Good morning.

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

I'm gonna call to order our adjourned meeting for Friday, October 3rd, 2025.

Before we get 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, I'll ask the clerk to call the role so we can verify the presence of a quorum.

Councilmember Payne is absent.

Wandsley.

Present.

Rainbow.

Present.

Vita.

Present.

Ellison is absent.

Osman is absent.

Cashman is absent.

Jenkins.

Absent.

Chavez.

Present.

Chowdry.

Present.

Palmasano.

Present.

Vice Chair Koskey.

Present.

Chair Chugtai.

Present.

That is eight members present.

Let the record reflect that we have a quorum.

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

Today we have three presentations related to the mayor's recommended 2026 budget from the mayor's office, the neighborhood safety department, along with the fire department.

To begin our first presentation, I will invite Grace Waltz, the mayor's chief of staff, um, to join us and begin.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Uh good morning, Chair Shugtai, Vice Chair Koski, and members.

My name is Grace Waltz, and I am the chief of staff in the office of Mayor Fry.

Um my presentation will be relatively brief as the bulk of the work of the mayor's office is focused on ensuring Mayor Frye is accessible to residents and providing support and support and guidance to departments across the enterprise.

I will start with a brief overview of our office reporting structure.

Our team is split between three verticals operations, which is inclusive of scheduling and constituent services, communications, which is inclusive of our press office and community engagement and policy, where each of our policy advisors has a portfolio that corresponds to city departments, uh, but maintain the flexibility to meet the needs of the varying issues that come into our office.

The mission of our office is very simple uh to improve the daily lives of Minneapolis residents and to provide clear and consistent direction to the cabinet and administrative departments.

Um as you all have seen before, Mayor Fry's policy priorities are centered around improving community safety and police relations, uh, creating more affordable housing, bolsting bolstering climate action and public health, growing our economy through inclusive policies and good governance.

Uh I will spend a minute highlighting some achievements from the past year.

Uh earlier this year, we revamped our website and intake process, uh, in addition to making the mayor's priorities easier to read and understand.

Uh, we now have an archive of speeches, uh, weekly newsletters, and a link to the mayoral dashboard.

Um, additionally, we've made process improvements to the ways people can request a meeting with Mayor Fry or invite him to an event and expanded the ways you can request recognition from the mayor, including proclamations, letters, or certificates of recognition.

Uh, none of these are flashy changes, um, but they are all part of the small but um impactful ways our team works to make sure uh the mayor's office is more accessible to residents.

Um also highlight a few metrics from our operations team.

Uh, year to date, we're at over 7,000 for constituent outreach, so that's calls, emails, and online submissions, um, and nearly 800 meeting requests to date for the mayor.

Uh this year we have also expanded and diversified the mayor's community cabinet.

Uh so this is a group of stakeholders uh from various groups and neighborhoods that meets monthly to provide input and on-the-ground experience to help inform Mayor Fry's position on various issues and let them know, uh let him know what they are hearing out in community.

Finally, in partnership with PMI and departments across the enterprise, we launched the mayoral priorities dashboard.

This dashboard resulted uh from the mayor and city leaders wanting to be able to track trends over various priority areas.

Um and initially it was actually only intended to be internal facing, uh, but once we saw what PMI was able to design, we thought this could be a useful tool for residents.

Um as you can see, we're tracking stats in community safety.

Uh so that includes crime trends and response time trends, recruitment.

Uh for that we take a holistic view of citywide hiring trends, uh, homeless response, uh, so how many times HRT are doing site uh visits, 311 call trends, economic recovery, um, opioid response.

Uh so that tracks participants in the opioid settlement program and the number of Narcan boxes distributed from the vending machine and climate action.

And right now that's tracking uh business and residential climate action projects and metric tons of carbon emissions avoided.

Um as we were designing this, we looked to SMEs, uh subject matter experts within departments to help guide what actually makes sense to measure.

Um, and we kept the focus on metrics that the city has some level of control over.

Uh we also looked to the subject matter experts to help us understand the trends.

Um, so whether things are dipping in the right or wrong direction, uh, what's driving that, and in a case where something is going well, uh, what can we do to continue that momentum?

And when things are trending in the wrong direction, um, how can we course correct?

Um, of course, this dashboard does not cover everything or every priority for the mayor, um, in part because not every policy priority uh easily lends itself to a dashboard that's designed to track uh weekly or monthly trends.

Um we're continuously looking at ways to expand uh the categories of data available so we can be transparent with residents about where things are at.

Um and then in terms of risks, um, those risks are consistent with what we hear across the enterprise.

So capacity is always a challenge.

Um in terms of FTEs, our office is on the smaller end in comparison to other major cities, um, and our FTE count has remained consistent for years.

Um, and while our office is currently fully staffed, uh we always remain conscious of the importance of the ever-changing job market and prioritizing ensuring that the mayor's office and the city of Minneapolis is an employer of choice in a place where folks feel supported and proud to come to work every day.

Um I think we can all agree that attracting and retaining uh top talent into public service is more important than ever.

Um I'll pause briefly just on this slide, um, so you can see budget year over year.

Um, as you can see, the bulk of our budget is really just salary and fringe.

Um in terms of FTEs, we're holding steady at 16.

That figure include is inclusive of the mayor, and we have no vacancies.

Um looking ahead into 2026, um, with our 2026 recommended changes, you will see a 22,900 ongoing reduction.

Uh, we achieve this reduction by reclassifying positions within our office.

And then in terms of priorities in the coming year, um, as always, set in advance mayor fry's policy priorities, uh, provide both proactive and when needed, reactive direction to legislative and legal efforts, uh, continuously improve response times uh to ensure Mayor Fry and staff are accessible to residents and continue to leverage various forms of media and social engagement to ensure residents are getting information about city initiatives.

And that concludes my presentation.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for that presentation.

Um colleagues, are there any questions or discussion items related to the mayor's office presentation?

I'll first recognize council member Wandsley.

Thank you, Vice President Chuck Tai.

I do want to go back to slide number seven.

Um actually also and so on, slide 11 as well.

Um so just again, the sense of the increase.

You mentioned it it was related to French, but it's showing on these slides that it's tied to operating costs, so would like to get a little bit more context of what's driving specifically the increase.

Sure.

I may look to budget folks to help answer some of that.

That increase is driven entirely by internal service charges, which our office doesn't have discretion over, nor do we assign that value.

So happy to recognise if you want to.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

Chair Chug Tai, members of the committee, Jane Decend's a budget director.

So that is related to the actuarial report that drives the liability internal service charges.

And so there was more litigation directed at the city as a whole, and it was sort of parked in the mayor's office as a central holding place.

And so another alternative would be to disperse those charges across more departments, but the overall dollar amount that we're budgeting for liability would remain the same.

Okay.

So that's that.

Okay.

I also have a question.

Thank you.

Um I'm not seeing anyone else in queue.

I will note that we have been joined in this committee meeting by council member Cashman.

Um Ms.

Waltz, thank you for your presentation.

Thank you.

All right.

Um next, we will receive a presentation from the neighborhood safety department.

For that, I will invite Director Harrington to go check on.

She's right there.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Welcome, Director.

Thank you, and good morning, Amanda Harrington, Director of Neighborhood Safety.

I'm here to present the neighborhood safety budget overview.

As you know, neighborhood safety is one of the five departments in the Office of Community Safety that reports up to Commissioner Barnett.

The organizational chart that you can see shows 17 FTEs.

Five of those are department leadership, overseeing daily operations, including programming, contract management, and compliance.

We have three positions that support contract compliance and finance specifically, and six that are focused on supporting programs, two that are focused on data collection and analysis, and one program assistant.

In addition, we have two temporary FTEs for the safety ambassador pilot that are not reflected on this organizational chart because they're funded by one-time funds that fund the safety ambassador program.

I do want to just pause and say how thrilled I am that the robust uh rate of our department actually being staffed.

This is a significant increase from what has been shown to this body in the past.

And because the department is staffed, it really leads to the good work that I think you're going to see in the rest of this presentation.

The mission of neighborhood safety is to apply public health approach to violence prevention.

So our work focuses on preventing violence before it happens, intervening when harm occurs, and supporting healing afterwards.

Neighborhood safety has been asked to tackle many diverse community issues, but our focus is violence prevention and reduction.

Our goals I've shared with this body before are collaboration data and transparency.

With collaboration, we really need to build partnerships across the community safety ecosystem.

The work depends on relationships with community contractors and governmental partners to succeed.

For data, we have to ensure programs are evidence-informed and community-centered.

The department has always strived to use evidence informed services, but we now need to shift from collecting outputs to focusing on outcomes so that we can make sure programmatic decisions are based on quality data.

And with transparency, we have to make sure that our work is visible and increase consistency and accountability.

So we have many objectives that we'd like to achieve in the next year, but I want to just highlight a few priorities.

As noticed, we as noted, we focus on violence reduction.

To do that, we need to collaborate and have data sharing between partners like neighborhood safety, Minneapolis Police, Hennepin County, and community organizations, specifically related to gun violence.

And as previously mentioned, we need to increase our use of data.

We've actually been collecting data from contractors for many years, but we now have the team members in place to help ensure that we're collecting the right data.

That the data is meaningful and can be used for more than accountability, but to actually improve our services.

We also want to increase the visibility of programs through dashboards.

We need to not just collect the data but then also share it so that everyone else can see the impact of the work that we are doing and the work of our contractors.

Additionally, we are working to formalize our internal systems by completing policies, procedures, and forms, and expanding the SharePoint site that allows staff to have increased capacity to do effective work.

We have made many achievements in 2025, including improving operations with seven new staff across programming, contract administration, and data.

Again, this is the first time that the department is nearly fully staffed.

We've also strengthened compliance and accountability by implementing the COPALA settlement agreement, and that includes adopting new compliance policies and procedures, revamping the request for proposal process and evaluation process, and completing a department audit with the city attorney's office support.

Our contract oversight is stronger than ever.

We require full documentation for reimbursements.

We conduct closer reviews of reporting and strengthened contract requirements to ensure accountability.

We are good stewards of taxpayer dollars.

And while the change was challenging for some organizations, this is still an achievement because organizations have adjusted and mained full compliance in 2025.

We also provide strong programming for all community organizations, and they have a fair opportunity to apply for those services.

We've had five major requests for proposals this year with GVI, YGBI, Minneapolis, the Violence Prevention Services Program and the Blueprint Approved Institute.

And we've established or re-established relationships with national training and technical assistance providers to ensure that we're following national models and best practices.

The national partners that we currently partner with include the National Network for Safe Communities, Cure Violence Global, and the National Office of Violence Prevention Network.

There are, of course, risks and challenges.

Maintaining compliance with the COPLA settlement requires ongoing staff time and resources to sustain that progress.

Excuse me.

In fact, one of the federal contracts that is ending is a $2.5 million burn grant.

So we will be reaching a fiscal cliff.

And another example is the safety ambassador pilot that is funded with one-time money, and we have no ongoing way of supporting that program.

Much of the funding in the 2025-2026 budget was also earmarked for specific use.

These requirements, while well intentioned, make it challenging for us to implement a violence prevention plan for the entire city.

When data indicates needs in specific areas of the city, we are limited in how we can respond because we have limited resources that we can use based on our own discretion.

And we have a significant dependence on third-party contracts for service delivery, which has pros and cons, but in this case poses risks tied to contractor performance and accountability, given that all the programs that we have are delivered through external providers.

It also means less flexibility to emerging needs as we have to work through contract amendments to change any terms.

And as you know, neighborhood safety has gone through significant changes in terms of leadership.

Former Director Nelson Brown and Commissioner Barnett both led the department before I joined in May.

Change can be positive, but it is always challenging for systems and teams, and neighborhood safety is no different as we go through the stages of forming, storming, norming, and performing.

A few examples.

Sustaining compliance progress requires continued investment, flexibility, and collaboration with the city attorney's office and with contracted providers.

And meaningful change takes time, documentation, and consistent stakeholder engagement to bring partners along so that they understand what the changes are and the why behind the changes.

We've also found that having nearly full staffing has improved our departmental operations.

And I'm sure that's not a surprise to anybody, but it demonstrates the importance of continued investment in capacity for staff.

And again, that reliance on one-time funding and grants highlights the need for sustainable funding to ensure continuity of core programs and services.

Neighborhood safety, like all departments, did work with performance management and innovation to create a dashboard for Minneapolis.

This dashboard includes program-specific historical data.

It was our attempt to engage with Outcomes Minneapolis during a time when the department had limited staff.

Since that time, neighborhood safety has expanded our staff and programming and reporting capacity, and we're looking forward to working with performance management and innovation to further engage in Outcomes Minneapolis in a more comprehensive way.

These performance measures are related to the goals and objectives I referred to earlier.

Keep in mind that the department is relatively new and we had to rebuild the staff, so we don't necessarily have data going back to 2023.

One task is to strengthen collaboration, particularly related to gun violence, as I mentioned.

Some examples of this collaboration include regular meetings to review shootings that happen here in the city.

And we also get gun crime data from MPD analysts that we share with violence interrupters and those organizations that are working directly on the street.

We hope to expand those systems of coordination even further in the future.

We strive to have all contracts include enhanced reporting mechanisms, for example, using a smart sheet to report data rather than just emailing a report to a particular program manager.

And at the intersection of data and transparency, we're creating dashboards so that stakeholders and community members can see the data that we collect about the services that we fund.

In addition to the historical violence interrupter data that I just mentioned, we have a dashboard showing where violence prevention outreach teams work, and we're working on a dashboard for community safety ambassadors that should be done by the end of the year.

And lastly, as part of transparency, we have to increase our own departmental policies and procedures.

Staff have been working incredibly hard this year, and we plan to have at least 56 policies or procedures done by the end of the year, and at least 100 done by the end of 2026.

Those policies and procedures run the gamut from how we ensure our department email is monitored regularly to guidelines for how funds can be used for client assistance.

This slide reflects the department's budget over four years.

We'll note that the expenses from 2025 to 2026 will be almost exactly the same, except that there is a $500 transfer from CPED, which I will discuss in more detail later.

This reflects a vacancy rate of 12%.

Hiring is in progress for the positions I mentioned.

We just filled the position of community safety manager with an internal applicant, and so we'll be posting the senior public health specialist soon.

And we have interviews next week for the deputy director position.

The funding breakdown shows 15.35 FTEs are supported by general funds and only 1.65 are supported by grant funds.

A little more detail on the position changes.

We are losing two positions, the community safety, or excuse me, the community engagement manager and a program assistant are slated to be eliminated.

Both of those positions are vacant and have been for some time.

We did, however, add one NT FTE by administratively reducing non-personnel funds to create a project coordinator focused on providing more direct services for GBI and YGBI.

And then a senior project manager was transferred from the race equity, inclusion and belonging department.

And again, this does not include the temporary staff that we have working related to the community safety ambassador program.

Now I'll shift to program updates.

NSD's work is built around three main service areas: prevention, restoration, and capacity building.

This structure generally reflects the public health approach to violence prevention, which is preventing violence before it occurs, intervening when harm occurs, and supporting long-term healing and resilience.

The Safe and Thriving Communities Report actually refers to services in terms of prevention, response, and restoration.

We don't currently have any response services because, as defined in the Safe and Thriving Communities Report, those are services that in real time could be dispatched by 911, for example.

In the prevention area, those are services that address risk factors like poverty, housing instability and trauma, and strengthen protective factors like family and community support, providing role models and safe spaces.

We do this by contracting with community organizations to engage those most at risk and build safer, more resilient communities.

The services in this bucket include group violence intervention and youth group violence intervention, Minneapolis, otherwise known as violence interrupters, and the violence prevention services, which includes our new violence prevention services program and older violence prevention contracts, many of which were extended through November of this year.

The Restoration bucket addresses people after trauma has already occurred.

And it includes services like the hospital-based intervention program.

It's technically under our violence prevention program, but they really address trauma at the bedside in the hospital.

So I think about something has already happened.

And then we also have the community trauma response contracts and have newly taken on the work of preventing and responding to human trafficking.

Regarding capacity building, those address gaps in organizational support and infrastructure among grassroots and community-based providers and strengthened skills, resources, and sustainability of local organizations that are leading violence prevention efforts.

We do this by investing in training, technical assistance, and the blueprint approved institute to expand the ecosystem of effective community partners and ensure we're following national best practices.

Because it would take a very long time to show data from every contract that we oversee, we decided to highlight samples of the data that we collect, starting with the prevention services.

All the data in this area is year to date through September 2025, unless it's otherwise noted.

For the group violence intervention and youth group violence intervention program, they are a deterrence program that focuses on mentorship, case management, and pathways for individuals most at risk of involvement in gangs or groups.

Success in this program really is that participants are safe, alive, and free.

That being said, so far in 2025, no adult clients have engaged in violent activities since they started in the program.

And we have 19 youth engaged so far in the youth group violence intervention program.

The Minneapolis Strategic Outreach Initiative is a public health-driven outreach program that deploys violence interrupters and outreach workers to mediate conflicts and prevent retaliation.

So far this year, they have been involved in 271 mediations.

But for this one, I want to pause because I don't think the numbers do justice to the effectiveness and actual work that is done on the street.

And so I wanted to share just a story about one shift from one group.

This is from one day over the Labor Day weekend from the touch outreach team specifically.

Touch Outreach reported that they arrived on the scene of a fatal shooting that had occurred an hour or two before.

And as they canvassed the area, they spoke with multiple individuals to better understand what had happened.

About an hour into being on the scene, a fight broke out between some of the family members, and they intervened to break up the fight and then continued on with their work engaging with the community.

During that time, a woman began heckling one of the relatives of the victim who had been killed, and outreach staff again reached stepped in.

The woman stated that she had a knife and did not want anyone to touch her, showing really the risk that these community members take in doing this work.

And they, along with other outreach members, separated the two individuals who eventually walked away in different directions.

And another anecdote, again from the same night, they were on the crime scene and another fight broke out between two women.

One woman sprayed mace at the other before she walked away, and so the violence interruption team helped the person by offering milk to ease the effects of the mace.

And so that's just one example of part of one shift of one group, and this is happening throughout the city many days a week.

Shifting gears to the violence prevention services program.

It's a citywide network of contracted community-based providers offering family supports, street engagement, and environmental safety improvements.

We currently have 12 organizations doing this work, and success really looks different because each organization does their work slightly differently.

But I did want to give one example.

In 2025, so far, 30 group-involved youth were engaged in hired's journey forward program.

That program offers employment and education services to reduce recidivism rates.

And so that worked included 221 individual counseling sessions, which resulted in 82 referrals to outside services, 18 resumes created, 23 mock interviews conducted, and a 33% of the participants gaining employment.

Shifting to restoration, the violence prevention services program that I just spoke about also includes offering hospital-based interventions.

Next step data shows that 186 individuals actively participated in their program just in the first half of 2026.

And our community trauma response program, which offers immediate culturally responsive crisis and healing support after incidences of violence, has engaged with many community members, 8,242 individuals so far this year.

And lastly, looking at capacity building, the Blueprint approved institute is our capacity building and support for grassroots and emerging violence prevention groups.

They provide trainings about topics, including grant writing, evaluation, networking, leadership, and budgeting.

They provided nine trainings so far this year, and my understanding is they reached about 80 different individuals.

And then one of the national technical assistance providers, the National Network for Safe Communities, which advises on our GBI and YGBI program, has provided 12-11 hours of strategic advising just in the second quarter of this year.

As I mentioned before, the 2026 budget eliminates two vacant positions, a program assistant, which has been vacant since March, and a community engagement manager that neighborhood safety has never had, that that position has never been filled.

Their duties have already been absorbed by existing staff, and that includes program managers, data staff, and department leadership.

Those positions in no way impact the positions that city council previously allocated to neighborhood safety.

That of the data business analyst and the project manager.

Both of those positions were filled in the spring, and the individuals continue to do amazing work for the department, including helping us prep for this very presentation.

We chose to eliminate two vacant positions to reduce the impact on funding to services and ensure that no other current staff need to lose their jobs.

As I mentioned before, there is also funding coming to neighborhood safety from CPED.

The funding is for a safety-related workforce development program.

The program hires and trains community members as violence interveners and ambassadors, addressing both employment barriers and community safety.

That concludes my presentation.

I stand ready for questions.

Thank you, Director.

I also want to acknowledge that President Payne and Councilmember Jenkins are here with us.

And we'll start with any questions.

Looks like we have Councilmember Cashman.

Thank you, Vice Chair Koskey.

Thanks, Director Harrington.

I think it's smart to move the CPED program into NSD.

It is a safety-related program and workforce development, you know, as an integrated function, I think that a lot of departments do with the workforce that they work with.

So I'm just curious if you can shed a little more light on what the plan is for the community outreach and safety program in 2026 under your what you hope to achieve with it now under your leadership.

Vice Chair Koskey, Councilmember Cashman.

That is a good question that I can't answer completely at this time.

We need to have a transition meeting between CPED and neighborhood safety to fully understand where those contracts are at the time when we will be taking them on and to fully understand the budget implications.

How far those contracts go into the future before we can make more definitive plans.

Okay, understood.

Thanks.

Look forward to hearing more about that in the future.

And then I'm also just wondering what your thoughts are on a couple of the public health related work that you do have.

So hospital-based interventions and then also community trauma response.

Why do you think that they're in NSD versus being in the health department since they are hospital-based and/or mental health-based?

Vice Chair Kosky, Councilmember Cashman, those were decisions that were made before my time, so it's hard to exactly understand the thinking that was provided.

But I know around the country, the hospital-based violence intervention programs are typically funded by offices of violence prevention.

Even though we're called neighborhood safety, we are still an office of violence prevention, and so that is normal around the country.

For us, there's a great benefit in having them in our department because they work so closely with our GBI and YGBI program and violence interrupters.

And so sometimes different departments have difficulty sharing data, and this ensures that there's a continuity and a flow of information that's much quicker for violence for victims of violence or people that are involved in this type of lifestyle.

Community trauma response, I think it still fits under the violence prevention schema that is part of our department.

I think there's always going to be kind of a tension between neighborhood safety and the health department because we're both operating under public health principles.

I think the idea that we're more focused on violence, and the health department has a broader mandate will help clarify which programs go under which department.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Councilmember Wandsey.

Thank you, Vice Chair Koske.

Uh, also just a little bit of context to council member Cashman as Director Harrison highlighted.

The all of these programs in the Office of Violence Prevention was housed within our health department.

That only happened about two years ago when Mayor Fry made the decision under government structure to separate and create this new office of community safety.

And then we saw the move or the transitioning of all of these programs over into their own isolated department, which is now neighborhood safety department.

But it was around this understanding, and we've had our national providers come before us and talk about violence prevention work has to have not just a traditional policing outlook, but you have to apply a public health analysis and approach and ideology towards addressing it.

And that's why originally many council members before my time, I will acknowledge a former council member of War 4, specifically Philippe Cunningham, championed the creation of the support of that work particularly, and had great partnerships with the health department at that time to really give the foundation to this work that we're talking about today.

And also I could not acknowledge that work without also uh former director, Sasha Cotton, who also now supports it on the technical assistance side.

So one say at least highlight that historical context.

That was an executive decision may under Mayor Fry, but it has historically been in the health department prior to I believe 2023.

Um I did have a couple of questions uh regarding um just the budget cliff.

I think now many of us are learning that so many of our departments are facing um programmatic financial cliffs.

Just I know a number of us received an update in a different department, uh specifically CPE with stable homes, stable schools.

I wanted to get a little bit clarity of of the budget cliff here because learning lessons from there it didn't have that clarity on how that program is set to expire in funding next year.

You mentioned for several programs under NSD, they're facing uh shortages or will be um due to the expiration of you mentioned the Burns grant, which is the $2.5 million.

And is that the uh federal grant that we received?

Okay, and can you remind me which programs specifically are supported under that grant?

Vice Chair Koskey, Councilmember Wandsley, the Burn Grant is a federal grant that was specifically focused on the violence interrupter program, and it was spread over a number of years.

We are planning on continuing those services and and being able to absorb that cost, but just like many departments will have to make some tough decisions about where that funding comes from.

And can you remind me again?

When does that grant expire mention it supports over a number of years?

Which year is it up?

This year.

The end of 2025.

So there will technically go into 2026, somewhat of a maybe a 2.5 million dollar gap, or that you all will have to figure out how to absorb.

Vice Chair Kossi, Councilmember Wandsley.

Um, yes, we are losing 2.5 million dollars, but again, that was not just used in one year, it was spread over a number of years.

So the impact isn't quite as dramatic, but yes, we will be absorbing that.

As a staff follow-up, can you remind because it feels like we just approved that grant?

So that's why I'm also surprised that it if it was two years.

Do anyone from finance or contract management know what year did that grant start?

You can just do it.

Uh good morning, Vice Chair Koskey, members of the committee.

My name is Lindsay Erdman.

I'm the associate director of finance for the neighborhood safety department.

That grant started in 2024, Councilmember Wandsley and ends at the end of this year.

So it was like a year and a half to two years of time that we had with that grant.

Wow, so only from 2024 through 2025.

So one year essentially we receive support.

Like a year, like it's uh in some change.

Okay.

If you can follow up and give or at least the official uh grants limbs file to know the exact date that it goes up uh for expiration.

You also mentioned another program specifically, the safety ambassadors, just clarity on that.

You said that's also about uh what's the figure amount tied to that, because it's one-time funding.

Is that one million?

Vice Chair Koske, Councilmember Wandsley, the um community safety ambassadors were funded with three million dollar public safety aid.

That aid is not going to expire and it's not completely gone.

This is just forecasting that if this program is successful, as you know it's a pilot, we would need ongoing funding to continue, if not expand that program in the future.

And right now, okay, so the three million over 3 million was just for that, and it's for different geographies also.

Correct.

So different sites has it.

Okay, so absorbing that, and that would be around potentially still a three million dollar figure.

If we want to just keep it at its current service level, not including expansion.

Through the vice chair, that's correct.

And we would need to figure out through this pilot how far that will stretch.

Currently, we're piloting it in two geographic areas.

We believe that we can use that three million dollars to get definitely more than one year of service and we can fund more than the two areas, but it will vary depending on the areas that we expand to because each geographic area that was approved is a different size and would need a different number of safety ambassadors.

And so there's some forecasting that we need to do to see how long how far that 3 million will stretch.

In terms of metrics, and I know you all just did your quarterly presentation.

I don't think that was part of AMPHS, but looking into 2026, do you have a sense of um in terms of expansion development like other sites that you're looking to pursue going into 2026?

Or the number?

Vice Chair Koskey, Councilmember Wandsley, I think we are hoping to expand to two additional sites in 2026.

I've always said that we need at least six months of data first on the two pilot sites to make that determination, but I know folks in community and and people on this body are very hopeful that it will be successful.

Um but just for the sake of of managing it well, we think expansion to two sites is reasonable.

Okay.

And then I know we've talked about this in PHS who and going to stable home stable schools.

I know CPAP right now is also looking at strategic funding in involving philanthropic partners to support that work.

I know some of those conversations have been had in the past in regards to also supporting the work of NSD and violence prevention.

Um do you know kind of status update on conversations with potential uh philanthropic partners who, when we're thinking about like the $2.5 million uh gap that's coming from the the Burns grant expiring, or even for the safety ambassadors, have there been conversations with philanthropic partners um who are interested in supporting this work?

Vice Chair Koskey, Councilmember Wandsley, yes, we have been um considering how to make a request that includes the needs of neighborhood safety with philanthropic partners.

In my prior role with the Office of Community Safety, we had met with three or four different philanthropic partners to discuss um different needs.

And now in my current role with neighborhood safety, I've asked for us to consider that uh the needs of this department as well.

And OCS has been more than receptive to that.

In fact, in fact, we have another meeting on Monday to plan for how we can um message that request.

Okay, that's awesome.

And sorry, someone was already quick.

Um I don't know if this is the someone sent me the file for the Burns grant.

Uh and it seems just clarity.

That started October 9th of 2024 or 2025.

So it's actually July 1st of 2024 was the start of the burn grant.

And the expiration truly is the end of this year, December 31st, 2025.

Okay, July of last year, 2024, and then it'll expire December of 2024.

So the October date that you were mentioning is when um it was accepted.

Okay, went through the process.

Okay.

So really just shy under a year.

So not multiple.

That's I I thought we had more time under that grant, also have more years.

This is slightly less than a year.

That's okay.

All right.

Well, thank you for painting or painting um the financial realities that we're gonna have to consider as we're thinking of maintaining these critical programs that's helping keep many of our communities safe, while also considering if we're looking to expand, which I think we all support the growth of these programs, again, the financial realities that's accompanying that and any ways we can support around bringing additional partners to the table, which for my understanding when the Office of Violence Prevention was in health, we did have a lot more participation from those partners.

How can we kind of shore that back up so that as your presentation highlighted, it's not just completely and fully reliant on the general fund in diversifying those revenue streams.

So thank you for the presentation.

Thank you.

Uh next we have Councilmember Rainbow.

Thank you.

Uh Director Herrington, could you uh explain briefly the Coppola settlement, copula, copula settlement?

Do you want to?

Um Vice Chair Koskey, Councilmember Rainville.

Um I would love to give you, I feel like any description I give of that settlement right now would be um missing in details.

Um we can follow up if you'd like a more thorough explanation.

But it, as I mentioned before, does have a lot to do with how we are ensuring that there is accountability with our invoices and reimbursements, and it also tracked with how that we are strengthening the request for proposal process and evaluation of those proposals to make sure it is fair and transparent.

That's fine.

Maybe we can follow up in person when your schedule laws.

And then the last question I have is could you explain briefly, you know.

So a lot of earmarks uh went into the budget for uh that affected uh the rest of your program.

Could you just explain what those earmarks did briefly?

Vice Sherikoski, Councilmember Rainville, there were a number of earmarks which I mentioned in my presentation, um, and they were often for very specific geographic areas.

Um the Whittier neighborhood, um Hiawatha, or just a couple uh longfellow or some of the neighborhoods that had um earmarks.

What that means is if, as I said in my presentation, if we had needs that popped up in another area of the city, we had a more restrictive pool of funds that we could use to be flexible in other areas of the city because we could only use the funds that were earmarked for specific neighborhoods for services within those neighborhoods.

And those neighborhoods very well had needs.

So many of our neighborhoods have needs in the city, but it just allows us to be less responsive then to others are other areas of the city that have needs that did not necessarily have an earmark.

I'm not suggesting we need more earmarks, just to be clear.

Thank you.

Uh thank you.

And then clerks, if you can just do a follow-up memo for the um first question that comes from our main bill had next we have Councilmember Palmasano.

Thank you, Director Harrington, for this presentation.

Um earlier in your presentation, you listed as an achievement, developed and implemented standardized contractor policies, procedures, required trainings and enhanced oversight.

And I just want to point out that that was a huge lift.

Um, that's something that has been talked about for a long time, has been a goal for a long time, and it seems like your department has finally matured to be there.

And I'm just curious if you could share a little bit about how that shift has gone for the department.

Do you continue to experience pushback from contractors and importantly for those that choose not to sign contracts or you're not able to get to that point of agreement on?

Um, are you able to assign all that work to other contractors so far?

Or is that being able to cover everything in the parameters as you are defining it as your department is defining it.

Um do you consider that to be all done and sorted.

Vice Chair Koskey, Councilmember Palmasano, I might miss one of your questions, so remind me if I miss one of them.

Um this has been a very significant lift for staff in the department, and I appreciate you calling that out.

Um, and it's only been possible because of the increased number of staff that we have and the fact that they're incredibly talented.

So they have developed from scratch invoice trainings that they're providing to all vendors.

They have developed, as you mentioned, policies and procedures so that we are clear internally as a staff and consistent in our practices, but then also there's no question from the contractors about what we're expecting.

And it has been challenging because a lot of the contractors that we work with are new emerging or maybe first-time vendors with a city.

Um, and so they're not used to such stringent requirements.

That's part of why we do significant training and then additional support with the program managers and our invoicing and contracting staff.

It's it's ongoing.

Some of these, it feels like we're having daily interactions to provide clarification about what we actually need because we want to pay uh invoices in a timely manner, but we also need to ensure that the accountability is followed.

There have been some organizations, as you mentioned, who have declined to contract with us for varying reasons.

It may or may not be the new accountability structures, and we have been able to fill those services with other contractors in those cases.

So it's not that neighborhoods or services will go without.

Um it just might take us a little longer to negotiate with a new organization.

Thank you.

I really like that accountability structure, and I appreciate the complexity of getting that in place and having it really um working and and being real.

Um I too share the concern that my colleagues do about services and expansion.

But from my own perspective, this is about how strapped the council tied this department last year with budget earmarks, not the mayor's office.

This wasn't a budget clip by the mayor's office.

This was removals to the neighborhood safety department by this city council.

There were things like 140,000 earmarked for specific projects.

There was nearly a $1 million cut for further BCR funding over and above the move of BCR over to the fire department and around 150,000 cut ongoing to the city attorney's office that helped to support some of these services.

So thank you for your effort.

I think we all are interested in how we do these kinds of services and consider expansion, but it should be really noted about how the council at the end of the year last year took a lot of this money out.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Koskey, may I add one more comment that I think is responsive to Councilman Lanzano?

I think one of the challenges that we're finding is that even if we do have an experienced vendor or contractor working with us, we don't have consistent um practices throughout the city enterprise.

And so the very stringent accountability measures that we now have in place in our department are not necessarily required by other departments, and some of the contractors find that confusing and challenging to work through.

And so I just wanted to point out that additional piece of complexity.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Koskey.

Um, just quickly, um, I do also think it's important to note that we should not be spreading alternative facts about what happened regarding the budget.

Um that are oversights and increased accountability that has happened within NSD.

I think there is a large and long public track record of how that happened as a result of council and specifically the public health safety committee leadership pressing for that and having to endure a lot of resistance also from the administration to get to this point where we are seeing thankfully some stability and seeing metrics and performance-based metrics finally be glued to the outcomes of the different programs that NSD manages.

Um I want to highlight that piece and also the the hovering around direct appropriations or targeted appropriations within NSD also followed a year and a half long conversation debate amongst this body that everyone was a part of of how specific areas, as you highlighted across our city that our colleagues represent have been loan neglected by previous NSD leadership.

And that is why this body, as we can do with budgetary oversight, make sure resources are being dispensed to areas that are being overlooked that are experiencing also upticks in crime and because they deserve safety as well.

So just want to make sure again the checks and balances on alternative facts that's being spread up here.

That's it.

Uh Director Harrington, could you please um on slide nine?

One of the performance metrics that you talked about that's going to be um highlighted on the public dashboard is tied to the total number of contracts that NSD manages, or sorry, actually uh you give a specific figure, but I want to get clarity on the actual total contracts that NSD manages.

And if though that total will be reflected in the public dashboard as well, Vice Kosky, Councilmember Wandsley, I don't believe we have a dashboard that actually shows the total number of contracts that neighborhood safety oversees.

And when I'm speaking to them on again on slide nine, you have the goal or task increase transparency of NSD's programmatic efforts through the dashboard, and then you have the indicator, and then it gives a number of 2025 target with six, just to get a sense of six in relation to what.

So what is the total numbers?

Will those also be publicized?

Uh thank you for that clarification.

Um yes, the reason that we have six noted right now is because of the number of contracts that were reflected under the Minneapolis program in the outcomes Minneapolis dashboard, as well as the dashboard that shows the geographic areas, and then we anticipated two contracts being reflected under the community safety ambassador pilot.

Our goal is to get every single contract that um neighborhood safety oversees on a dashboard, and that takes time, a significant amount of time, not just from our data staff to turn the data that we collect into a visualization, but also to ensure that we're following city guidelines about accessibility for community members to make sure that it is readable, to make sure it is accessible to people with disabilities, and that we're following all of the publication dial guidelines.

So that's why the numbers might seem a little low given that yes, we do have significantly more contracts than six or sixteen, but we are going to work toward 100% dashboard compliance in the future.

And then a total number.

Because I know last year it was reported around 75 to 80 contracts that NSD had total.

So what is that estimate now?

I right uh Vice Chair Koski, Councilmember Wandsley.

Um the number obviously changed because contracts expire and they come online.

I would estimate we have about 60 active contracts at this time.

Okay.

All right.

We have Councilmember Chavez.

Thank you, Chair Kosky.

I just I need to I need to say this because I think it's important to correct the record.

There was a vote that was taken to by the mayor's request to defund uh the community safety ambassador program.

And it was meant to cut a lot of money away from the program.

And if the city council, the majority that is sitting up here today, not everybody, but the majority of it voted to save and restore that funding through a budget process.

And if we would have not saved those dollars, that would mean there would be less money for the safety ambassadors, which would leave us in a tougher situation than we are today.

So some members of this body voted to defund the program.

I think it's important to mention that if we're talking about that this is the council's fault, it's not.

We have attempted to save a lot of these funding streams.

And if it wasn't for the city council saving these dollars, those dollars would be down the drain, non-existent, and there would be less safety programs in place for the following years.

Now, if we're talking about specific earmarks, yeah, we did that.

And I want to include one of the earmarks, it was a long fellow safety initiatives in the Longfellow neighborhood, which could just experience a mass shooting.

So to say that the community I represent that experience in mass shooting does not matter, that's just not the case.

We deserve safety in our neighborhood.

We deserve protection, and we deserve to address the mass shootings that are taking the lives of our community members.

Just because it happens in the poor South of South Minneapolis does not mean we do not matter.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I put myself in queue.

I was just wondering, can you just clarify what the uh Burns grant?

I'm just not familiar with it as much.

Um what has it funded?

What programs?

Vice Chair Koskey, the the Burn Grant is specifically for violence interrupters.

That is what we uh applied for to use it for, and that is what we have been using it for.

So just strictly for that.

Strictly for the violence interrupter program.

Okay, thanks.

I just wasn't sure if there was something beyond that too.

Thank you.

Um I just wanted to also understand the hospital-based programs.

Is the budget staying the same, remaining the same as it was in 2025 for 2026?

Yes, Vice Chair Kosky.

Okay, so that budget is remaining the same.

Thank you.

And then uh you mentioned the senior project manager that's being transferred over.

Could you just just talk a little bit about what you see that role doing for the department now as it's moving over to you?

And will it stay as a senior project manager or will it be a different title?

Vice Churchoski, this is um one of those things that I was hoping to talk about at the quarterly update, but I wasn't able to go this week because we ran out of time.

So this feels like the first time that some of you may have heard that um the amazing Sunu Stressa, who has been working on human trafficking prevention and response in our city is moving from REIB to neighborhood safety.

And so the role of that position will not change.

We will just continue to support and hopefully amplify the work that she has been doing.

Gotcha.

Okay, thank you so much.

That's helpful to clarify.

It's already a role that is in place and moving over.

Okay, appreciate it.

Uh let me just see if there's any further questions or comments.

I see Councilmember Chowdhys and Thank you, Vice Chair, thank you, uh, Director Harrington, for your presentation.

I was wondering if you could just kind of speak to what the timeline is on the master contract for the areas Longfellow, Whittier, Hiawatha that were marked for that getting out into community.

Vice Chair Kosky, Councilmember Chowdhury, that um contract has been routed for signatures.

Um you talked about a couple of different areas.

We we have uh an organization that is ready and willing to contract with us specifically for Hiawatha and for Longfellow.

And the um the issue has just been getting it routed for signatures.

I did have a chance to talk with that organization, and they are waiting for that execution to hire two additional case managers to do that work in those areas.

Um did you also mention Whittier?

Thank you.

Um we already have Somali Youth Link that has started their contract under the violence prevention services program in the Whittier neighborhood.

They're in a number of different areas, Stevens Square, around Carmel Mall, um down by the Blazedell YMCA.

So they are definitely present in Whittier.

We also had started, I think this week a violence prevention services program, contractor in Visualize that started in the Midtown Phillips area.

So these contracts are coming online slowly but surely.

And as they come online, I've been sending information out to the local council member and precinct inspectors and other stakeholders like the parks department who might need to know that these additional services are being activated.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Um felt important to get some clarification on those areas.

And I think the comment that I'll just make is I think the tools within the neighborhood safety department are really, really important, especially if we're going to try to achieve what's laid out in the safe and thrive being communities report.

Um prevention and intervention are really, really key.

And I think it's pretty flippant to chalk up the areas that council members felt of as need as just like, oh, simple earmarks that tied up the budget.

I can speak for my ward and I can speak for my community.

For the last two years, there have been really, really, really big struggles in certain areas with individuals who are committing crimes of desperation, who need um additional assistance.

There have been shootings, there has been violence, there have been all these different things that we see throughout the city of Minneapolis.

And what I have experienced is like, okay, well, how we how do we address this?

Maybe maybe supporting efforts to get more police officers in the area.

All right, done.

Okay.

Response times are still not great.

Community members are telling me it's still taking 30 to 40 minutes.

There are people who need help in the area not being resolved.

Um, one of the tools that I have is working with the neighborhood safety department done.

Okay, another tool that I have is working within the budget to just get some additional help into a neighborhood that needs it, like my fellow council members have as well.

That's what that's what I've needed to do.

And the resources are still very much needed.

Um I've spent two years working on the 46 in Hiawatha area.

I talked to business owners, I talked to residents, I talked to people who are also struggling in the corridor.

There needs to be some sort of intervention.

There needs to be some sort of wayfinding.

And even the police officers that I speak to that service that area are like, we can't just come and do patrol because we're down.

And that's a conversation that we constantly have, right?

They need additional support too.

And so I feel like that's important to point out because it feels like everyone here is committed to addressing public safety.

But when council members are trying to make efforts to address safety in their wards when they have tried to do all the other things, we're being chided for it or being told we're restricting the neighborhood safety department.

I we're just doing our jobs here, and I feel like that's really important to say.

And I look forward to these resources eventually coming into these neighborhoods because the need hasn't changed, and honestly, it's grown because the amount of um poverty that our city is experiencing, especially in different parts of the south side, because that's where I am, that's what I can speak to.

That's only growing.

We're seeing the number of people going to food shelves at an all-time high.

And that is directly connected to crimes of desperation, people slipping into using substances and impacting their mental health.

And that's exactly what the neighborhood safety department is supposed to do in conjunction with the rest of our public safety departments is work together so we can be resilient and support our communities and help areas, people who are in need, people who are struggling because of different livability and safety issues.

And I make no apologies for taking that seriously and working on it, and I hope it rolls over into the next year and we can see some significant changes and we can be resilient because there's still a lot more work to do and many more challenges ahead.

Thank you.

I'm not seeing any further questions or comments.

Thank you so much, Director.

I just want to just commend you for your leadership as it's been noted up here.

Um this department has had a bit of a rocky road over the last few years, and uh knowing that your steady hand is um leading the charge and you're uplifting your team in the way that you are to really make sure that their experience and their skills are able to help move us in a positive direction, as been been seen by by me for sure, and I just want to say thank you so much.

So thank you for that presentation.

Um we are now on to oh, I will ask the clerk to file that presentation.

Uh we're on our third presentation from the fire department, and I will invite up Chief Brian Tyner to begin the presentation.

We are waiting for your grand entrance, Chief.

All right.

Welcome.

Chief Tiner.

Thank you.

All right.

Good morning, Vice Chair Koskey and members of the committee.

Uh I'd like to uh go through the fire department's budget overview.

So uh the office of uh commun fire file falls under the Office of Community Safety, uh, with the uh of course the uh top of the pyramid being the residents of Minneapolis, followed by the mayor, followed by the uh Commissioner Barnett and the Office of Community Safety and Firefalls in there along with uh police, emergency management, uh, neighborhood safety, and uh 911.

Uh in front of you is uh department overview of our department.

I won't spend a lot of time on that, but I'm happy to answer any questions on that later if you have any.

Our mission goals and priority objectives.

Uh employees of the Minneapolis Fire Department are thoroughly trained and ready to protect lives, property, and the environment by rapidly responding to emergencies and hazardous situations.

Our goal is we are committed to preventing fires by proactively working with the community to reduce the risk to life, property, and the environment.

Some of our priority objectives uh for this year and moving forward is to continue to increase the diversity of the Minneapolis Fire Department to better reflect the community that we serve.

Continue pursuing the resources required to keep up with the increasing demand for service for the people who live, work, and play in the city.

Placing a focus and priority on the continued physical and mental health and wellness of our department members, and reduce preventable injuries, fires, and deaths by providing high quality fire prevention and community risk reduction education.

Some of our achievements in 2025 is uh we were able to successfully incorporate behavioral crisis response service under the fire department.

Uh we were graduated 18 new fire cadets, which have begun service here in the Minneapolis Fire Department as firefighters now.

We've completed the 2025 cohort of the M E MFD EMS Pathways Academy, which provides a pathway into EMS careers such as firefighter, EMT, which is emergency medical technician, paramedic, and uh EMT dispatcher.

We completed the upgrade of the incident new incident reporting software.

And we were able to expand the MARI Safe Station's opioid recovery program to fire station seven.

So now we're located both on the north and the south sides of the city.

Some of the risks that we've uh see moving forward related to the department include primarily budgetary risks.

Uh the base budget remains underfunded and has been for probably about a decade.

And that's not just the fire department, but that really applies to I think every department in the city.

Uh we were unable to we are unable to maintain the current level of service without either increasing overtime or FTEs in the fire department.

Uh our current overtime budget is uh not sufficient to maintain that minimum staffing.

Uh and mental and physical health and wellness.

Uh we've seen a large uptick in mental health claims.

Uh the state has started a new service or a new program during which uh people who need help with uh mental health, they can enter the state program.

Uh the state will pay for their salary and their treatment for six months or 24 weeks.

Uh, but during that time, that person is unavailable to the department.

And so we are having to use overtime to backfill that position in order to keep our rigs on the street.

Uh physical health, of course, injuries are kind of a part of our business.

It's uh inherently dangerous to life and health, and so injuries do happen.

Uh in addition to that, with military leave and uh parental leave, uh, we have about 10% of our uh members off on any given time on a long-term leave.

And so that kind of uh helps to explain our reliance on overtime to keep the rigs on the street.

Some of the lessons that we've learned uh in the last year is that our MFD members are really dedicated and resilient to service to this city.

Uh, even though incident volume keeps rising, and we have 10% of our uh people out on long-term leaves at any given time, they continue to show up and do a great job responding to emergencies and uh taking care of the people of this city.

The other thing that we've learned is that significant uh mental and physical health risks require extra attention.

So we really have to remain focused on that to ensure that the members of this department remain healthy and have healthy careers and healthy retirements.

Some of the performance measures uh that we have adopted uh through the help of PMI is uh one to meet the NFPA 1710 standard of the first responding emergency rig on scene in five minutes or less on at least 90 percent of the incidents that we go to.

Uh the response time plays a vital role in the outcomes of both fire and emergency medical incidents.

Fires can double in size every seven seconds if left unchecked.

And so even seconds matter.

Uh when persons having a heart attacks, seven seconds matter.

And so response time is a great indicator of of how efficient or how uh effective we can be.

And so the percent of incidents in which that first fire rig arrives on scene in five minutes or less as measured is measured from the moment that 911 answers the call.

So it's not just when we receive the call and get to the incident, it's actually at the time that 911 picks up the call.

In 2023, uh we were meeting that standard at 62 percent.

Uh 2024, we had a slight uptick uh to or excuse me, our our actual was 62 percent.

Our actual was 65 percent.

Our 2025 target was 70 percent, and we have been able to meet that 70 percent target the last two quarters.

The first quarter, we were a little bit short.

Our target in 2026 is to meet the standard of 90 percent, and we think we will be able to do that with the addition of the new fire station alerting system, which is currently in the RFP process and soon to be uh installed or beginning to be installed.

Another one is to ensure that all members of the fire department have uh 100% of the trainings required for medical certification and firefighter licensure that is absolutely necessary in order for us to be able to practice our craft, and I'm happy to say that we have meet met that target every year.

And increase the knowledge of residents and businesses about fire prevention and life-saving behaviors to reduce preventable deaths, injury, and loss to property.

Reducing preventable injuries, deaths, and property damage through the delivery of high quality fire prevention and community risk reduction information is vital.

We believe that we can save many more lives through prevention than we ever could by you know responding to fires and and pulling people out.

And I'm sure that we do, but it's hard to quantify.

And so what we've chosen to do is quantify the quality of the education.

And so uh starting next year, we're going to uh quantify that with the user rating via survey of fire prevention activities with a goal of 80 percent in the excellent range, or excuse me, in the X, yeah, in the excellent range and at least 90 percent in the good range.

Uh as you can see, our budget has uh risen uh over the years, and the uh the biggest jump was with the addition of the behavioral crisis response.

Um I won't spend a lot of time on that slide.

This is our budget broken up by program areas.

If you notice from the slide farthest to the right to the farthest to the left, uh there's a shift in where those dollars are placed.

And that's because in the past we spread our dollars across every member of the department with 70 percent going towards fire suppression, EMS and uh emergency response, and 15 percent going to training and 15 percent going to community risk reduction.

Uh this year we made the decision to kind of simplify that and actually put people where their primary job duty is.

And so uh that's why with most of our people in fire suppression, that's why you see the biggest change there, and why you see reductions in the other areas.

So we haven't reduced the service, but we put all the FTEs in the area where their primary job duty is, and we think that accounting shift is gonna simplify things, although it doesn't change the dollar amounts, the overall dollar amounts.

A budgeted FTE summary, uh 2024, uh we were at 427, 20 with 15, an additional 15 being paid for through the safer grant.

Uh the same for 2025.

In 2026, we are looking to move that safer grant it expires in March over to the general fund.

And so you see an increase of uh 437.25, but because the safer grant goes three months into it, that's where you see that 3.75 uh to bring us up to 441.

The total budgeted FTE count, though, does reflect a net decrease of one FTE, that being an office support position that is currently vacant in the 2026 mayor's recommended budget.

And additional details are found in there.

And again, this kind of shows the breakdown.

So where we would divide those uh FTEs over, you know, all three program areas.

Uh now we've uh actually uh combined administration with community outreach.

Uh we have fire suppression, EMS and technical rescue and training and recruitment, and because we moved to FTEs where their primary duty is in that slot, you now see that instead of 64 in community outreach, we have 16 in community outreach and education administration.

We have 420 in fire suppression, and we have five in training and recruitment.

All right, uh, let's talk about some of our program updates.

Community outreach and education.

The community outreach and education and administration's primary function is to reduce preventable fires, fire-related injuries, and deaths by reaching out to Minneapolis residents, community members, and businesses with fire safety education and prevention information.

The administration, although I didn't put that in here, is obviously the running the fire department and making sure that the members have everything that they need to be able to serve the public.

Some of the key projects and business lines offered by the program include youth fire setter intervention program for youth who have uh set fires or or maybe have a propensity to uh set fires or at risk of setting fires, school age outreach and education, teaching our young people fire safety, adult and aging adult outreach, teaching them fire safety, but also community risk reduction on how to have uh safer homes and things to prevent trips, slips, and falls and other injuries that are common to an aging uh population.

Differently abled outreach, immigrant and non-English speaking outreach and smoke and carbon monoxide alarm distribution, which is one of our most popular programs.

Some of the metrics of success for this uh area is number of contacts.

Uh again, what I talked about the uh survey, the rating of good by 90 percent of more contracts as measured through a survey of residents who have participated or whose children have participated in community risk reduction training or activities, and a rating of excellent by 80 percent or more who have done the same.

Next, I'll talk a little bit about our fire suppression EMS and technical rescue uh area.

It is the biggest area, and it's the one that most people uh attribute to the fire department.

It is the people who are out on the streets responding to the emergencies uh from the fire stations and on the fire rigs.

Um did I go to the wrong slide?

I think I didn't.

Okay, anyways.

Uh the key business line for this area is to respond to all hazards, which includes but is not limited to medical emergencies, fires, hazardous materials, incidents, and technical rescues.

But also what has been added to this program area now is uh behavioral crisis response.

And so, although you don't see it on here, the behavioral crisis response contract is contained within the fire suppression EMS and technical rescue business line.

That's what it is, okay.

So, some of our metrics of success uh for fire suppression, EMS and technical rescue is uh we talked about earlier the NFPA standard 1710, which requires us to arrive on scene in five minutes or less, at least 90% of the time.

Uh again, we have reached uh 70% here in the last couple of quarters for the first time uh since at least 2020.

Uh move the Minneapolis Fire Department towards meeting the NFPA 1710 standard and requirement of staffing a minimum of four firefighters on each responding rig.

Currently, we do minimum staffing.

I've talked about that a lot, and what that means is that we're running with three firefighters on an engine and four on our fire trucks.

So that's still very much a work in progress.

And finally, uh behavioral crisis response.

Uh, we did concentrate on things like determining the scope of uh service and things like that this year and really getting them uh acquainted and in line and developing a good partnership with the fire department.

And so in 2026, we plan to really focus on and define uh the metrics a little bit better to see what we want to measure.

Uh this uh talks about our call volumes.

Uh the green represents rescue and uh EMS incidents, and the blue uh talks about our annual total call volume.

Uh what I would say about this side is what we have seen is our total call volume rises about three to five percent every year.

So, although we've maintained the same staffing over quite a long time, uh quite a long bit of time, our incidents and our requirements to respond continues to rise every year.

And that is almost completely in the EMS realm.

Fires have remained relatively constant over the last decade, really, but our uh demand for emergency medical response continues to rise every year.

This shows our uh priority one calls responded to in five minutes or less.

Uh as you can see from uh 2019, we have been uh on a downward slide, uh, but in 2024 we started to rise, and and in 2025, I can say that we're continuing to rise, so things are uh moving in the right direction now.

Training and recruitment.

The uh function of training and recruitment is to ensure that firefighters are thoroughly trained and capable leaders and supervisors.

This is done through the pursuit of excellence and high professional standards.

We provide skills training, instill a value of lifelong learning and develop leadership traits that focus on wellness, wellness, health, and safety.

The key projects of this business line are to provide high-quality training to meet the requirements for firefighting-related certifications and licensure, those being uh the emergency medical technician certification, uh the Minnesota State Firefighters license, and the hazmat certifications required to respond to hazardous materials incidents.

We also provide training on other things such as uh swift water rescue and other and uh specialized rescues that aren't required to be a firefighter, but uh are other services that we provide as an all hazards department.

And lastly, to provide high quality training opportunities for members to learn new skills and improve the proficiency of their corner skills.

So obviously, fires don't happen every day, uh, so it's not like we're going into fires and getting those reps every day.

So training is what we use to maintain that uh proficiency of skills.

And finally, we have uh the metrics uh of success to include all Minneapolis Fire Department firefighters, which is complete the mandatory 72 hours of fire training every three years required to maintain their Minnesota State Firefighters license, complete the mandatory 80 hours of EMS training every two years required to maintain the emergency medical technician certification, and get opportunities to engage in training beyond the minimum training requirements.

We are able to meet these requirements because we actually require everybody to put in a hundred hours of training each and every year.

So we train far and above what the state requires.

All right, so let's get to the meat of it.

Two 2026 budget changes and reductions.

Uh we have uh $1,000 being removed from the food and beverage budget, uh 129,000 from contractual services, and I want to talk a little bit about that too.

And then uh 200,000 from other post employment benefits, uh, some of which the state picks up now uh related to mental health, and uh the one budgeted position of the office support person.

The two uh contracts that we're looking to eliminate with these cuts would be uh AlexPo app, uh Lex Pole is a phone app that uh takes our mental health resources, it takes our injury resources, uh, connects you to peer support, uh, connects you to suicide uh prevention, present uh present provides resiliency training and self-assessments and puts it all in the palm of your hand.

So that's one thing we would have to uh forego starting next year.

The other one is a service called Ready Rebound.

Ready Rebound is our injury concierge service.

We've been with them uh for the last uh two years, I believe we were the first fire department in Minnesota to actually adopt uh ready rebound, and now it's uh kind of spreading like wild fire across the state.

And what ready rebound does is when a firefighter is injured or even a member of their family is injured, or even a retired firefighter is injured, uh they take on that case.

They have a group of uh doctors is really based upon kind of sports medicine because we have similar injuries, and so they have a group of uh medical doctors that are willing to see those firefighters or family members right away, get them in right away, uh get the scans or whatever they need right away, get them into surgery right away if they need it, and get them back on the streets.

If you think about how sports works, uh, you know, if a wide receiver gets injured, you know, they don't wait a week or a month or something, you know, to get them into the doctor and get them scanned.

They get them in right away, and if they need surgery, they get them into surgery the next day in order to get them back to the field sooner.

Well, that's how they treat us as firefighters.

They they get us our treatment and get us in there and get us back on the field or back on the street sooner.

And so uh that is unfortunately is is gonna be one of the things that we will probably have to forego later uh with these contractual cuts.

So with that, I think that uh concludes my presentation.

Thank you, Chief.

I see we have Consumer Vita in Q for questions.

Thank you, Chair Koske.

Thank you, Chief.

It's always good to see you.

Thanks for the presentation.

Um, I just have a couple questions.

Um, some of them you kind of answered a little bit, but I, you know, it's been a long morning, so repeat a question.

Um I I wanted to know more about like the staffing and the training you were talking about, how uh the training is more important, but I'm just wondering how what's the sustainable model with this training?

Like how do we ensure that we're recruiting people from the communities here, and how do we keep that going?

How do we train divorce diverse folks and um and like make sure we meet the community's needs for this?

Absolutely.

Uh so Chair Koskey, the councilmember Vito.

Um, so really I look at that as three different things.

Uh recruitment is one part of it, uh, training is another part of it.

I think uh one of the big things that we have been able to put in place and back in 2016 is the MFD EMS Pathways Academy.

I think that's been a great recruiting and training tool uh because it removes a lot of the barriers needed uh to train to become a firefighter or an EMT, and it's really uh it was created to uh access underrepresented populations uh that are underrepresented in the fire department.

And so it really focuses on uh trying to recruit people here from the city of Minneapolis, residents from the city of Minneapolis, and uh underrepresented minorities or represent underrepresented populations, I'll say in the fire service.

Uh it has helped us quite a bit in increasing the diversity in our fire department.

Uh we still do a lot of recruiting also for the uh civil service list as well.

Uh we have uh gone from a model where we're recruiting just maybe in the months prior to uh creating a civil service list to really recruiting all year round and the staff captains that are in community risk reduction, they also lead those recruiting efforts.

Thank you, Chief.

I think that's what I was asking more about is the year-round recruitment.

I know there were just like times when you were recruiting and that felt like it was um not helping us to get to the desired number.

So I'm happy to hear that it's a year-round thing now.

What's the plan for getting to that four?

What's the long-term plan for getting to that 460 number though?

And then like with that number, what is the financial responsibility?

I think I would love to hear more about a long-term plan and then how we get to that number financially, like how how I as a council member, how I need to look at what investments we need to make to ensure that we get to that number.

Thank you.

So I do have a long-term plan in place.

It was a 10-year plan.

I'm actually five years into the plan.

We're running a little bit behind.

Uh so we've already added the 15 due to Safer Grant.

Uh, my plan was really to add another 15 every couple of years.

Now I'm coming to the end of my tenure, so I'm gonna have to kind of hand that over to the next chief.

But uh the plan really was to use the safer grant if possible to uh add another 15 uh every two to three years until we got to the 60 people.

So uh 45 more people is what I estimate we need to get to four to a rig uh on at a minimum.

So uh, but you know, as that would get us to four on a rig at where we're at now.

I think we also have to pay attention that with the rise in incidents, there may even come a time where we need to add more rigs on stations.

But uh my plan was to add 15 more uh FTEs uh every two years until we got to the 45, the additional 45 that we need.

So we still need uh an additional 45 now.

We still need an additional 45, in my opinion now.

And the cost for that is probably about four and a half to four point seven million dollars uh at where we're at today.

Uh I'll look at Luke and see if he nods yes or no.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, so um, which incidentally is about what we're paying in overtime to maintain minimum staffing this year.

So we're kind of at that tipping point.

And then are you um looking at that?

That I mean, that's a great point, Chief.

That's what we're paying in minimum uh staffing and overtime.

That's the number we need for bringing on new um firefighters and having a fully staffed department.

Are we looking at that though those kind of long-term things of um what is it gonna look like with minimum staffing?

I mean, if we're if we're at capacity with what we can afford and someone gets injured or some, you know, something happens, then we're not there, right?

Like we're we're missing um firefighters.

And so, like what what's the vision for that?

How are we gonna offset needing this 45 and um getting the funding?

And then the last piece to that, this is like five questions in one chief.

The last piece of that is are we are we just reliant on the the safer grant?

Like we shouldn't we have some sort of a backup plan in case that funding is not available to us?

Yeah, I think we should.

I think the backup plan would have to be this body.

So it really comes down to yeah, so really it comes down to uh can we afford it?

Uh and if we're willing to make that investment.

Um so yeah, is it something that we're planning on?

Um the safer grant is not a guarantee, right?

Um you apply for it and you may be awarded or you may not.

So uh this is you know, always would have to be the backup plan.

I do think it would be wise uh for us as a city to kind of start looking at what that investment would look like, uh, especially given that we're probably spending the money uh anyways, you know, just to maintain minimum staffing.

Uh minimum staffing is a hundred and five people a day.

Uh maximum staffing to get 20 more people on those rigs would be 125 a day.

But if we went to a maximum staffing model and we started out with four each day, uh when a person called in sick or got injured or whatever, uh we could still run that engine with three without having to use overtime.

Whereas now, if anybody calls off or goes off for any reason, we have to use overtime in order to keep that rig in service.

So if we started at 125, we could theoretically lose 20 people without having to hire anybody on overtime, whereas now we have to hire overtime for every person we're missing.

Does that make sense?

Yes, it does.

Thank you so very much.

That's all of my questions.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Chief.

I have myself in cue for a few questions.

Um you mentioned that one of the biggest risks for firefighters is mental and physical wellness.

Yes.

Um yet in the budget, you're reducing the two programs, the ready rebound injury management and the lexi pull.

Um, if these do remain um removed from the budget, what's the plan to ensure that staff have access to comparable support going forward?

So for the mental health support, um, I think we still provide that.

It just wouldn't be on an app in the palm of their hand, but they would still be able to access it, all the services uh that that app connects you to.

For the physical service, uh we'd be just relying on workers' comp, which is uh a slower process.

And so uh while those uh injured firefighters would still get the help they need, it would take longer, which means it's probably gonna take them longer to get back to work, which means that we're spending more overtime to uh cover those shifts.

That was gonna be my next question, actually.

Is has that been analyzed?

You know, in basically the question was how will the canceling of these programs increase overtime costs and have those costs uh of potential overtime been analyzed and what would those numbers look like?

They have uh we've seen, if I recall in the last report that we looked at, we were looking at about a two to one, uh even closer to three to one return on investment on that hundred thousand dollars uh just in saved overtime costs by getting people back to work sooner.

Okay, thank you.

Um you are eliminating one role office support specialist.

How long had that been vacant?

Uh it had been vacant for just a few months.

So the person that wasn't there uh got promoted to our health and safety coordinator.

So it had really only been vacant for maybe four four months, I think at the most, uh, when the decision was made to let it go.

And what's the effect of losing that that role then?

We're down to one office support person in the entire fire department.

So uh the workload of that person is gonna be, you know, pretty significantly increased.

Okay.

Um another question I have is going back to the slide around response times.

Uh so you know, the goal in 2026 is to move to 90 percent for of those calls being responded under five minutes, a jump from 70 percent.

You mentioned that that's due to the alerting system, which would help that.

Can and that can you help describe like how the alerting system alone is gonna move uh the needle from that big of a jump from 70 percent to 90?

Yes.

So as I had explained, uh, when talking about response time, that response time is measured from the time uh 911 picks up the call to the time that we arrive at the incident.

Uh this new station alerting system, aside from being good for firefighter health because of the way that it operates, uh, kind of cuts out the middleman.

Currently, when a person calls 911 for an emergency, a 911 call taker picks up the call, they put the information into the computer, uh the call is then transferred to the fire dispatcher.

The fire dispatcher now has to open up the station manually over the radio, dispatch uh the firefighters to the call.

At that time, the firefighters get dressed, get on the rig, and go.

With this new system, as soon as the 911 operator puts in the call, it goes directly to the stations, and instead of a live person opening up the stations and sending us out.

Uh, we're being the station is opened up by the alarm system and we're dispatched by a computer voice.

Think of like Siri or Alexa or something like that.

So it really kind of removes the dispatcher from the equation or and I like to say remove the middleman.

We believe that that will save us a minimum of 30 seconds.

And that doesn't sound like a lot, but our uh overall response time for 100 percent of our call averages about 521, 525, depending on the time of year.

It's even gone as far as 529.

A 30 second uh savings would get us below that.

So uh we believe that'll put us well within the 90 percent threshold.

Okay, thank you.

That's helpful.

And you said the RFP is out, but when will those all be installed or what's the goal of that?

Uh the goal is to get them all installed by the end of next year, perhaps early 2027.

Uh we've created a schedule.

They're gonna be installed in tiers.

Uh we've uh kind of put the most important stations first, the double houses and things and kind of moved our way through.

So uh but the funding is also coming to us over three years.

We've received a million dollars this year to start the project, and property services is the project lead on that, so they're the ones that are handling the RFP.

Uh we already were approved or you know, moving through approval for click for another million dollars next year, and then there's another million dollars stated for 2027.

Okay.

Um have we ever been at that 90 percent?

Not no, not in my recollection.

Okay.

I was just curious about the question.

Not since they created the standard.

Okay.

All right.

Uh that's all the questions that I had.

Umita asked the ones around recruitment and how we could get um or just the challenges that we're seeing and what that gap is.

So appreciate those answers.

I see we have Councilmember Cashman in Q.

Thank you, Vice Chair Koskey.

Thank you, Chief Tiner.

I saw that one of your 2025 achievements was incorporating the BCR program, so thank you for that.

Um I wanted to ask which budget expense type or program that bucket of work falls into Chair Koskey, the council member Cashman, it falls into the fire suppression, emergency medical response, and uh technical rescue bucket.

So that biggest program area uh is contracted through that area.

Okay, thanks.

And then for expense category, is it contractual services or salaries and wages?

It would be contractual.

Contractual since it's still out to canopy roots.

Okay, thanks.

And then I saw um some of your metrics performance measures for this year.

Um, and I'm wondering if you have a performance measure for BCR or intending to add a performance measure to BCR and how how you would quantify the success of that program.

Yeah, so they do have performance measures uh of their own that they collect.

Uh, we're looking to develop our own in 2026.

Really, this year we focused on uh really focusing in on their scope of work and what they're gonna respond to and what they're not uh in creating that partnership uh between fire and uh canopy roots and behavioral crisis response, and I think we've done that uh successfully, and so uh next year we'll work together to really focus in on those uh performance requirements.

Adding in to that the uh safe and thriving community report and what they require as long as as well as the uh consent decree agreement.

Okay, thanks.

That sounds great.

And I uh we'll be doing a B CR ride along this afternoon and look forward to asking them, you know, how we measure success of this program not just by the amount of responses that we do or the amount of people that we talk to, but actually how we're connecting the people that are uh being served to a continuum of care and actually getting folks into treatment as an more of an outcome than just uh the service being there for the there.

I think it has to be outcome-based.

It's it's uh it's really designed to you know de-escalate the behavioral crisis in the moment.

Uh if people are interested, then they do have the ability to connect them with other services, but we can't require them to do it.

So uh but uh I do think they have been uh pretty successful on that, but it's hard for us to track it because in order to uh not be in foul of HIPAA laws and things like that, uh the city doesn't get the patient data.

Okay.

Well, finally, just wanted to close by thanking um your department.

Even last night there was a call to uh someone who was trapped inside a a condemned building that had been boarded up on Oak Grove, and fire department was the first one to come out there, uh get on top of the roof and help this person uh who had been trapped inside the building for multiple days.

So uh can't thank you enough um in your department for the true bravery.

It's very difficult to climb a rickety building like that to get to the fourth story and help someone escape.

Um, and I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

We have Consumer Wandsley, and then we have Councilmember Chowdery after that.

Thank you, Chief.

Um the question that I had actually followed up to one um mentioned by Councilmember Viet Hall, but the safer grant.

I actually wanted to know what's the status on that because the Lems file had I believe it going from June 1st of 2022 through May 31st of 2025.

So this year.

So just want to get a sense of the case.

Yeah, I think that's a misprint.

It went through uh, it goes through March 31st of 2026.

So we are still uh using the safer grant now, and we have a few more months left.

Okay.

It have you reapplied?

So technically we have it until March of next year.

To uh get money to get reimbursed from the grant because it's paying for the salaries of those 15 firefighters.

Uh but uh as far as reapplying, we did have a plan to reapply this year.

Uh the current admissions administration kind of moved the goal posts on us and changed the uh performance requirements of the grant.

Uh in the past, uh, if you received the grant, it paid for 100 percent of the salary and benefits of the firefighters that you hired with it uh with the caveat that you you know you couldn't reduce uh staffing throughout the performance period of the grant.

Uh this year they changed it so that uh it required a 35 percent match in year one and two and a 65 percent match in year three.

Uh that change wasn't made until very late in the year, like uh so we weren't able probably like I want to say July or something.

Anyways, it was something that we would wasn't gonna be able to afford to do, even if we were successful in uh receiving the grant.

So no, we didn't apply this year.

So after March of next year, will we essentially be absorbing the full cost of those 15 additional LTEs that were subsidized through this grant?

Yes, but that would happen anyway.

Uh if we applied for a new grant, it would be to hire a new 15 people, not to subsidize the 15 that have been subsidized for the last three years.

Right.

And I think this might be something with IGR or budget.

I I the more we have these presentations, I think the more clear it's becoming of and we haven't had a fuller conversation around one, the impacts of these budget decisions made at the federal level.

And essentially this would be a loss, even with with the changing of the grant terms.

Um so now we're not receiving though that subsidy.

And even with the prison presentation beforehand, like we're losing the Burns grant.

Like, so it would be great.

I I don't know if this is again budget to really get a comprehensive understanding of what revenue um through federal allocations and the preparations are we actually losing going into the 2026 year because I think the overall budget kind of holds this idea that we're maintaining status quo essentially.

And that status quo actually came with additional supports that are actually going to be phasing out in the next coming months, and it leaves a question of as you mentioned, like what does this body do in response to it and what the executive does on the local level, Mayor Fry.

So, yeah, that is something for maybe Vice Chair Koske, um again, IGR, I will follow up offline.

Um, but it's good to get clarity about the safer grant at least.

And I see we have Director DeCenza is here if you would like to comment on that too, and then we can also do a follow-up as well.

So just to get some clarity right now and then do a follow-up with anything additional if you don't mind.

Oh, just clear.

I didn't have a question for, but I I mentioned a larger this sounds like something more comprehensive of each department that are receiving federal grants.

I don't think Director De Cenza is giving that to us right now.

No, I know she's not.

I just want to find out if that is a possibility and we can then get the memo to get that information.

So Vice Churkoski, I just wanted to comment that the Safer grant was part of the biennial budget discussions last year, so we've long been planning to add these 15 FTEs into the general fund.

Okay.

So that is planned long term.

But I think to Councilmember Wandsley's point, if you want to re-clarify for the memo that you'd like to have, I am understanding you'd like to have a more comprehensive list of the federal grants that maybe are going to be sunsetting this year or even next year, and what those long-term effects and plans are in conjunction with those grants.

Is that sum it up?

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

So I will add that uh we're fortunate in that we don't have uh really a large reliance on federal grants uh once this one expires, which it was set to expire in March, uh at the end of March of 2026 anyway.

So we're getting the full benefit of the grant.

Uh so unlike some other departments that are highly dependent on fellow federal grants, uh the fire department is that.

Okay.

Awesome.

I'm a question five.

Okay.

All right.

We have Councilmember Chadry.

Thank you, Vice Chair, and thank you, Chief, for your presentation.

Um I really, really appreciate kind of just getting the numbers and getting to look at uh just things year after year.

Like what's very clear is it's more calls year after year with the same amount of FTEs and a high caliber of service from this department.

Um I also feel a lot of empathy for the fact that that's a lot of extra work for the individuals that have to take take that up, which is seen by about 4.5 million in overtime roughly.

Right.

We're projecting it.

Yeah.

Um I think this body in this budget cycle should certainly contemplate but looking into future budget cycles and figuring out a sustainable path forward for funding for fire because it's an extraordinary amount of service, but it does not seem sustainable, nor does it seem fair, frankly, to the force that we have to take this up, especially given the risks that we're looking at.

And so uh I just wanted to put that in our discussion today.

Um because that's certainly a priority for me.

And um certainly calls are only going to increase moving forward, and we don't want to just see it, see 441 FTEs.

We want more recruitment, we more we want more support.

And if we're putting that funding already into overtime, I think it's time for us to have some robust discussions of what that looks like into the future.

Um looking at the cuts, I kind of wanted to get a better understanding on how the decision was made that it was the rebrand rebound program versus other programs.

Was it an underutilized program or was it very utilized, and there was just like other things that were more important?

Like how did you and the administration kind of come to that decision?

Obviously a tough one.

Yeah, absolutely.

So it's I wouldn't say it's underutilized, it's it's pretty new, it's voluntary, so it's not something that we require injured people to use, but the people that have used it have loved it.

I've used it myself uh for uh rotator cuff injury.

Um I think the decision was really made by prioritizing the cuts.

You know, we were given a dollar figure that we had to cut, and you know, looking at the contracts that we had, which we don't have many, um, you know, for that that was the one that fit those were the ones that fit that dollar amount that we thought we could uh most easily get by without.

Do you know how many um members of the fire department have used the rebound program since it was created and when was it created?

I believe we started the ready rebound program near the beginning of last year, maybe toward the end of the year before.

So it's probably been close to two years now.

Uh it was grant funded the first year, and then we actually paid for it out of our budget this year.

I don't know the exact number, but I can get it for you.

Yeah, it'd be great to get a follow-up on that.

And then in terms of uh the app that kind of just pulls together all of the resources in one spot.

Um good to hear that all the resources will still be available.

Has that been something that's been well utilized and members have relied on, or is it just kind of like here's an another app that we have to do?

Yeah, I'd not reply to you.

I have no idea how much the app has been utilized.

So yeah, I don't know.

I would only want to guess.

No worries.

If you have some information on that to follow up on uh would appreciate it.

And then I think for me, the understanding that there's gonna be only one individual that's gonna do office support.

Um, yeah, like you said, it's gonna be a lot a lot more work.

Um so appreciate you sharing that.

And I think my takeaway from this presentation is yeah, the fire department's been asked to do a lot of work um with about the same amount of resources and more need, and now this budget kind of shows us clearly that the fire department's going to be asked to do the same amount of more work, if not more, looking into next year, depending on what's happening with less resources.

Um and that's just objective uh and it should inform our work moving forward and I hope we can find some partnership in figuring out what's sustainable and can help out the department.

Thank you.

All right.

I am not seeing any further questions or comments.

Thank you so much for your presentation and I look forward to the continued conversation as we help plan out for future staffing needs.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

All right I'll ask the clerk to file that presentation and with that we've concluded all business to come before the committee today.

Without objection we stand adjourned until our next meeting which is Monday October 6th at 10 AM where we will receive department presentations prepared by the city attorney's office performance management and innovation and finance and property services.

I also want to note that if I just want to make sure that I'm looking at the calendar correctly here um we also have a meeting that afternoon which is the public hearing and that begins at 1.30.

Thank you so much.