of ammunition, taser probes, and training personnel uh for the new use of force training, department wide race and other equity metrics.

There's approval of a new policy for non-discriminatory policing and procedural justice that's pursuant to the MDHR settlement agreement.

There's been public listening sessions regarding our policies.

Everything that's covered under the consent decree, those listening sessions continue.

Uh the unity community collaboration.

We're still working through the memorandum of agreement uh with uh several reforms that are covered within that.

The DOJ uh community-oriented policing grant, which is the focus on the recruitment and retention of women officers.

We've just been uh awarded that, uh, the 30 by 30 initiative, and we are developing a new recruitment plan focusing on continuing to diversify the police department.

The police department uh we've hired over a hundred people so far this year for sworn positions.

It's going to take them a variety of time periods to become officers, but the majority of the people that we have hired this year are people of color.

Achievements, there is an overall reduction in overall crime.

Every category of violent crime is continues to be down year to date compared to last year.

Property crime as well is down year to date compared to last year.

The one particular type of crime that is up is uh destruction of property that's up about 4% year to date, and that's being driven by these uh you know, smash and grab uh sprees that we've had damaging windows to cars.

It's 145 total new hires in 2025, including all the different pathways to becoming police officers.

We hired two uh civilian uh bureau chiefs, as I mentioned.

We have conducted facilities improvements uh pursuant to the MDHR agreement.

There is a new first precinct.

Uh the second precinct has had uh considerable work done uh for upgrades, and there's ongoing work to other police facilities.

Internal affairs uh and OPCR misconduct SOPs have been approved by the independent monitor, and all internal affairs backlog cases that resulted in cultureing uh going back several years through the end of March of this year, have been audited by the monitor.

The use of force policies have been approved, and we are about two-thirds of the way through completing the new three-day uh use of force training.

Risks and lessons learned.

There obviously continues to be a staffing shortage.

We are today uh about 600 and sworn total sworn members.

That includes uh 32 recruits that are still in the academy that have yet to hit the street.

Um, you know, we depend on overtime and critical staffing over time uh just to answer 911 calls for minimum staffing, as well as to do any of the other uh crime suppression initiatives that are necessary, whether it's late-night safety uh around some of the bars in the city or responses to some of the crime patterns as they pop up.

We're using uh short-term contracts to address force investigations uh backlog.

That's obviously not sustainable.

Uh the long-term, the long-term goal is to build out the force investigations team, which will require uh significantly more personnel, both sworn and civilian.

Further uh, any further reductions obviously would have uh a dramatic impact, whether it be on settlement agreement compliance or response uh and level of service.

Staffing is not keeping pace with the required workload in training caseloads, etc.

It's just uh, it's just a matter of math.

There remains a much higher caseload than what was normal prior to 2020, and at the same time, there's additional work that was not here in 2020.

It's all work around uh settlement agreement uh compliance uh as well as additional training that's required from those agreements.

The dated data systems, um, the data systems were not conceptualized for the purpose of complying with these agreements.

Uh these data systems are all individually siloed, and this is a challenge that's not just unique to Minneapolis.

I think every city that's gone through a consent decree has the same issue, and it's uh it is uh a difficult problem to get through and certainly one that's expensive.

Recidivism remains a uh a problem, particularly uh finding appropriate facilities uh for young offenders that are kind of uh on the fringe, the small group that are very, very active.

Reduction in crime is is obviously requires a greater use of resources, particularly as uh you know we have spikes and uh very very um high frequencies of crime within a short period of time.

And then there's obviously uh in inflation uh due to contracts and uh you know collective bargaining agreements, and just like the rest of the city, we're expecting to have less grant funding as we go forward.

Lessons learned.

Uh the crime pattern response protocol has been effective, uh, as has been, I think some of our outreach uh with uh juvenile offenders and trying to build relationships with their families and connect them with services.

The dedication to uh deadline compliance has required uh staff being repurposed from regular duties and requires both additional time and resources.

Obviously, collaboration is key and having all voices at the table as early as possible to solve potential issues arising in the future.

Uh, wellness director obviously is essential to long term where we need to be for a health and wellness uh for particularly for our officers, and I think we've seen that uh is especially true over the last couple of weeks, and the lack of uh a communications director within the MPD has definitely hindered our ability both to respond timely uh but also to be a bit more strategic.

And there's clearly a lag time between hiring people for sworn positions and when we're able to get them out onto the street.

There's extensive requirements uh, you know, for uh to be licensed within the state, and whether that's young people that we're getting that we're hiring, we're paying for them to go to college and paying them to be community service officers while they do that.

In some cases, it's two or three years before we can get them into the academy.

And even with folks who have bachelor's degrees and master's degrees, there's still several months of schooling that they have to go through as cadets before we're able to uh get them into the academy, director.

Madam Chair, committee members, I'm Vicky Troswick, MPD finance director.

And this slide shows our 2026 mayor recommended budget, 229.3 million dollars.

98% of this is considered the general fund.

The other two percent, about 3.7, is grant funded or special revenue funds.

And those grant funds would be we have um CDBG that supports seven crime prevention specialists.

We have a couple people that uh go out to establishments and audit the gambling facil uh establishments, then we have an auto theft um funded by an auto theft grant, and then a data analyst.

So those are kind of our grant funding, just two percent of our total.

But this slide represents all funds.

And as you can see, this is by expense type.

So almost 80% of our budget is personnel.

There's an additional 36 million that are internal service charges or allocation charges that are fixed.

That's about 16% of our budget.

Um, and you can see contractual service has increased a little bit, and that is mainly due to those internal service charges, the IT, the rent, the fleet.

That went up three million.

And then when you look at the, I guess that's yellow, the operating, that has a reduction, and that's related to our liability insurance allocation went down about four million dollars.

That's reflected in the operating costs.

This is a similar slide.

I should have said the change in our 25-26 budget is minimal.

It's about $322,000 reduction.

So we had the increases in the allocation models, then the decrease and the liability.

We have our um normal increases for salary infringement, and then we had a two percent reduction about five million dollars for our mayor recommended reductions.

And we'll go through the detail in that on a slide later.

This slide represents um the budgets organized by the budgetary program.

So our largest program is our public safety program, and that's our patrol and special operations.

This is where the you'll see the reduction of that 4.9 liability insurance.

That'll fall under that program, as well as some of the COCSOT reduction that we proposed.

And then we have our investigations and forensics area.

That had an increase of 1.7, and that's probably mainly the personnel settled contracts.

And then our special services, special professional standards, I'm sorry.

That's where internal affairs, training, administration, that's where you're gonna see the increase related to those allocation charges for the IT, the rent, the fleet.

And then lastly, we have the constitutional policing program.

That includes our implementation unit, our procedural justice, and our community engagement.

And that's been growing since 2023 due to the implementation, the compliance for the settlement agreement.

This slide shows our changes in FTE from 25 to 26.

So we did have an increase of two FTEs for compliance specialists in our implementation unit, and that was proposed in our 25-26 um adopted budget.

And then we took non-personnel and did an administrative addition for one of the bureau chief additions.

So those were increases, and then the decreases that we proposed are five FTEs, and that'll be in our reductions that we'll discuss later.

Two of them were case investigators that were new in 25.

One was a community navigator, one is a police police support technician from the training area, and one with an OSS2 in licensing.

And then we had two transfers, one to the auditor and one to the OCS.

So that was a net change of four FTEs.

This is a our vacancies are 140 total, 119 of that are in sworn.

So that's a total vacancy rate of about 14.5%.

We do have 16 civilian vacancies, and we are holding the five that we're proposing in our 26 rejection vacant as well.

Now I'm going to throw it back to the chief to go through the operational objectives and metrics of each of the budgetary programs.

Thank you, Director uh Vice President.

So as I mentioned before, the police department is broken down into uh four.

The police department budget is broken down into four budgets.

Uh the first section, the constitutional policing program.

This includes uh community outreach, procedural justice, and the implementation unit.

Um obviously the primary goal of the implementation unit is to ensure compliance with both state and federal consent decrees.

Our recruitment and CSO program is to ensure we have uh we're able to recruit qualified and diverse candidates.

Uh, and community outreach includes the crime prevention specialists, our chaplains, and the embedded social worker uh program that we have.

Some key projects in the activity of uh constitutional policing, recruitment uh efforts that prioritize hiring candidates with diverse backgrounds who reflect the uh demographic makeup of the city.

Uh people that were hiring last year and this year, uh, the group of people for sworn positions is literally more diverse than the city.

Uh it is more than half uh people of color.

Um evaluate existing policy and develop new policy to ensure compliance with reform initiatives.

That's been very, very heavy uh over the past year.

That's when the bulk of the work of revising policy is done uh under both the state and federal consent decree because you obviously you cannot hold uh people accountable uh for new policies unless you've trained them.

And you cannot train them unless there's a policy in place.

And the way that it's set up under both of these consent decrees is you have to have uh community input.

You have to uh have input from both the federal, the uh independent monitor Alifa as well as MDHR.

And so it's been a very, very uh uh resource intensive and timely process uh to get policies approved, and then from that, we move on to getting the training approved, actually training personnel, and then having those new requirements go into effect for the entire department.

Officer culture, offer culturally competent, language-specific, and religion-sensitive uh crime scene assistance, organize and facilitate community engagement sessions, represent the department at local community events, build strong relationships with community members to foster trust and mutual understanding, and administer the U visa program to create positive relationships between MPD and our communities while providing support to vulnerable victims of crime.

Obviously, diversity in recruitment and hiring is tracked and reported by human resources and reflecting an increase in diversity to each pathway to policing.

Community perception surveys, the results from that show comparative year-over-year feeling of safety by precinct.

Settlement agreement compliance is reflected in major policy areas such as the new crisis intervention policy, the new mission, vision, values, and goals, the new non-discriminatory and procedural justice policies, our critical decision-making model, which is used throughout all of our training sessions with our officers, our new emergency medical response policy.

We've created a policy resource hub that will allow members to easily find policies, definitions, and sign-off that they have read the new policies.

The policy resource hub is essentially an app that's specific to pushing out the individual policies.

It's something that's searchable, like a Google search.

You can look things up, as opposed to the current setup, which was basically just a PDF that you could access off of your phone.

We've hosted community engagement sessions as well as internal sessions with our employees to get feedback on all of these policies.

We completed five QRPs.

These are quarterly review panels.

They cover six topics, which are the uh level one and level two uses of force, citations, traffic stops, pedestrian stops, discretionary searches, and arrests.

So we've been conducting these panels pursuant to the settlement agreement, even prior to the new policies being in place.

And it just uh it helps us to ensure better quality assurance and follow-up, you know, from a review of what officers are actually doing in the field.

Our compliance team has conducted literally hundreds of hours of reviews on videos of use of force from in-car cameras, body worn cameras, as well as ensuring uh procedural justice techniques are being used during stops.

And so the picture shown of the top 10 activity types in 2025 for our crime prevention specialist, uh, which is also under this bureau, and community contact, obviously being the most uh common business contact, and then community meeting uh following that.

That's good.

The next program is investigations and forensics.

This includes our violent crimes investigations division, special crimes investigations division, intelligence division, and forensic services division.

Objectives include uh processing crime scenes and evidence and investigate criminal activity in support of effective prosecutions so that offenders can be held accountable.

Victims can get justice and outreach services are provided.

Ensure children, victims of intimate partner violence, victims of sexual assault, human trafficking, juvenile services, and communities disproportionately affected by violence receive the care and support they deserve.

Track crime patterns, uh direct geographic patrol efforts to reduce violence.

Next slide.

And uh key projects and activities under this program.

We have our gun investigations unit, the homicide unit, and the juvenile unit, which all participate in the group violence intervention program with the neighborhood safety department.

We have a domestic violence project pilot project, assessing gaps in response to domestic violence and assessing the risk of those involved.

That started a couple months ago uh in North Minneapolis in the fourth precinct, and it's soon going to be expanding to the third precinct.

That's something that we're working on with a number of groups to uh basically assess the uh effectiveness of the risk assessment tool that we're using responding to domestic violence.

Metrics of a success monitor evidence handling and review internal processes, track and report evidence process such as cell phones, uh shell casings, firearms, scene response, vehicles processed, and video recoveries by year, and maintain uh accreditation for our forensics lab.

The next program is our professional standards.

This includes internal affairs, administrative services, as well as training.

The increase in budget is from personnel per contract and contractual increases due to internal uh charges for IT rent and fleet.

Objectives are to provide public safety without bias, ensure resources are used effectively, ensure officers are healthy and well trained, ensure officers are accountable and provide professional services consistent with expectations of the community and the settlement agreement.

Review and investigate internal affairs complaints and complete background checks on new employees.

Key projects and activity of professional standards, crisis intervention training provides tools to respond safely and effectively during high stress situations.

Implementation of an early intervention system assist in identifying needs for professional development and assists in employee wellness.

This is uh this continues to be in progress.

The Internal Affairs Division works with the Office of Police Conduct Review to investigate violations of the department's policy and procedural manual, provides investigative support to critical incidents, maintains the confidentiality of internal affairs investigations and records, and conducts candidate investigations for the hiring process.

Metrics of success, conduct wellness survey to track awareness and satisfaction with our wellness services that are offered for our employees, track internal affairs case backlog, and review and revise curriculum.

Public safety program, which includes patrol and special operations.

Budgetary decrease is mainly uh liability insurance of 4.8 million and CSOT of 1.5 million, with an offsetting increase in personnel and internal charges such as rent.

The objectives, obviously, the 911 response and specialty response as needed.

Supply patrol personnel, civilian professional staff and investigators to five precincts, provide emergency response to criminal activity, respond to 911 calls and community needs for safety and security, investigate thefts, burglaries, and property crimes, provide specialty teams to investigate and protect the safety of the community and respond to significant incidents.

Public safety key activities and metrics, the community response team, which assists with filling the gaps for response related to livability issues that take more time, such as uh street level drug activity, loitering, and other problems that uh residents and community are raising to the local precinct inspector.

They assist uh and are available to all precincts to assist with gun investigations, community disputes, and and other livability issues.

Community MSTEP meetings within all precincts to keep the community informed and disseminate appropriate information.

It's a great opportunity to work with community and share uh pertinent information.

Generally happens uh about every six weeks, and we try to rotate it around all the neighborhoods throughout the city.

We are a late night safety plan, which originated downtown but also now includes Dinky Town and Uptown.

Uh 2025 uh funding was provided for extra beats on uh 19th and nicolet and an officer in Dinky Town as well.

Metrics is uh 911 response times as well as information provided by community survey to provide inspectors with residents perception in each precinct and to identify new issues.

Next.

Do you want to jump on this one?

Uh Vice President, I'll pass it off to the director again.

Thank you, Chair.

Committee members, thank you, Trotsky, MPD Finance Director again.

Um, so this these are our proposed reductions, um, totaling about $5 million or about two percent of our budget.

Um the goals of these changes were not to in fact affect um city employees, so no layoffs here.

Um we did reduce by five vacant positions.

Um the goal was also to minimize the impact to the both the response to the residents and any impact of victims minimized, and as well as consider the settlement agreement compliance needs.

So this represents five FTE to our case investigators.

We received five in the 2025 budget, so we're gonna hold two of those five vacant.

Um so those were not hired.

Uh community navigator position was vacated.

We currently have nine community navigators and one manager, so that would be reduced by one.

Then we have a supplete police support tech one.

Um we had a retirement in the training area, so those duties will be absorbed by other um new employees within that area, and then we have one reduction of an office support specialist two.

Um those duties are in the licensing area, and they're gonna be um absorbed by people that um help with gambling audits.

So we have absorbed um a couple of the longer term vacancies, the support tech one and the support specialist two have been long-term vacancies that those duties have been absorbed by other positions.

We also had two transfers during the year.

The other reduction, the largest reduction is gonna be the critical staffing overtime.

So that pays two times overtime.

Um, so that's about 3.6 million dollars is what we calculated when we use uh the prior year's CSOT time, reduce it to one and a half times.

And then we have a supplies reduction, and that is mainly we have a five-year life on most of our ammunitions, and so we're starting to get so we were getting low on stocks, or historical purchasing's been a little bit higher than normal, so we're trying to reduce it back to that 20 percent a year, and we think that we're able to do that um by absorbing the majority of this 463,000 that would be in supplies and the other area it's called operating supplies on our previous chart.

And then our training and travel.

Again, the chief mentioned we're trying to stay local and work with other agencies, and so that reduction is 200,000.

We also have uh 150,000 for the mounted patrol that was reduced and reallocated in 25.

We're putting that up again.

We're hoping to find other ways to fund that area.

And then across the city, um, we were all asked to reduce our food and beverage um budget.

So that was forty thousand and that concludes our presentation.

We're happy to stand for questions.

Thank you for that presentation, colleagues.

Are there any questions or discussion items?

I will first recognize council member Cashman, followed by Vice Chair Koske.

Thank you, Madam Chair, thank you, Chief O'Hara and Director Troswig for the presentation.

It was really detailed.

I appreciated um the analyti analysis of the outcomes on response times and evidence processed by investigators and activities of the crime prevention specialists.

Uh so I just had a few questions to make sure I'm understanding this data correctly.

Um the first one was about response times.

Um the lowest priority calls have a longer response time of about 90 minutes.

And can you remind us what qualifies as a low priority call?

Thank you, Vice President.

So the the lowest priority is something that's not uh it's not a crime in progress, it's not uh like a life-threatening incident, it's not uh an incident of medical uh anything medical in nature uh and it's also not a report of uh a significant crime.

So there's uh disturbances and other things that uh do not qualify as a crime per se or a report of a crime, and uh they're actually categorized by MECC and then entered into the uh the CAD, the computer aided dispatch, and it's based off of that categorization is how the officers respond.

Okay, how would um trespassing be qualified?

Is that one or two?

Uh Vice President Councilmember, it's definitely not priority one.

I don't know if it's a priority too.

I don't know if one of the sworn members here would know offhand.

It is two?

Okay, thank you.

Uh I'm being told it is two.

Thank you.

And then uh next question is why you think the volume of evidence processed by investigations declined in 23 and 24.

Uh Vice President, Council Member.

Sorry, say that again, why would the volume of evidence processed in 2023 and 2024?

Just give me one second to find the slide we're talking about.

I could go through this, but I can tell you offhand just from looking at it, knowing what I know.

There were definitely less uh ballistics recovered because there were less shots fired.

There were less shootings, there were less rounds being fired uh in all three of those years.

But we would have to go through it further.

Because I can see, see that uh light blue line that's kind of the biggest uh that says DCC's process, that's uh discharged casings, like it's shell casings, ballistic evidence that's recovered, and there were definitely a whole lot less rounds being fired ever since 2021 that's been declining, as well as the number of shooting incidents has been declining each year.

So that's why I think that's what's driving that change there.

Okay, thank you.

And then and then e-traces also uh looks like it, but yeah.

And then going to page 11, we have uh reduction in crime cited.

Uh so wondering if that's year to date for 2024 with year to date 2025, or all of 2024 versus year to date 2025.

Uh Vice President, Councilmember, that's year to date as of the day we had to submit this to the city clerk, which I think this one's ended, yes, sir.

Uh end of August, I'm being told.

For 2024 as well, was that the whole year or year to year?

We compare uh year to date to year-to-date.

Okay.

Thanks.

Um next is on the recruits.

So 145 new recruits this year is really impressive.

Great work.

Um I'm wondering how close that gets us to the charter mandated minimum of sworn officers.

Yeah, Vice President, Councilmember.

Um we're still having normal attrition.

Uh and so I think uh generally the city has about 40 uh uh people that it loses each year for sworn positions.

We've lost 35 already this year.

I know there's two separations pending right now.

There's another person that uh is relatively new that's gonna be leaving uh next month for for another uh city.

So we're at 607.

That includes the 32 recruits that are in the academy that haven't graduated yet.

Um and there will be some other separations this year.

So I mean it's uh 731 minus 607.

My math isn't that good offhand, but it's still it's still gonna fluctuate.

Um, you we're gonna have at least 20 more recruits go into the academy in October, possibly 22, uh, which is a smaller group than what I had hoped for.

We'll probably get another two dozen CSOs or so in October, uh, and then hire another group of CSOs before the end of the year.

So all that being said, right now there are there are 32 recruits.

We're including them in the number, but they're gonna be graduating and going out onto the street before the end of the month.

There's currently 54 community service officers, which is more than the city has ever had, and we're probably gonna be hiring uh about two dozen more in October.

Um, and uh a number of uh cadets that will be coming on as well.

So I think it's possible uh in in uh a year, two years for us to get to the uh charter minimum, but it depends on the rate of attrition, and they're just the remains um there remains 122 members who are eligible to retire right now.

So that's the trouble.

And then you occasionally get people that just decide this isn't for them.

So that's helpful.

Um, last couple of questions here is what do you think would be needed to solve more crimes?

Where is capacity limited in investigations?

More FTEs, better training, or better tools.

Uh uh council vice president, council member uh people.

I mean it's just it's people.

You know, we have the FTEs for sworn, we just don't have the people.

Um we can always use way more civilian investigators.

We just we don't have the people.

Um I think uh I think I think for sure that's the that's the biggest thing.

And whether that comes from FTEs or whether that comes from us being able to get help from other agencies, I would take whatever we could get.

It's particularly when you have like we've had recently, you have a whole bunch of cases at one time, and there's only so many people to handle those cases, and they still have cases that were pending before you have a spike in crime.

So, given that I'm having trouble squaring the decision to cut two case investigator positions as two of the FTEs that were new civilian investigator positions that the council added this year.

Uh Council Vice President, Councilmember, that was just the goal was to try and not have uh layoffs and to not affect settlement agreement uh compliance, as well as uh, you know, the ability to respond and and process all of these scenes.

Um so the decision was made from recommendations that came up uh individually from each of the uh each of the components of the department, and that's where it landed.

And I believe those are the vacancies that are that are being cut.

Since they weren't hired yet, yes this year.

And the other people that are in process, in process of being hired, they are not cut.

Well, I think that's that's something that I think uh I think civilian investigators have been a really strong addition.

Uh and I think it sounds like from your from your need in investigation is something that is needed.

And it looks like I know you have the goal to bring contractual services in-house, but the contractual services number didn't drop this year.

Is there anything in contractual services that could be reduced further as we're bringing more of that work in-house according to your goals?

Director, if you want to, Chair, Councilmember Cashman, Vicky Trosby, MPD Finance Director.

Um we have a lot of contractual services more technology-based.

So there's not a lot of room, you know, when you take out the internal allocation charges.

Most of those live under that contractual service area, so that's why you see that large group.

Um, but that's 36 million that are internal service charges, so not able to just use that money elsewhere.

And we do have a lot of committed contracts.

I think very close to five million, if not more than that, um, of that remaining budget is committed to contracts already in place.

Got it.

Okay, just two more questions.

Thanks.

Uh, does every precinct have a CRT team?

Uh Council Vice President, Councilmember, every precinct is covered uh by uh CRT team.

So there's one on the north side that covers the north side and the east side.

Uh there's a downtown one and there's a south side team, and they all work together, but it is not what it was uh prior to 2020, where each individual precinct had dedicated personnel.

Thank you.

And then last question was that party view reductions was that mounted patrol is reduced.

Um I have some questions about that given that we did reduce that last year to move it into crime prevention specialists.

Then the mounted patrol remained this year, which I think came from private donations from the downtown council, though I never saw that come through as a gift acceptance in the administration oversight committee.

Um do you have any answer as to how that happened?

Uh council vice president, council member.

I know there's still been ongoing work uh to raise private funds to sustain this uh into next year.

Um, and I don't have uh any further knowledge of uh any gifts acceptance or anything yet, but I know people have been working to raise money to sustain that.

Thank you.

Could I ask the attorney to follow up on whether there have been private donations to cover mounted patrol if we did accept those gifts or if we do need to?

Chair, Councilmember Cashman.

The city attorney's office advises and the ethics officer advises on that, but we do not track that information, so that would be in limbs.

So uh council vice president, council member, for clarification, we have not received any donations yet.

Yeah, we have not yet received any donations.

Okay.

So how is the mounted patrol funded this year?

At the beginning of the year, we I'm sorry, Chair, Councilmember Cashman.

At the beginning of the year, we had made a decision to reallocate that reduction to other areas.

So we were cutting back on things like um improvements to facilities that aren't required by our settlement agreement and trying to cut back on other supplies and areas so that we could keep the mounted.

It's it's expensive to eliminate the mounted, um, and so that means a lot of planning.

So we didn't have that in place either.

And um just to further respond to your question about a donation.

Should we receive funds that will go through the AEO committee as a gift acceptance?

And you would be seeing that, but we have not received any funds to date.

Okay, thanks.

The amount of patrol reduction that's listed at the end, is that in whole uh in whole or in part?

It's in part.

There's officers that work there, so that's excluded.

This amount is simply taken from the 2025 reduction amount.

Um, so I would say there's still some funding.

I would have to look and see how much is in that category, but maybe 50 to 100,000 more would be my guess.

Okay.

Not including the officers.

Could I request a follow-up then on the total amount budgeted for amounted patrol and then how much that reduction accounts for?

Thank you.

Happy to.

Thank you so much, uh, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

And next I will recognize Vice Chair Koske.

Thank you so much, uh, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much, Chief O'Hara, for this presentation.

Appreciate it and appreciate all that your department uh does every day.

I we just heard um probably going to a call right now and just grateful for the work that we see every single day.

I know it's been a tremendous challenge and uh grateful for to see all the achievements and the work that you've been able to do to uh support the department.

Uh just a few questions here.

Um I saw that one of the community navigators is being eliminated, but I was just curious.

I don't see it anywhere in the police department org chart.

Um where do these positions fall within the structure?

And I maybe I just missed it.

Uh, it could be the community.

Investigations, right?

Yeah.

Uh Vice Chair uh and uh I'm sorry, Vice President and Vice Chair.

Uh the community navigators work with victims of crime, so they're under the investigations bureau uh and specifically under the violent crimes investigations division.

I'm just not sure if there's a box on the chart for it because we don't have a box for literally everything.

Um, it's investigations.

Yeah, so it's it would be covered under that violent crimes investigations division.

Okay, thank you.

Um so this might be a similar uh question then.

Is the domestic violence navigators program maintained in this budget?

And does its staffing and funding remain the same from prior years?

I'm sorry, excuse me, vice vice chair, vice president.

I apologize, there's an emergency.

Um, I'm sorry, could I have the question again, please?

Sure.

But I'm happy to pause my questions if you need to get the question.

No, no, we just need to.

Someone needs to get down there.

Thank you.

Um, is the domestic violence navigators program maintained in this budget and does it does its staffing and funding remain the same as in prior years?

No, community navigator.

Yeah.

Okay.

So there's nine plus one managers of ten.

We're gonna go down to eight plus one manager.

You want to give the change on it?

Okay.

Chair Chug Kai, Councilmember Koski.

So community navigators, I believe it's the same as the domestic navigators.

We have nine plus one manager, and we are we did have a vacancy for that just recently.

So we are going down one navigator.

So it would be eight navigators plus the manager in 2026.

Okay, so those domestic violence navigators are part of that program.

That's my understanding.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Um, so the budget eliminates funding for critical staffing over time with the expectation that remaining overtime will be covered through sworn vacancies.

Given that the police overtime budget has historically exceeded its appropriation year after year, what structures or mechanisms are in place to ensure the department stays within budget this year, especially with this reduction.

Chair Chugtai, Councilmember Koske.

This is the first year that we're not within budget.

In the in the past, we've had additional budget for overtime.

And so in 2025, this is the first year we did not receive overtime budget, and so that is why we are running over.

Unfortunately, it looks like it would be the same experience as yesterday or as next year, unless we're able to reduce the number of hours of overtime.

So that would be an operational change.

So this um reflects the change in the price of that overtime.

So CSOT is two times.

This reduction reflects we will no longer pay two times.

We will be the normal overtime rate of one and a half, and this does not reflect a change in hours.

And when is that change happening from the two times to the one and a half time?

Or has it already happened?

Chair Chugtai, Councilmember Koski, we have a letter of agreement in place that goes through December of 30, December 31st of 2025.

So it's possible that it can continue through the rest of this year through that letter of agreement.

Okay.

Uh, that's helpful.

Thank you so much.

Um, I know we you went through and listed the uh positions that were being proposed to be eliminated.

Can you provide the length of time each of these positions have been vacant prior to the proposed elimination?

Chair Chugtai, Councilmember Koski.

So as you know, the two new case investigators were never filled.

Um the community navigator, I believe, has just been vacant for a month or two.

And the police support tech one and specialist two, those have one of them was a retirement that probably happened in May, and the other one has been a long time vacancy.

Um these have always been as we look for vacancies, we always propose that as a cut.

So I think we've kind of held it open um sort of on a consistent basis as we get this question regularly.

So I think that's why it's been open long term, and that's in the licensing area, and so those duties were already absorbed, expecting to reduce this position in previous budget.

Okay, thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Um asked my questions about the mounted patrol unit.

I guess just another follow-up on that.

Uh is essentially what is the what's your expectation for the program?

I'm I'm hearing from you that you would like it to continue and you're going to be figuring out other what you're reducing it, but you're figuring out other ways in order to keep it.

Is that the overall outcome you're trying to achieve?

Uh the vice president, vice chair, yes.

Uh that has been the goal uh to try and uh have that supported by other means.

Okay, thank you.

Um and then another question I have.

Last fall we discussed the overspending in the chief detail line item.

It was budgeted at roughly around 600,000, but had spent over 2 million in the first half of the year and about four million by the third quarter.

We were told uh this was a budget allocation error and that the vast majority was related to expenses for staff that are not budgeted in that division.

How has this been remedied for this 2026 division budget?

And where can we see that change?

Chair Chugtai, Councilmember Koske.

In the 2026 budget, I did do a lot of realignment.

Um there is still the problem of miscoding, and we're gonna have that until we can replace workforce director, just when they bring on new people and the coding that goes in place and how the systems connect is not um it's not working very well.

So we do still have that issue.

That would the that was the majority of that problem.

But I did reallocate budgets.

I know um, for instance, the chaplain was in that budget, so that was reallocated to the community engagement area.

So I did do a lot of line item revisions.

Um, so realigning the budget across areas.

I don't know that it's perfect act, but I've spent some time trying to, you know, reorganize that in the 26th budget.

Okay.

Um I think it's important because I think it was almost four million dollars of so I appreciate you reclarifying.

What did you say?

Re are the wrong code or how how do I I don't want to miss state how you describe it.

Chair Chugtai, Councilmember Koske.

I realigned them to other divisions.

Um, but we're still gonna see that problem depending on what they're using for a default code when they don't know where the position goes, or something airs when workforce director talks to comment.

If it airs, then there's a default code they use, and so unfortunately that's what that was.

Okay.

I just think you know, we you gave me a 10-year look back, and it obviously has been happening for 10 years.

Um I'm just curious, like what would be the best remedy?

Is it a is it is it technology and what is it that we would need to do in order to uh shift that?

And is this happening in any other division, or for whatever reason, is it just always defaulting into this that line item?

Chair Chug Councilmember Koske.

I think with workforce director, it will be remedied.

Um so hopefully by the end of 26 that will be on board and workforce director and comet will be able to talk to each other, and so I don't think we're gonna have that.

Um, and also just trying to align where people are budgeted, they do move around in this division, and it is heavy in personnel.

So even when, you know, our our personnel budget is 180 million, and so to have a two or four million dollar error, while it sounds like a really big number, is not a huge, it's not a huge number because comparative to our entire budget.

Um, but I do think we're gonna still have this problem until workforce director is resolved.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you.

I will note that we've been joined in this uh committee meeting by Councilmember Osman as well.

Um, and next I will recognize Councilmember Palmsano, followed by Councilmember Vito.

Thank you.

Thanks for being here, Ms.

Troswick and Chief.

Um a couple questions.

Our response time has stayed the same for five years.

I know Chief O'Hara's goal is seven minutes.

When do you anticipate starting to see the rewards of this additional staffing?

Because I know how we're currently keeping up with mandatory overtime in that.

Vice President, Councilmember.

Um hopefully in another year or two uh we can see uh a significant uh decline decline.

Um, we've been hovering with basically the same number of people total sworn for the last year or two.

Um yes, the whole number is is a bit higher than it had been before.

That includes the recruits in the academy.

Um it's just gonna take time as we continue to hire more community service officers, eventually within two years of them being hired, they will be through the academy.

So it's just uh it's just a matter of increasing the the total sworn staffing.

We're still depending on overtime every shift in every precinct uh to provide minimum staffing.

Thank you.

I do appreciate that.

I'm also particularly interested in the health and wellness of our officers.

I know that having healthy officers are having safe officers in some of the categories that you shared, like confidential counseling, peer support, employee assistance have real good markers of awareness, you called it on your slide.

But then others like drug counseling, rehab, stress management seem to be lacking.

Are there plans to increase awareness on that?

Council Vice President, Councilmember, yes.

They've been they've been trying to visit uh the commands at least once a week, the health and wellness unit, to establish relationships with employees and to uh I think they've been very successful at trying to normalize this stuff.

Um and even uh, you know, even uh two weeks ago uh when we had uh when we had that tragedy, um we had our health and wellness team respond to the scene.

Uh and and I think I have got I know I've gotten a lot of positive feedback uh from officers who are affected that they just they feel um that we've been more intentional about ensuring health and wellness.

So I think it's just a matter of continuing what we're doing, what we're doing to establish relationships around the commands, have the folks present in training, uh, and and have training that explains everything that is available.

And I think over time it will be more and more acceptable.

Thank you.

I will also note that you had mounted patrol there at Harper Moisky's memorial service yesterday at the band shell, and it was lovely.

They were not there as security or they weren't actually mounted, they were truly there for visitors, for healing, for petting, for just general interaction with the public, and it was a real positive um point of a really sad day.

Um in your risks and lessons learned slide.

Um you'd also mentioned the importance of a wellness director.

Can you remind me is is that a new director that was named or what I I wasn't real clear on what you meant?

Uh Council Vice President, Councilmember, that is something that is required for uh consent decree compliance.

That would be a new position.

It's not something that we currently have, um, but that is the goal is we continue to build out this function uh and eventually uh have a suitable space, a better space of a better facility that that is uh uh more appropriate for the needs of health and wellness.

I see.

Um the other pieces of that risks and lessons slide, just real quickly, um the force investigations relying on contractors and an internal affairs backlog.

I know we all believe we've got to stay on top of things like this.

Um how do you think we should best do that?

Uh Council Vice President, Councilmember.

This is a new component uh was not required by the settlement agreement, but I do believe it's uh best practice.

We currently have one commander, a lieutenant, two sergeants, uh a case investigator that that's a police officer, and two civilian case investigators uh there.

The contracted service that we have assists with the administrative backlog, but the problem is the volume uh is still too great uh that once we cease having that service, we will begin to create another backlog.

So, um eventually it will take additional civilian uh investigators, uh, as well as some additional sworn personnel, because I think the goal is, or at least my goal would be to have sufficient uh investigative staff, including sworn staff, um, that they would be able to respond to the scene of serious uh use of force incidents.

And we're just we're not currently there yet.

Yeah, thank you.

That's informative and it's also instructive of kind of how we build future budgets.

Um my last question is just simply more external facing, and you mentioned youth recidivism in that slide of risks and lessons learned.

And I'm just curious, are have we seen any improvement at this point in youth recidivism?

Are our own internal programs making a difference from your perspective?

Council vice president, council member, yes.

Um but it just remains that we have um uh a very small percentage of kids that are the tough kids.

They're tough uh, you know, they're they're hard.

They're hard to deal with, and the system just isn't prepared to deal with them appropriately.

There aren't uh existing uh, you know, places for them.

Um, and that I think that remains a struggle for everybody, but I think the investigators and the police officers that have been doing outreach have established genuine relationships with uh a lot of family members and some of these kids that they wind up getting information, better information to try and prevent things from happening.

And we've seen, you know, over the last year that we've been doing this, at least if nothing else, a decline in the seriousness of uh of the crimes that that a lot of these kids have been involved in.

So we don't have the volume that we had a year ago.

Uh and we don't have the extreme seriousness of the violence that we have been seeing, the frequency of it.

Thank you.

I think that's good overall to hear.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, Chief, we've got about four more members in queue.

So next I'll recognize Councilmember Vita, followed by Councilmember Wansley.

Thank you, Chair Chuck Tye.

Thank you, Chief, for the presentation.

I just have um two quick questions.

Uh the first one is one of the things I hear the most about from people is um related to uh the Justice Department saying that the department unlawfully discriminates against black and Native Americans, and so what I hear from people a lot is what is the department doing to recruit in those populations of people specifically and not like you know the whole recruitment package, but are there any specific actions that are being taken?

And and I just want to preface that preference that questions by saying I think people think a way to give back or like fix some of the harms is by speaking directly to those communities that have been harmed and figuring out ways in how they um want to be recruited, or you know, how we as a city are recruiting people from those communities to now be on the police department, uh council vice president, council member.

Um I know at least for uh the share of African Americans being recruited in the police department has increased over the last year.

Um, and I know our team has been doing a lot uh to try and be uh as intentional as possible uh and be present at community events and whatever whatever other spaces we can be in.

Um I I think one pathway, and and we're open to going anywhere people will invite us to be to do that.

Um but I think one pathway that I just wish more people knew about, um, because it can be really life-changing for young people in the city, is people aren't aware that we can pay for your college and we can give you a job with a paycheck while you're going to college.

So we try and promote that community service officer pathway.

Um, and I think I think if you looked at the numbers, it's between that and the cadets where we've had the most progress trying to increase the diversity.

So, Chief, I think we have to do a better job at promoting that because I was at um, I think it was the mayor's budget presentation, and I walked out of the building, and there was a young woman, she's black, she's working here at the city, and she wants to uh come up through the department, and the first thing she said was, I don't have money, like I can't afford it.

And so we talked to her about like some of the programs and things that are available here to her at the city.

But what you just said is is a really good example.

This this happened the day of the mayor's budget, and she just so happened to be standing outside the building, and she's looking for resources, and it is a career path that I mean I want her to take too if she if that's what she wants, right?

But I don't know how we I'm I'm happy to talk to you or your staff or whomever and community to figure out how we do that, but I really do think it's important to community that we target um specific communities on this recruitment piece.

I I mean I just hear it a lot.

I hear it a lot from the Native and the Black community.

So I'd love to figure out how we work on that.

And I do think one of the pathways to that is you reinstating the POW program, you know, getting kids at a younger age and having those positive interactions.

I know that works, but we just kind of I feel like we kind of gotta beef it up a little bit and and really um invest in um how we reach out to these like true partnerships in reaching out to these communities and letting those communities know like we want you like we're here to work with you you tell us how we can get you uh to see this as a career pathway.

And then my second question is I went to a super cool presentation at the SOC over the last war week with um drones as a first responder and it was it was spectacular I I really liked it.

I liked it for a couple reasons.

The one is I have a really bad dumping problem in North Minneapolis where people just dump 200 some people I've gotten calls on a Monday or whatever day and there are 200 tires blocking someone from coming out of their alley or you know just massive amounts of trash and people use um the area for a dumping ground and it's not okay and I've I've tried to figure out how to rectify it.

We haven't come up with any solutions yet but I talked to these folks at this presentation about um you know the activity that we we have and how these could be used.

So I'm wondering are you having conversations about these uh drones as a first responder or um like is this something for a 2027 budget maybe not this upcoming budget and the other piece to that is um you know they were talking about we were talking about what was currently in the news and it was those car smash and grabs like those hundreds of cars and what they said to me was the drone could have been there in less than two minutes like been at the scene got photos got like a clear um look at who was there and where they went to and really helped as that first responder so I you know if technology is our friend in in the future of police and I think we should use it as much as possible.

That was the purpose of having the the presentation for everyone to see it.

We haven't had any uh further conversations after the demonstration but that's definitely a goal is to try and have some even uh a further pilot program to start in the city to try and do something um because definitely if if we had gotten a call which is that's the biggest if with these smash and grabs somebody's got to call us if people didn't know they're you know these cars got broken into till hours later it's no good but if and it does happen when somebody does call if we are able to put a drone out there yeah I mean it's not not only is it faster but it gives us the evidence then that we need the biggest problem with putting these cases together you have to be able to prove you know which kids specifically broke which window and things like that.

And the drone would provide video of stuff like that.

Yeah and they show me how it's linked to the officer's camera and like so many things I just think is really cool technology that can help us out a lot and in these times so that too I'm happy to have more conversations about how I can help with the pilot.

I do appreciate that we may have to start out with the pilot program because of what we're faced with um in in this budget up this upcoming budget season but I I don't want that to um just kind of go away because I think it would be really good uh for the city to see like how I mean so many low level crimes they they gave us stats on some cities that use these and and the level of um low-level crimes just have significantly changed 43% I think in San Francisco for like car thefts and um they showed us a video of some kids who had got a hold of their parents' guns and were out shooting them and the calls came in and because they had the the drone they could see that it was kids outside playing and not like an active shooting happening, and they were able to save the the young kids' lives.

And so, you know, I just think about situations that we have in this city every day that may not make the news but are you know super impactful to families, and that technology could probably help us out a lot more than we were even thinking of.

And I mean, you could think of any serious incident that's happened here outside uh, you know, whether recently, last few years or or what have you, uh anything that's happened outside for sure, having a drone as a first responder could have made a difference.

Yes.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

We've got uh three more speakers left in queue so far.

Um so next I'll recognize Councilmember Wansley, followed by Council President Payne.

Thank you, Chair Check.

I'm just gonna go in an order of slides.

Um, starting with slide number eight, um, regarding outcomes Minneapolis.

Would like to see if Chief, you could share more about MPD's correlation or how they see the correlation between the recovery of guns to homicide or homicides and non-fatal shootings.

Um for example, I I see that in 2024, MPD had recovered less guns than the previous year.

And are you on that?

Sorry, maybe it's I'm on the revised one, so it shows up as slide eight, that one.

There we go.

Um so again, 2024, it shows uh a slight decrease in the recovery of guns, and that also coincided with Minneapolis being one of the major cities um in the U.S.

that did see an increase in um homicides and murders that year.

So just wanted to get you all's understanding of that correlation.

Uh Council Vice President, Councilmember, thank you.

Um I think if you look deeper into what happened, uh talking about last year with the increase in homicides, it's it's driven by an increase in fatal shootings.

Um so while the number of shootings decreased, uh we had more fatal shootings.

So I don't think there's a correlation with um the high numbers of guns that are recovered uh in that.

Um we just simply had more shootings that resulted in fatalities, fewer shootings overall, just more shootings that resulted in fatalities.

And there's a number of reasons um why, and I think they're kind of in individual and specific to each incident, the circumstances in each incident.

Well, I wish there was a way to overlay that, and I will put that for a staff memo.

Um, just thinking, for instance, too, of uh 2017, um, if there were similar trends that play out, but we don't have that data.

So I will ask the clerks um if we could get a follow-up of the rates of homicides and nonfatal shootings um related to also 2017, 2018.

Um just seeing if those trends uh kind of continue on with what we see, which you just pointed out of lower numbers of guns recovered but um how that relates to fatal and non-fatal shootings.

Moving on to slide 11, which I'll just name the title management decisions, I believe that's what it was, and equity impacts.

Um, so uh I know you discussed a lot of the ways in which MPD is engaging the public around um policy changes and deliberations, but I know amongst this body and my office we've received uh repeated feedback from or by the C CPO that MPD's engagement on policy has been uh difficult for them in providing meaningful uh feedback on policy.

So I know the well, outside of the policy changes required by the MDHR settlement agreement, MPD does not have a actual policy in which they have to um give a certain period of time to the C CPO to give them that space to provide feedback.

So just wanted to see if that's something you all are gonna address.

Um, that way our civilian oversight body has sufficient timing to give that feedback.

Uh council vice president, council member.

I'm gonna have uh Commander Wilkes come up uh as she's the commander of the implementation unit, and she's the person that deals directly with that.

Okay.

Could you please repeat that?

Yes.

What is MPD doing outside?

Well, settlement agreement doesn't manage uh requires this, but to address the time that you give the CCPO to provide feedback on policy changes, or will you be addressing that?

Because right now it doesn't seem to be sufficient time given to them.

Received.

Um, so just so what we've been doing lately, our community engagement unit has been dismantled in some sort.

So we are starting from scratch, we're rebuilding our community engagement.

So essentially we were interacting with C CPO, attending the community engagement meetings.

But when that um when our community manager um transitioned, we had to rebuild and start from scratch.

So now that we have a new manager in, we just connected with CCPO again just to get this guy integrated into CCPO meetings.

The policies we give C CPO and other community members the same amount of time to provide feedback.

I think what we're running into or the issue that we're running into is that it takes so long to get a policy up to the place where we can give it out to the community so that they can't provide feedback.

And so we're trying to streamline that process more so that it's more efficient and we can get it to CCPO ahead of time or get it out there when we're getting it out to the community before we post it or whatnot.

When did the transition happen or the dismantling of the community engagement unit?

Yes.

Around, I'll say two to three months ago.

And so going through our background process, finding another person, selecting that guy, and going through our background, it's taking some time.

And there so there wasn't a process in place before this, because I well, no, this has been something continue even beyond just this summer or before this summer.

So if there was, and for my understanding, it had been related to MPD around the need for more engagement time for them to meet.

So there was nothing in place even that time before the transition of the community, you say engagement manager.

Okay.

So yes.

So thank you.

Uh so uh vice president council member, uh, I'll just follow up and ensure that that is included in the process.

I know they've worked very hard to do a number of policies, but the problem the problem we ran into with this is there were deadlines uh that were all coming up at the same time, and all of these revised policies were going through this, you know, uh process that's defined by the the court documents, and that wound up all going into the same funnel at the same time.

And there wound up being difficulties because you know it's not just the police department, but MDHR only has a certain number of people that can go through all this stuff as well as well as Alifa.

And I I suspect uh that CCPO uh had just had not been uh thought into that process as well as it should have.

So I'll make sure that it's included for for the future as part of that overall process for approval.

I think CCPO members would or commissioners would love to hear that.

I don't think there's been again feedback provided around the MDHR piece, that's why I exempted that.

I think you all are moving through, it's just where CCPO is being overlooked or neglecting.

You just highlighted that piece.

Um to slide 12.

Um really, of course, I think all of us are happy to see uh reduction in overall crime.

Um also know, and you mentioned this throughout the presentations that um those efforts can't happen through just sworn officers alone.

Um and you talked about some of the partnerships you've utilized to maximize your existing budget, um, and also other programs that you're working through with uh key external agencies, but I did want to um know if you could share a little bit more of other external partnerships or city programs you're utilizing to supplement um MPD's traditional policing efforts, especially seeing the reduction in um carjackings and auto thefts, and I know auto thefts, for instance, there has been a and we had Hindepent County Attorney's uh office come present to PHS around their auto theft program and the success it was having, and MPD then enrolling.

So seeing, is that a partnership that has led to outcomes like this or gunshot wound victims?

You know, we have next step, which is the hospital-based program that's housed in the neighborhood safety department.

Hopefully, we have some concrete data points.

I see Commissioner uh Barnett here for the neighborhood safety department to share hopefully correlations between this, but if you all work closely with them and if we're seeing that uh partnership lead to reductions as well.

Uh thank you, uh Vice President, Councilmember.

Uh yes, I just think it's um I think it's difficult to say, you know, it's one thing in particular led to an outcome.

I think it's all important.

Um I don't have data, I don't have any data specific to uh things that are uh interventions that are hospital-based.

But I do know that there's been a whole lot of uh community-based organizations, even ones that we um when we engage with people, uh we have relationships and we can make informal uh you know referrals to just making people aware of services that uh exist in the community.

Um and I definitely think just establishing uh better communication and relationships, particularly with uh some of the guardians and juvenile of some of these kids that are kind of on the extreme, they're not they're not the kids that uh that we're talking about in in the bulk that can be sort of diverted.

I'm I'm talking about the kids that are um very very active um and just in need of uh more intense um intervention than a lot of times what's available.

And uh a lot of times we can be aware, even through stuff that we're being told from family, uh, that someone is a juvenile is particularly active, um, but we're not able to build uh a specific case.

So I think this is uh this is something that has helped try to fill the gap, as have I think all of these programs, I think are are valuable and and useful, and I think we should be doing all of them.

Yeah, no, and I that's why I asked for if metrics are being attached to those partnerships.

Um just referencing the hospital-based again, next step program that's been here for uh or been a part of the city for more than seven years.

Um I don't think we've ever seen really concrete metrics of like the correlation of referrals between MPD um and again outcomes like this, if there's leading to a reduction of gunshot wound victims, and if there's that data collection happening in place, same with the auto thefts, of what percentage, which I think with the Hennepin County attorney's office when they present to us, they name a decent percentage of folks enrolled in that program do come from Minneapolis.

Like you're saying, the pull of folks that you're seeing or young people that you're seeing versus those who that might have offended once but can be deferred out, like what are we seeing in terms of traction, just so we can nail in what's being really effective amongst those different populations of folks that's being impacted, but you're also seeing reductions.

Uh Council Vice President, Councilmember, I know we track uh the referrals that we make.

Um I don't believe we get uh we get we necessarily get uh follow-up information from that.

Okay.

Sounds if there's I I from my understanding must exist, but I don't know.

Yes, I don't think they're holding it hostage.

But yes, if there is a way, again, if you're moving to outcomes, Minneapolis and just tracking those things.

Um another thing around this is just um, and we just approved uh a legislative directive that council member cashman brought for related to this, but um uh ongoing area of concern has always been around clearance rates, and um this also gives some context to the conversation around investigators.

Um but knowing that like the last public data show that about 63 percent of violent crimes in Minneapolis remain resolved a couple years ago, which is below the national average.

So I just wanted to get a sense of what is our current clearance right now, to really give some context to the backlog and the usage of civilian investigators.

But yes, do you have that figure with you now?

Uh council vice president, council member, I know as of the end of last week, um, there were 43 homicides, and 21 remained open.

So whatever the math is on that, um roughly half 21 of the homicides, 21 of 43 homicides, that's roughly half.

Um but the trouble even with that is uh again, as you have a number of these cases in such a short period of time, they're they're not necessarily going to be closed out because we've had a spike recently, uh obviously.

So um, and I know the even when these cases are closed, there's additional work that has to be done to close them in the data system, the records management system.

And so I don't have uh the other clearance rates uh offhand.

Um they're typically reported at the end of the year.

Assistant chief uh blackwell is with me.

She's more familiar with the the data keeping here, she can offer more information.

Chair council member uh AC Blackwell.

So we're currently at sitting at 53 percent right now for homicide rate closures, but because we're waiting on some things, it's gonna be about 63 percent in the near future.

Okay, so almost still on track around the same percentage.

And then um, do you have a actually this might be because I believe this is in your wheelhouse too of uh update on our current backlog overall?

I think last year when you all reported to us and why council made the uh appropriations of five civilian FTEs, and also you all I believe articulated needing at minimum 10 at that time.

It was around 5,000 cases that were backlogged.

Do you know what the figure amount is um for 2025?

And granted, I know this is combining homicides, domestic violence, thefts, um, but I believe that total was 5,000 or around that threshold last year.

Chair, council member, it was around that.

Um I know this year, because the council member Cashman just recently sent up a request for those case open cases right now.

We're working on that, Deputy Chief Olson with investigations is currently compiling or helping compile.

They got a little backlogged with the last couple weeks of things going on, but they're working on like current open cases.

Right.

But as an estimate, do you know just like you shared around the clearance rate?

Are we hovering around the same?

Has it increased?

The chief mentioned there was a spike.

Um, are we still hovering around 5,000, or do you suspect I I will hope all the tracking, someone would have a figure amount around where we're at as a snapshot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh Council Vice President, Councilmember, yes.

Uh it I I expect it is the same.

Uh the and again, just the trouble is with the data reporting is the case can be closed, submitted, and charged, but it's not reflected as being charged in the records management system until additional work is done.

So that is that is the lag time, and just uh the last couple of weeks have been pretty intensive with you know our analysts and and investigators' time.

So, scripting another gap.

And then going to slide 23, going to professional standards.

Um just make sure we're all on the so there's uh point right here around making sure you're ensuring that officers are um meeting and consistent with expectations of community.

Um I did want to ask just reflection points from MPD in regards to the promotion of MPD trainers who don't meet that community expectations, and I know even after public outcry this past summer um around the use of forced trainer that was promoted, they were reassigned.

So is there any reflections at you all or policy changes that you're putting in place and make sure things like that doesn't happen again, or if the three million dollar increase is also reflecting any changes in that so that officers um are being promoted that are in alignment with community values?

Uh council vice president, council member, um so yes.

Um in the particular case you rents you referenced uh that individual was signed uh to that position prior to me becoming the police chief.

Um and so in in all of these cases now when people are reassigned, uh we pull their disciplinary record to do a quick review to ensure that um, you know, there's not obviously there's not anything open uh and pending that's a concern, uh, but to take a look at people's uh previous uh disciplinary histories.

And that obviously relies on uh, you know, not having stuff sitting in a backlog, because uh obviously it's possible when we did have this backlog, uh, that things were not uh either on the record or not completed, uh problems could have been sitting in the backlog that we would not be aware of.

And this is in regard like a process from the summer.

I'm I'm referencing um I believe Officer uh Hanneman specifically.

I I think you name there was not a dis or conduct issue in that case.

Um I think you've referenced other conduct issues maybe being overlooked before with the promotion, but that did not seem to be the case with Henneman.

So is this something different or new for officers going forward?

So uh council vice president, council member, this is something that I instituted when I was the police chief uh since I've been the police chief here.

Uh Officer Hanneman was promoted to sergeant and assigned to the training division prior to me being even announced as the nominee for police chief.

So that did not happen this summer during the MPD.

He had been assigned to the training division before I became the police chief.

And the promotion of the use of force training trainer too that that had all happened beforehand.

Yes, he was promoted to sergeant um sometime in 2022.

Huh, okay.

I think that's new.

Um, had not heard that before.

Uh interesting.

But going on to the next slide, 2027 budget reductions.

Um there was a conversation or a couple points that highlighted to the critical staffing over time, and I know Mayor Fry mentioned in his budget address that that would be eliminated, but I think there might be confusion around that wasn't an executive order, but just clarifying this was part of a letter of agreement that's attached to the 2023-2025 police contract.

Was that set to expire anyways this December?

Council vice president, council member, that's correct.

Okay, so that would have essentially ended regardless of executive action, and you all have to negotiate that provision again.

Council vice president, council member, yes.

Okay, thank you for that clarification.

And then also for the mountain patrol, um, I don't see FTEs allocated here.

Can you share what is the number of FTEs assigned to the mountain patrol?

It's usually two.

Usually two.

Yeah.

So we just allocate knowing that people are gonna work there.

Okay.

Council Vice President, Councilmember, it's two uh allocated uh to the unit.

But it is a part-time or secondary assignment.

It's not uh a full-time assignment.

Okay, part-time.

Okay.

Um and wait, what you said or secondary assignment.

Okay, second okay.

And then also related to this, I know I believe um it was shared that there were no donations made externally around the mountain patrol.

Where I'm a I'm slightly confused about that is on June 18th of this year, so just a couple months ago, there was an event hail call hooves and heroes that was held by other partners that we work with very frequently, like the downtown council when they didn't know the MPD Mountain Patrol would be there.

And they also had it very clear that proceeds would go to benefit the mountain patrol.

So are you all certain that there's has it been any donation made?

It's just interesting that they held a pretty like co-sponsored event and name explicitly that proceeds were being raised for this.

Council Vice President, Councilmember, uh that's correct.

Uh what we're specifically saying is we have not received uh a check or we have not received any uh monies.

Okay, great.

Um and then what is missing, which I will note for uh clerk follow-up or staff follow-up in this budget and in uh Mayor Fry's budget uh breakdown, while there is uh a section that vaguely or broadly alludes to the appropriations set aside for the settlement agreement, it doesn't show overall what specific positions are being funded.

And I know Alifa's second year uh progress report was very explicit in positions needed for this second phase.

So just to break down of what are of those positions or recommendations are actually being funded with those appropriations, because right now it just says three million or five million, and it's unclear what technological recommendations that are being asked of are actually happening in 2026 or FTE positions directly tied to those recommendations are being implemented.

So just want to know that was not in here if that could be a follow-up.

Council Vice President, uh council member, yes, uh that would have to be a follow-up.

And I think it's pretty extensive too, uh, because you're gonna have, you know, full-time positions uh, you know, like uh Commander uh Wilkes and her team doing implementation.

Um but then there's also of a number of other positions throughout the agency that are required under the agreement as well as other expenses.

So um yeah, would be tough, I think, to pull together, but I think that's uh the that would be a that would be significant for sure.

And what wasn't spent, because I believe also in the progress report, there was five years appropriated for 2025, but some of those positions uh recommendations, at least in the progress report seem to not been fulfilled.

So if there's unspent dollars of that, then there's three million dollars that's going to be allocated ongoing.

Um so again, what of that is actually being um used for those recommendations?

Right?

Yeah.

Chair Chugtai, Councilmember Wansley.

So the settlement agreement, the three million dollars that you refer to is a separate bucket from the personnel that we've received for the implementation unit.

So that would be one-time contractual expenses and available to IT, city attorney, MPD, and there's a process through uh goes through finance for the CFO approval.

And so I would defer for the finance department for the list because I would only be aware of MPD's sum approvals, and I believe that full spreadsheet is tracked in the finance department.

Yeah, which uh as for the the follow-up.

Because of that three million, it just says, that's why I'm saying, like it's very broad in the mayor's budget book.

It says five million for 2025.

That's why I'm asking.

Usually we see change items around, oh, or what's even being proposed to fulfill.

And then for 2026, like the progress report from Alifa was very explicit of like the technological needs and FTEs needed.

Do any of those go under the three million?

Is there remaining left from the five million and which could be used to fulfill positions that did not move forward?

So that's why I'm asking that clarity is not provided here.

Chair Chugtai, Councilmember Wandsley.

I would have to follow up in a memo.

Thank you.

Awesome.

All right, all the questions I have.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next to all recognize Council President Payne.

Thank you, Vice President Chuck Tye.

Thank you, Chief.

Uh, I think the rest of my colleagues spoke to the mounted patrol thoroughly enough.

I can leave that one alone.

Um, however, uh, I do want to express my disappointment that we're cutting the civilian positions.

I think uh the case close rate is something that I really want us to be paying really deep attention to.

I'm grateful to Councilmember Cashman for bringing forward the legislative directive on that.

But I'm wondering if you could actually speak to um the multi-jurisdictional nature of these investigations, or at least to what extent there's a multi-diffurisdictional coordination with our partners at the federal level and even in the county attorney's office when it comes to investigative resources for some of these cases.

Uh Council Vice President, Council President, thank you.

Um, it's I I would say it's not just um the case closure rate, it's our ability uh to service uh victims uh uh in a timely manner.

Um and you know the the rate is something that's eventually going to be handled, but being able to be responsive enough uh is important, particularly when there's a volume.

You know, the the the federal partnerships uh are great and they're helpful, um, but I would say those are largely proactive.

Um it is not dealing with the bulk of what we're talking about here, a crime that's reported to us after the fact.

And so I think the partner that's most appropriate is the county attorney's office, in terms of trying to get those cases charged.

A small percentage will be charged federally, but that's not the bulk of um the cases that we're investigating.

And then I'm wondering, even I know that some of uh the cases go to our own city attorney's office, and I'm wondering what degree of investigative capacity we can amplify through partnership, city attorney, county attorney, and the federal partners.

Um Council Vice President, Council President.

Um, I do believe uh our investigators have very good working relationships with uh the city attorneys that are and and the the county attorneys that are prosecuting.

Um but again it remains on us uh to do the work that's required to get them what they need.

Okay, I think we should pay close attention to the civilian investigation needs.

Wonderful, thank you.

And then um I'm last in queue, but someone else may jump in.

Um so just want to note that for you.

Um just as a follow-up on this discussion uh around civilian investigations, um, or civilian investigators and investigations more broadly.

I understand that you will be pulling us some numbers around the current backlog and what that looks like.

Um but something that really caught my attention was that two of these positions of of civilian investigators were were proposed to be eliminated are proposed to be eliminated in your in your 2026 budget, um, because they are they are vacant right now and um and it will it was a priority to ensure that there were no layoffs as a result of um as a result of budgetary um cuts this this year.

So um, you know, something I I recall from from previous discussions um and presentations is uh the department uh maintains that it is a lot easier um to fill civilian positions than than sworn personnel.

Um and you know, I think you brought that up even today if I'm not mistaken.

Uh so just help me understand um, you know, we're in September two of these positions are vacant um and and you know in the past we've we've heard that these are some of the easiest positions to hire.

So what's the what's the reason for for two um vacant positions?

Um council vice president.

Um I don't know if uh, HR, you wanna you wanna jump in then?

Okay.

Chair Chugtai, uh, I feel like it was a miscommunication with HR.

We had the wrong reports too when they got the data, so they were looking at the wrong division.

Then we had to realign to do the correct division.

So it was a different type of investigator position.

And it was just an oversight and a communication thing with HR, I believe, for a long part of the beginning of this year.

Gotcha.

And then the end impact though of that miscommunication is the loss of civilian investigators at a time when when we really need them to clear our backlogs.

Um, thank you so much.

Um, and then just kind of working through uh just a few outstanding things from the presentation.

Um, you know, on slide 11 you talk about 145 new hires um this year, and then you uh you know it's you mentioned that it's a accumulation of lateral hires, um CSO's and and other other buckets.

Um I'm pretty sure you don't have these numbers off the top of your head right now, so perhaps we'll note this for administrative follow-up.

If we can just get a breakdown of those 145 new hires by the type, um so what of those are lateral hires um uh versus the the other buckets, lateral is the first thing that's just coming to my head.

Um, that would be really helpful.

Vice President, I can give you that.

Oh great.

Um so I have 12 lateral hires, 21 recruits, 69 cadets, 41 CSOs, uh, and nine police interns.

Interesting.

Okay, wonderful.

Thank you.

Um if I have further follow-ups on on those, um uh I'll I'll be sure to to reach out.

Um, okay.

So my my next question is around uh liability insurance.

I believe you made mention in in your presentation around um uh finding a reduction of to the tune of four point eight million dollars.

Did I catch that correctly?

Um can you speak to that?

Or yeah?

Thank you, Chair Chogtai.

So this is um an allocation of liability insurance that goes from the risk management department, there's an actuarial study done, and it sets the level.

I mean, finance can probably speak to this better, but it sets the level of what the fund balance needs to be given our liability structure.

So that did increase over the past couple years as we've had l significant payouts of that fund.

So the fund had to rebuild, and so our allocation was simply decreased from a prior year.

I would assume that's because the fund is in a better position now than it was.

Gotcha.

Um so uh and then perhaps this can just be a follow-up for finance or or I can touch base with them afterwards, but I just want to understand what what happened here and in just some more detail.

So, perhaps not appropriate here, but I saw Director DeSenza's head nodding, so it seemed like that was the correct understanding.

I think it's fine.

Um, okay, awesome.

And then just two more questions.

Um in the list of reductions in your budget.

You know, you talk about the community navigator, um, the investigators, and then an office support specialist too and uh office technician one position.

Um I correct in remembering these positions were eliminated from your 2025 budget earlier this year.

To fund positions in the audit department.

Chair Chugtai, it's a little bit confusing because there is an auditor transfer and an OCS transfer.

And I believe the office support tech two position was part of that transfer.

I think one of these positions was a 2025 transfer.

I'm gonna ask the budget team to be able to speak to that because I had submitted this before that happened.

And so that we already had our list of positions that if we were required to make a reduction, we had.

So I do think one of the positions is part of the ones that were transferred earlier, but they weren't asking me to revise my budget submission, so it is a little bit confusing.

Gotcha.

So I you know I perhaps this is a thing we can clarify later as well, um, because this came up in the legislative department budget as we were looking at the budget book, it you know, outlined um reductions and and that doesn't uh account for the actual 2025 adopted budget that was amended earlier this year.

So, if I can't um the original budget book came out and it was a five point one million dollar reduction, and then when I worked with the budget analyst to identify that position, it was reduced to this 5.0.

So I think our original reduction was higher, and then it was lowered because of that duplication.

Gotcha.

Sounds good.

Um and then uh I'm I'm wondering, you know, I think it was maybe um in the earlier section of your slides, but you talk about uh you were identifying, you know, risks and um some you know structural deficiencies, things like that.

And one of the one of the things I I noticed in that was you know the lack of a communications director within the Minneapolis police department.

Um and I guess I'm confused because uh like did there used to be a communications director in the police department?

Uh is that like interchangeable with the PIO or or a different person?

Or yeah, can you speak to that quick?

Uh yes.

Uh council vice president, yes, there used to be uh in the past historically there was a civilian director and some civilian staff.

Um and it's largely now I I rely on police officers.

So uh I know there are investments made in the Office of Community Safety that you report up to in communications work.

So I guess I'm wondering where the gap is when the office you report up to has has far more significant investments in that capability.

Well uh council vice president, this is a uh this is a 24-hour operation.

Um and oftentimes we are doing things reactively as things are happening.

Um and either it's the PAOs or it's me myself uh making the majority of these responses.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Um I think that that is all of the questions I have I see Vice Chair Kosky in Q.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just had one follow-up on one of the questions that you asked.

It was about the the additional hires this year and you gave us the breakdowns of the you know 12 laterals 21 recruits etc.

Are you able to just give us like a three year or five year look back of what those ratios have looked like I think I'm also following up on what Councilmember Vita had talked about with this CSO program.

You have 41 which is pretty incredible but I don't really know how that compares from year to year.

So if there's a way for us to get that information I don't know if you have that now or if I should do a follow-up memo.

Uh council vice president council member um so we would have to get that from HR the HR would have that um and these are just the the numbers hired this year so if you mentioned 41 CSOs we have 54 total and the most the city ever had was 50 so we're it's an increase for sure.

Great and then I'll just do an administrative follow-up for HR was that is what I'm understanding okay if we can get a five year look back on those um hiring breakdowns thank you clerks did we catch that uh if the vice chair could repeat that sure um so I think was there 142 is that 145 uh additional hires this year and so they gave us that breakdown of you know what were they laterals recruits cadets csos if we could get a five-year look back year to year of what those hires were thank you thanks amazing all right so with that we have uh exhausted um discussion and questions for you chief thank you for for coming in for this presentation thank you director uh troswick and and acquell and there was one more person that came to present commander wilks commander wilkes I'm so sorry um thank you all for for this presentation I will direct the clerks to oh never mind council member jenkins I was trying to get in cue here gotcha and I don't really have a specific question for the chief I know that we have been very thoroughly um talking to some of the the budget presentation but I just wanted to offer uh a congratulations on your um award of international citizens award so congratulations Sarah thank you council member yeah thank you okay I believe now we have concluded discussion the report has been receiving received and filed thank you for coming in today um and with that we have concluded all business to come before the committee this morning and without objection we stand adjourned until our next meeting which is tomorrow um Monday or Tuesday September 16th at 10 a.m again in these chambers where we will receive presentations prepared by the Office of Public Service the Assessing Department and the Arts and Cultural Affairs Department thank you everyone is