Good morning.

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

I'm going to call to order our adjourned meeting for Thursday, October 16th, 2025.

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

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

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

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

At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the role so we can verify the presence of a quorum.

Councilman Payne is absent.

Wandsley is absent.

Rainbow.

Present.

Present.

Ellison is absent.

Osman is absent.

Cashman present.

Jenkins is absent.

Chavez.

Present.

Chowdry is absent.

Palmasano.

Present.

Vice Chair Koski.

Present.

Chair Shaktei.

Present.

There are seven 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 pre presentations related to the mayor's recommended 2026 budget from the parks and recreation board, the legislative department, and the city's climate legacy initiative.

First, I'll invite Parks Board President Kathy Abene, Superintendent Al Bangora, and Finance Director Julie Weissman to begin the Parks and Rec Board presentation.

Welcome.

Thank you very much, Chair Chungtai and members of the committee.

This budget was just presented to the park commissioners last night, and so we're still going through it, but in general, I would say it's a budget to be proud of, and I hope you find that to be the case as well.

We worked really hard this year with the mayor's office and then with the Board of Estimate and Taxation, and we have a member here of the the BET and another that's not present, but really uh appreciated their um interest in the park system this year and their willingness to um you know hear the needs of the park system and support the parks.

So with that, I'll just go ahead and turn this over to Superintendent Al Bangora.

Thank you.

Welcome, sir.

Thank you.

Chair Taktai and members, uh it's a privilege of being here today.

Just give me a moment, I'll walk through some things.

I'm gonna turn it over to Director Weissman to then walk through uh the budget for 2026.

So for more than 140 years, our park system has been shaped by vision, advocacy, and shared commitment to community.

Today we have the privilege and also the responsibility for carrying that legacy forward.

As stewards of our parks, uh the choices we make now, uh, where we invest, what we protect, and how we prioritize will define the future of our parks, our environment, and our city.

This year we celebrate several major milestones.

The River Hub at Greco Park opened, advancing our climate goals through clean energy generation and conservation while engaging through our Spark Studios and enhancing riverfront and downtown programming.

Construction is nearing completion on the Upper Harbor Park, a 20-acre regional park that transforms the former industrial riverfront into a welcoming space for people and wildlife.

We also broke ground on the largest ever investment in our Minneapolis neighborhood parks, North Commons Park.

It's a bold, forward-looking project grounded in the community's rich history.

Each of these transformative projects is located in a historically underserved area and made possible through strategic directions and investments and strong partnerships.

They reflect our ongoing commitment to providing world-class parks and facilities that enrich lives.

Minneapolis parks are essential to what makes our city a great place to live, work, play, and visit.

With that comes a shared expectation that our parks are for everyone.

They're well cared for and they will endure for generations to come.

Balancing adding amenities for areas of the city that are growing in the underserved or underserved with taking care of what we have was the hardest part of this year's budget development and will be our challenge for the next several years to come.

I am obviously very and continuously inspired by the dedication of our MPRB staff who understand the challenges and whose work brings the mission, vision, values, and life every single day in their work.

It really is truly an honor to work alongside such talented and passionate team as the superintendent of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.

The recommended budget supports the final year of implementation of our 2023 to 2026 strategic directions, which advances the goals outlined in our Parks for All, the MPRB comprehensive plan from 2021 to 2036.

Since 2022, commissioners and staff have worked with focus and determination to ensure the park system's long-term environmental and financial sustainability.

So thanks to strong board leadership and collaboration, we've achieved several key milestones to help diversify our funding sources.

We increased our annual parkway repair funding from $750,000 to more than $3 million by 2026.

We have established a dedicated stormwater utility charge, doubling funding from $824,000 to $1.7 million in 2026 to protect and enhance our stormwater management system.

We formed a new endowment with the Minneapolis Parks Foundation, ensuring long-term funding for historic infrastructure, regional park and trail upkeep, and natural resource management.

These pivotal agreements will leave a lasting impact, strengthen quality and sustainability for our parks for generations to come.

So I am proud to present the my recommended 2026 budget, which prioritizes the care for park amenities and infrastructure, protects the natural resources under our stewardship, expands access to quality programs for youth and senior communities, and invests in the dedicated employees who deliver those essential services every single day.

So with that, Chair Tuck Tye and members, I am going to turn us over to Director Weissman to walk through the budget.

Thank you.

Welcome, Director Weissman.

Thank you, Chair Tuck Tai and members.

We began our budget development in April and May this year.

This is the second year of our first biannual budget.

And the adopted plan in 2025 for 2026 was the base of our budget development this year.

We talked about during our discussions, expenditure pressures due to wage inflation and capital investment needs.

Our system equity investment needs for workforce and other operating costs, closing the youth investment gap, reducing revenue resulting from the decline in property tax collections, and the growing disparity between the MPRB's financial forecasts and the city's projected property tax levy increases for the MPRB.

When we started the budget process, we had a projected deficit of over $6 million.

The superintendent engaged two staff work teams.

The revenue team that was tasked to identify and generate new revenue for our park system over the next three years.

And that work team will continue their ongoing work.

As you know, our tax levy on September 17th was set at 6.11 percent, of which increased the mayor's recommendation to support Greco and Harbor Terminal, Upper Harbor Parks.

And so recession-level cuts were not faced in this budget.

How do we balance our budget?

We balanced it through new ideas in revenue generations, innovative staff-led suggestions, temporarily holding some vacant positions, eliminating other vacant positions, and increasing fees in some categories based on market rates, for example, child care golf and parking.

Again, as the superintendent mentioned, we have our strategic directions and performance goals that have set our expectations through the for that period of time.

So the Act Boldly for our climate future, the reduction of carbon footprint.

We reach that performance goal with the opening of Greco Park as a net our as a zero carbon building, as well as our participation in the XL solar for our electricity.

And for the first time in the 2026 budget, we have contracted with Placer AI, and we now have visitor data that we can use to help support our decision making process.

This budget continues our work with the MPRB Indigenous Action Plan and our work with Dakota leadership over the modifications and additions to some significant policies, including the tobacco and cannabis policy, as well as our naming policy.

For implementing a quality youth and generational programs, we are building on the success of the citywide youth discount programming model and expanding it in the summer of 2026 to youth sports and senior programs.

Our youth investment, this budget still holds three youth program specialist positions vacant until we reach our full property tax allocation in 2027.

For caring for our park assets, this budget includes the care and main care maintenance and activation of Draco and Upper Harbor Parks, and it restores the cuts we heard loudly from the community as well as our commissioners, and we restored the cuts to the 2025 ice rink operations, which eliminates further closures and it restores ice rings but on land rather than water bodies at Powder Horn and Weber Park.

For stewarding our natural resources, we are expanding our slightly expanding our natural area maintenance funding through our seasonal natural resource specialists and continuing to build our stormwater management program.

So some other budgetary highlights.

So we need to adjust and make some room in our budget.

We're adding a sponsorship program.

This is something that came out of the revenue team and is one of the things that they believe could generate the most revenue for the park system.

We are adding some leave management coordination due to the implementation of the Minnesota paid state and family medical leave program.

We're eliminating Rec Plus at 40th Street Park in the mornings and key weight in due to low enrollment.

Youth at those locations will be offered enrollment at other suitable sites.

We're adding a mobile beer garden concept that will travel weekly to the neighborhood park locations that came out of the revenue team.

It will be designed similar to parks on tap in Philadelphia, and there's a few other park systems that offer that amenity.

So now I'll get into the budget itself.org backslash budget.

The first part of the budget book is the budget message and highlights, which are the things the superintendent and I have highlighted for you.

The highlight section is where you'll find the very detailed changes that have happened in each fund and within each division and department.

Our strategic performance goals is the next section, and you can see detailed information of the movement and the tracking through the budget process on those performance goals.

The background information, the park commissioners have new districts in 2026, so this chart shows the old commissioner districts with the highlighted areas, and then the new commissioner districts with the dark red line to show the comparison.

Property taxes.

We are 17.4% of the total city tax, that's slightly lower than 2025, as our property tax levy increase was 6.1% this year.

For local government aid, local government aid hasn't increased since 2024.

It's really important as we work with our lobbyists and the legislature that they consider increasing local government aid to keep pace with inflation, but not increasing local government aid.

It makes us more reliant on property taxes.

We have an increase in revenues by 804,000.

That's directly related to the work of the revenue team.

And also a response, you know, we we really truly want to reduce the reliance on property taxes in the general fund, and we're going to be working hard to do that.

Unfortunately, for this budget, the reliance on property taxes is still 81%, and again, that is driven by local government aid not increasing.

On the expenditure side of again, we're showing 73%, almost 73% is wages and fringe.

And then I'll point out that our 2026 plan, which was the basis for this budget development, estimated a growth of 5.1% in our general fund.

So we maintained to our plan, and the 5.3% is realistically due to the increase in the city fees.

The sponsorship position, the leave management position, but those were funded through other budget cuts and increase in revenue.

This shows the expenditures by division, and you'll see city management fee contributions and other is a very large negative number, and that's because that's where our provision for wage adjustment lies within our budget.

And 2026 is a year where all our union contracts are settled and under contract.

So the wage increase, step increases, everything are reflected in the division budgets.

And you will notice in 27 and 28, just forecasting forward to the next two-year budget.

We have a 5.6% increase estimated for 27 and a 4.4% increase estimated for 28.

And the drivers of that is the system equity investment workforce needs, workforce and other operating cost needs coming forward.

So as President Abeni alluded to, these conversations around investing in these new parks and facilities will continue.

A new park in that area will mean, and understanding when that park would come online.

So for a special revenue fund, we increased our natural areas maintenance again with seasonal support.

In our enterprise fund, we have our revenues aren't increasing at the level of expenses this year.

One of the reasons is a WAMNI leaving the waterworks site.

So we need to allow for the selection of a new concessionaire there and allow time for them to get established and build their business.

This shows the operations within the enterprise fund, and I'll note Waterworks has a larger loss in 2026 that gets absorbed through the net incomes of the other operations of the enterprise fund.

The enterprise fund is not supported by property taxes.

It is a self-supporting fund.

And here is our enterprise CIP, which is modified slightly from what was planned for last year.

And the addition is some bird-safe glass that will be happening at the sculpture garden.

And we had to reduce some of our rehab program categories in order to fit that into the CIP.

For stormwater, with the implementation of the utility charge on this chart, you'll see the two items in yellow, monitoring and public education.

That is what the park board did prior to our utility fee being instituted.

And so all of the items in blue are the additional responsibilities that we are able to take on for our stormwater system through that utility charge.

With this recommended budget, we are including a 2027 and 2028 plan for our stormwater fund.

This is specifically to get board approval and board input adopted input into these plans in preparation for our work with the city and um and uh getting our utility rates set through the city's budget budget process.

You'll note in 2027 that we have improvements of 400,000 with this recommended budget and the 2027-28 plan.

Uh we are recommending our first stormwater capital improvement program, and we will be working directly with city public works on the process for establishing establishing that.

Internal services funds, uh we have our equipment operations, IT operations, and our self-insurance fund.

The capital improvement program, I will not provide information for you today.

Our capital improvement program will be presented to you when the capital improvement programs are presented.

Um what's next for our budget process is we have a public review, comment, and any potential amendments.

Um we have board meetings on November 5th, November 19th, December 3rd.

And at the December 3rd meeting is when the board will at committee adopt the budget and adopt any potential amendments.

And then we move to City Hall on December 9th to adopt the budget.

And we are available for questions.

Thank you.

Thank you for that presentation.

Colleagues, are there any questions or comments related to this budget?

And before we um continue to discussion and questions, I will ask or I will note that we have been joined in this committee meeting by council members Jenkins, Chowdhury, and Council President Payne.

Um I'll first recognize Councilmember Chavez, followed by Councilmember Cashman.

Thank you, Chair Chuck Chai, and thank you all so much for being here.

I have a few questions.

The first is if I can get an update on the Uptown Mall Plan, that would be appreciated, and the $300,000 that could have been saved along with MPRB staff time that you all left on the table.

Is it is there anything reflected in this budget?

Sorry, I apologize.

Um, Chair Chucktai and Member Chavez.

I don't have response a response for that.

We will have to get back to you on that.

I think so and so much.

And if we can first have you um introduce yourself.

Yeah.

Jennifer Ringel, Deputy Superintendent, Minneapolis Park Board.

That is actually part of our capital program.

So that would be more of a discussion when the capital discussion happens.

I just wanted to say that that wouldn't fit into the operating part of it.

And then uh Church, do we know when that's gonna come before this body?

So the capital budget will be presented to this body on Monday, October 27th at 10 a.m.

Great.

So I will ask that question again in appropriation.

I would hope to get a response.

Yes, hopefully, folks will come prepared to respond to your question.

And the questions I'm gonna ask today might be in other parts of your budgets, but hoping to see if there's anything in your proposed budget uh that you have all requested changed in regards to forcing your Layuna Park Board employees on strike last year, trying to see if there's any changes in this budget to ensure that staff are being respected.

Um Chair Tucktai and Member Chavez, I'll first start that this budget uh supports fully um all of the negotiated and approved contracts.

Do you want to mention anything about Jeremy's budget?

Do you want to mention anything about your thank you, Jennifer Ringold again, Deputy Superintendent?

So, you know, we were very grateful that the mayor's budget supported all of the funding that we needed for staffing, and then we're also very grateful that the BET established a funding rate that would allow us to fully staff Greco and Upper Harbor Park.

Those two things are a significant piece that don't then dilute the existing resources that we have within the system and place additional pressures on staff and stretch them thin.

So we're very appreciative of those things.

Within the organization in terms of kind of culture and climate, there are many pieces that we're working on.

Most recently we just had a rodeo, which was really substantial out at Niman, where we were able to see staff show off some of their greatest skills, whether it's tree climbing or other aspects of using equipment and we are looking forward to that being an annual event.

But that's I think an ongoing uh project, an ongoing bit of work for us is to work on culture, especially after the strike that we experienced last year.

Thank you.

Um do you have an update on the youth positions that the park board cut?

And is is there is it being restored?

Is it being proposed?

It was youth programs, youth uh positions at the park board cut.

So I'd like to get a response to that.

Chair Tucktai and Member Chavez.

The youth program specialists were not cut.

The vacancies are held because of the youth investment gap where ARPA ended at the end of 2024.

We don't reach the full 2.6 million in property taxes until 2027.

So those three positions are still held in 2026, but they plan to be hired in 27 when we have the full property tax.

Thank you.

So the positions were not repurposed last year or anything or the year before that?

No.

Have they just been sitting vacant?

Yes.

Why have they been sitting vacant?

Because it was the board's decision to close the youth investment gap by holding those three positions vacant.

And what was done with so the funding is just sitting there not being used for anything then?

Yes, member.

Yeah.

Member Chavez.

Um there isn't money for those three positions yet because we get 260,000 annually until 2027 to reach the 2.6 million dollars.

So because ARPA ended in 2024, we no longer have the full funding for those positions.

In 2025, our gap was 520,000, and we closed that gap with holding those three positions vacant and eliminating a transfer to our capital project fund.

And then in 26, the gap is 260,000, and those three positions are being held until that 260,000 is received in property taxes next year, and then those positions will be higher.

Okay.

I'm gonna follow up over email and hopefully I I get to ask more questions the next time you're before this body to give more specifics.

Uh the other questions I have is I was watching the border and estimate and taxation meeting, and Mayor Fry made comments about raising fees and parking to balance your budget.

You slightly touch on it in this presentation.

Is there a plan that the park board has in regards to raising fees for parking?

The mayor did make valid points after you all requested the border estimate taxation to raise the property tax levy for residents in Minneapolis.

Um Chair Chucktai and Member Chavez.

I'll first start that um we have an enterprise fund, and again, that enterprise fund is separate from the general fund.

It is completely self-supporting.

So the hundred or so FTEs that work out of that fund are funded through the revenues that are generated.

All of the assets, including the parking, the paid parking lots and those type of things, are funded through the enterprise fund.

And so you will see in this chart that our parking operations generate $2.6 million annually, but that is in the enterprise fund, and it supports the activities in the enterprise fund.

So what we did this year is we identified Neiman Sports Complex.

That's a general fund operations, and there's the ability to put paid parking there.

And so that paid parking will benefit the general fund.

We also made the decision to increase the amount of event parking that we charge throughout our system when there are events, and transfer those dollars out of the enterprise fund into the general fund to support general fund operations.

So in our rate model and our schedule for parking, it's similar to the city where there's multiple levels of fees that can be charged and they can be automatically adjusted based on usage.

Thank you.

And the reason I'm asking is because on slide four, you discussed balancing your budget, and one of those ways is you mentioned parking.

So I'd like to get a more specific uh plan on what that is, and then a response to the mayor's question.

So we can if we can write that down for a follow-up, that would be great.

And then the other question that I had in my last one is there anything in your budget to support microentrepreneurs in our parks.

I think you all have been following the city's process where we pass an ordinance to expand them on locations where uh food renters could operate from.

We respected the park board's ask and keeping it 200 feet away from park and recreation because that was something that we intended to keep on there as a good faith effort to support MPRB, but I want to get an update.

Is there anything in your budget to support compliance or support micro entrepreneurs in our parks?

Member Chavez, uh Chair Chugtai, thank you for that question.

And I know this has been uh a big project.

Both the city and the park board have focused on this for quite a while in terms of how to work with vendors and how to bring that into both I think the city and into the parks.

My understanding, and I'm apologize, I'm not um fully aware of all the actions that the city has taken, but my understanding is that the city has progressed and has a way for vendors to become licensed at this point, which has been one of the key pieces for us in order to be able to then provide locations and uh and provide uh aspect.

We have had the mechanisms in place for individuals to be able to get permits.

They just needed the proper licensing, so we will just be in a in be able to enact that work at this point.

Thank you.

So we will follow up with all that then.

That is it.

Thank you.

Um next, I will recognize Councilmember Cashman, followed by Councilmember Rainville.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ms.

Weisman, for the presentation.

Uh, just a couple things that Ward Seven residents really care about in terms of um the park board.

I wanted to ask about ice ranks as well as tree planting.

So I heard you mention that you have restored funding for the ice rings at Weber Park and Powderhorn Park.

I assume that those are like in addition to the other ice rings in the city, but could you tell me the status of the Lake of the Isles ice rink in the 2026 budget?

Um Chair Chuck Tai and Councilmember Cashman.

Ice rink operations are fully funded within the recommended 2026 budget, and we've also had that conversation.

So they will open the season starts in 25 and carries over into 2026.

So the only two ice rinks that were closed uh in 2025 were Powderhorn Park and Weber, and so those will reopen and every other ice rink will be operating as it did in 2025, including Lake of the Isles with the warming bill.

Okay, that's great to hear.

It was very popular last year.

Of course, it's hard to predict the weather these days, so it's we're very uncertain about whether, you know, we can't promise that it will be a great ice rink year because we don't know.

Um, but I'm glad to see that you restored that really really popular um budget line.

And then on the what's the tree planting budget for MPRB for 2026.

Um Chair Chucktai and uh Councilmember Cashman.

I don't know that off the top of my head.

I would love to be able to respond to you.

Um I think it's in the two to three hundred thousand dollar range, or maybe more.

We can note that for follow-up.

Yeah, I'll I'll follow up.

Um the other thing for tree planting is we have been very successful lately with obtaining grants to um enhance our tree planting as well.

So um we'll provide you with uh complete update on that.

Okay.

The other question I had was how much revenue did the carbon offset program bring in.

Um Chair Chuck Tai and uh Councilmember Um Cashman.

In this recommended budget, we are transferring uh $96,000 out of the um out of the carbon offset program into the general fund for tree planting.

Uh that's a couple of years worth of revenue, so it's not uh generating um sorry, but it's generating about about that much over a couple of years period.

What was it expected?

Because I what my understanding was that it was expected to cover the tree planting budget?

But it sounds like it's you know it's um less than a third than what the tree planting budget is.

Chair Check Tai and uh Councilmember Cashman.

Uh it was never intended to fully fund the tree planting.

It was to enhance the tree planting uh to expand the number of trees that we can plant.

Uh would it be possible to follow up with a little more detail on what the $96,000, what period of time that covers, and then modeling what it's expected to bring in so that we can plan for tree planting budgets in the future and understand a little bit better where we'll need to supplement it from the city side and and what we can expect from carbon offsets.

Okay.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

And then my last question was what is in the 2026 budget for Fourth of July fireworks?

Because I know that's also been a question from constituents.

Okay.

Chair Chugtai, uh, Councilmember Cashman.

So our Fourth of July event usually is in about the 20 to 25,000 range.

And that is in part funded um funds the fireworks themselves and some of the other staffing.

And we're increasingly looking for that event to be an event that also covers its own costs through uh whether it is the vendors who were there and a percent of that vending or other types of activities that we can generate revenue on.

But in general, um the the length of obviously the fireworks show is a great determinant on how much it costs.

And we're usually at a couple of thousand per minute.

So that's usually how we think about that.

Okay.

That's that's good to know.

Um personally not a huge fireworks fan given the pollution aspects, the noise pollution, air pollution, all the other environmental impacts, but uh, you know, that's the decision for the park board to make on the length of time and and how much you fund that um Chair uh Chugtai and Councilmember Cashman.

We have you might remember we tried a laser show not too many years ago, and there's other ideas that we do consider um over time.

We have we have yet to find one that is as popular with the community as that, but we do continue to look for other options.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's all the questions I had, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

And then finally, I'll recognize Councilmember Wainville.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh I I want to start out with a compliment, and I do have one question.

So I just want to thank all the staff who participated in this budget.

I see that you're facing the reality of less revenue coming in and uh the burden that property taxes have have on our residents.

So thank you for that.

And in particular, uh the emphasis strategy B on public safety.

We all know that uh there's been some issues in the parks, and I want to call out in particular uh the commons park, how how you've really done a good job over there that was very problematic three, four summers ago, and now with the programming there and the great staff uh that that's really uh kind of a shining example of what can be done.

So thank you for that.

Uh, the question I have is um in one of your slides you talked about researching the visor modes of uh public access in order to set a baseline.

I'm just curious, could you expand on that a little bit?

It's a very mysterious statement.

Um Chair Chug Tye, Councilmember Rainville.

So this is this is something that I'm guessing the city might be using or at least contemplating using in different ways as well.

And this uh there are different programs that you can basically get subscriptions to, and it allows you to access cell phone data to get an understanding of how many individuals are coming to particular locations, and depending on kind of the level of detail within those individual users, you can also get a sense of are they arriving by foot?

Are they arriving by bus?

Are they coming by vehicle?

What are what are the modes by which they are attending?

We know we just saw a fantastic presentation from Meet Minneapolis, which helped us understand how Meet Minneapolis is using this data and gives us a great sense of how visited parks are as well.

So they're using a different product, but there are products that are coming into, I think Dana Atalytics from multiple agencies at this point.

Great.

Thank you very much.

That's it.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

And then I'll recognize Councilmember Vita.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to quickly say thank you all so much for the presentation and the commitment to North Commons Park.

It's looking really good over there.

I just check it out every now and then.

Um I appreciate the commitment you have to the community on this park.

I know you've experienced lots of cuts and setbacks trying to get this park up and built and ready for community, and just want you to know that you are greatly appreciated.

The community is excited about it.

People are talking about the future of North Commons Park and how we welcome others from around the state and visitors from all over to this space.

It's going to be a world-class park, and we are so happy to have it in North Minneapolis.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm not seeing any further um questions or discussion.

Is there anything you wanted to just share to wrap up?

I saw some.

Um Chair Chugtai, Councilmember Vita.

We do want to thank the city as well.

Clearly, you all have been great supporters on North Commons, so thank you.

We look forward to bringing that online.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Um with that, thank you so much for coming in this morning and and sharing your 2026 budget.

I wish you a lot of luck as you continue to work through your budget process um towards the end of the year.

Um I will ask the clerk to file that report, and we are ready to move to our next presentation.

All right.

Our next presentation is from the legislative department.

I will invite um city clerk Casey Carl and um and other leaders from the legislative department to come and begin this presentation.

Good morning, uh, Madam Chair and members of the budget committee.

I'm going to turn it immediately over to our director of administration, Destiny Zhang, who will be walking us through the legislative department uh budget proposal for 2026, recommended by the mayor.

This includes the city council and office of city clerk and its divisions.

Director Zhang, welcome.

Good morning, Chair Chuck Tai and members of the committee.

Um again, my name is Destiny Shong.

I have the pleasure of serving as the director of administration for the Office of City Clerk.

Um today I will be presenting on the 2026 mayor's recommended budget for the offices of city council and city clerk.

Following my presentation, Robert Timmerman, City Auditor will present on the Office of City Auditor.

First, let's start out with an overview of the legislative department.

In accordance to city charter, the legislative department is a separate department of the Minneapolis municipal government under the general oversight of the city council.

The department encompasses the city council and the offices of city clerk and city auditor.

And its purpose is to provide institutional support for the council's official legislative policy making and oversight functions.

This slide shows the current organizational structure of the legislative department.

For the Office of City Auditor, it highlights the three distinct units that make up the audit program along with FTE counts.

FTE counts reflect both the 10 FTEs included in the mayor's proposed budget and the restoration of the two FTEs that are excluded.

The city auditor will provide more detail on this later in his presentation.

On the Office of City Clerk side, the legislative support and operations team are displayed as separate divisions.

However, they will be referred to collectively as legislative support and operations division for the purpose of budget.

This chart represents the expense trend for the legislative department against the 2026 recommended budget.

Between 2025 and 2026, you'll see that salaries and wages have increased.

This is due to the FTE increase and reclassification of several positions within the Office of City Clerk.

Contractual services has increased as well to reflect the 2026 gubernatorial election funding.

With that overview of the legislative department, we'll now take a closer look at the city council at the Office of City Clerk.

I'm sorry, City Council.

The mission of City Council, together with the mayor enacts local laws to govern the community and public policies to direct and oversee the city government.

Oversees and evaluates the performance of the administration, has control of city property and finances, and represents the needs, priorities, and interests of the wards that constitute the city of Minneapolis.

The overall budget is decreasing slightly by $5,804, which is a 0.01% reduction.

Decrease is driven by decreasing fringe costs that are offsetting growth in salaries and internal service charges.

There are no changes to the council's budget FTEs for 2026 and remains at 41 FTEs.

The City Council had a great term.

As of October 6, 2025, as a council, you completed a total of 2,529 official acts.

This includes 769 resolutions, passed 89 ordinances, and acted on 1,671 items.

Great job.

The mayor's recommendation included an enterprise reduction for food and beverage.

This includes $2,000 in council's operating budget for food and beverage.

Next, we'll shift our focus to the Office of City Clerk.

The org chart shows the Office of City Clerk and FTE count by divisions.

The Office of City Clerk has a total of 70 FTEs.

As required by City Ordinance, the Office of City Clerk is responsible for managing the legislative processes and the day-to-day affairs of the City Council, serving as the official repository for all council journals, records, files, and legal instruments.

Our shared purpose is simple and powerful.

Together, we enable inform decision making for community governance.

And through our service, an accessible and accountable system of local government is achieved.

On this chart, you'll see the budget by program over the last three years.

For 2026, the overall budget is increasing by 4.6 million, representing a 35% increase.

This includes the increase in one-time funding for election and voter services, as well as the increase due to the transfer of the legislative research and oversight division from the Office of City Auditor.

This confirms council's transfer of 10 FTEs from the Office of City Auditor to establish the legislative research and oversight division, along with including five FTEs added administratively.

We currently have four vacancies, two of which are developing the JAQs for.

The Election and Voter Services Division plays a vital role in Minneapolis by managing all local elections with fairness, security, and efficiency.

This division